1913 in aviation

Events

The Serbian air force is established as an army air service. Six officers receive pilot training in France.

First air strike ever. Mexican pilot Gustavo Salinas Camilla and Frenchman Didier Masson, attacked land and naval federal forces for rebels led by Pancho Villa.

January
January 13 - Brazilian naval aviation commences with the foundation of a flying school.

February
February 8 - Russian pilot N. de Sackoff becomes the first pilot shot down in combat when his biplane is hit by ground fire following bomb run on the walls of Fort Bezhani during the First Balkan War. Flying for the Greeks, he comes down near small town of Preveza, on the coast N of the Aegean island of Levkas, secures local Greek assistance, repairs plane and resumes flight back to base.

February 11 - the Chilean Air Force is established at Lo Espejo (today El Bosque).

March
China obtains twelve military aircraft from France.
March 15 - The US Army forms the 1st Aero Squadron under Capt Charles Chandler at Texas City to scout for Mexican incursions along the border.

April
April 16 - First contest for the Schneider Trophy. Maurice Prévost wins in a Deperdussin monoplane, completing the 28 circuits of the 10 km (6.2 mile) course with an average speed of 73.63 km/h (45.75 mph)

April 24 - O. Gilbert flies 825 km from Villacoublay to Vitoria (8 hours and 23 minutes).

April 27 - Robert G. Fowler makes first flight across the Isthmus of Panama. Technically this is the first flight from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

July
July 1 - Royal Netherlands Army forms its Aviation Division (Luchtvaart Afdeling)

August
August 7 - Aviation pioneer Samuel Cody is killed in a crash

August 20 - 700 feet above Buc, France, parachutist Adolphe Pegond becomes the first person to jump from an airplane and land safely in Europe. Albert Berry made the first documented parachute jump from a moving airplane on March 1, 1912, at Jefferson Barracks, Missouri.

September
September 1 - Frenchman Adolphe Pégoud makes the first inverted flight.

September 9 - Prevost reaches 204 km/h (127mph) in a Deperdussin racing aeroplane.

September 13 - Aurel Vlaicu, Romanian engineer and inventor, dies near Câmpina, Romania, while attempting to fly across the Carpathian Mountains in his Vlaicu II airplane

September 23 - Roland Garros makes the first flight across the Mediterranean Sea, 729 km (453 miles) from Saint-Raphaël to Bizerte in 7 hours 53 minutes.

December
December 13-14 - German balloonist Hugo Kaulen stays aloft for 87 hours. This record lasted until 1935.

First flights

May
May 13 - Sikorsky Ruskii Vitiaz, the world's first four-engined aircraft. It was also the first aeroplane with a lavatory.

August
12 August - Bristol TB.8

September
September 18 - Avro 504

November
Sopwith Tabloid

December
December 11 - Sikorsky Ilya Muromets