1912 in aviation

Events

First all-metal aircraft flies, the Tubavion monoplane built by Ponche and Maurice Primard in France.

The first Bulgarian Air Force is formed, using Blériot, Albatros, Farman, Nieuport, Voisin, Somer, Skiorski and Bristol aircraft (23 in total) to fight in the Balkan War.

January
January 10 - Lieutenant commander Charles Samson flies a Short S.38 from the deck of battleship HMS Africa moored in the River Medway, England, becoming the first British naval aviator.

February
February 22 - Jules Vedrines becomes the first pilot to exceed 100 miles per hour (161 km/h). He makes his flight in a Deperdussin monoplane near Pau, France.
Anthony Fokker establishes Fokker Aeroplanbau in Germany, predecessor to Fokker Aircraft Company.

March
March 1 - Albert Berry makes the first parachute jump out of an aeroplane in St. Louis, Missouri.

April
April 16 - Harriet Quimby becomes the first woman to fly the English Channel.

April 22 - Englishman Denys Corbett Wilson makes the first aeroplane crossing from Britain to Ireland.

May
May 9 - Lieutenant Commander Charles Samson becomes the first person to fly an aircraft off the deck of a moving ship. He takes off in a Short S.38 from the deck of HMS Hibernia in Weymouth Bay.

May 13 - King George V of the United Kingdom approves the formation of the Royal Flying Corps.

May 30 - Wilbur Wright co-inventor of the flying machine passes away in Dayton Ohio.

June
Sopwith Aviation Company founded

June 1 - The first aeroplane flight in Norway is made by Lt Hans Dons in a Etrich Taube.

June 2 - The Lewis machine gun is first tested in an aircraft by the US Army. The results are extremely encouraging, and this weapon would go on to become the standard armament of many fighter aircraft during World War I.

June 19 - The RFC's Central Flying School opened at Upavon, Wiltshire.

June 27 - Following successes using aircraft against the Turks in North Africa, Italy forms a specialised Air Battalion (Battagliore Aviatori).

July
July 1 - Harriet Quimby, the first licensed female pilot in the United States, as part of an Air Show spectacular flew around the Boston Light. During the flight, her Berliot plane was caught in turbulent air and nose-dived, plummeting both Quimby and a meet organizer passenger to their deaths in Dorchester Bay.

July 2 - The Danish Air Force is established as an army air corps.

September
September 8 - The Argentine Air Force is formed as a flying school at El Palomar, the military airport near Buenos Aires.

October
October 16 - First Air-dropped bomb was designed during the Balkan War and used by the Bulgarian air force pilots Radul Milkov and Prodan Toprakchiev at the Turkish railway station of Karaagac (near Edirne). This was the first use of airplane (Albatros F.II) as bomber.

October 22 - Australian Flying Corps formed.

November
November 12 - A Curtiss Triad becomes the first aircraft to be launched by catapult, at the US Navy's Washington Navy Yard.

November 19 - Italy's colonial air force is established as the Servizio d'Aviazione Coloniale.

November 28 - The Italian Air Battalion is made a fully operational command, the (Flotta Aerea d'Italia).

First flights

January 10 - Short S.36

February
Royal Aircraft Factory BE.2 flown by designer Geoffrey de Havilland.

March
March 1 - AEA Cygnet

March 3 - Avro Type E