1929 in aviation

Events
Greatest number of fatal civil aircraft crashes in US history.

Cubana de Aviacion begins service.

Airway Beacon Tower

Pan Am begins service.

The Canadian Siskins aerobatic team is formed.

First official airmail to the Mackenzie District of Canada's western Arctic by bushpilot.

Airway Beacon is built in St. Paul, Minnesota. It still exists in Indian Mounds Park.

Aircraft Development Corporation changes its name to the Detroit Aircraft Corporation.

January
January 1 - Polish airline LOT formed.

January 1 - 7 – Carl Spaatz and four other Air Corps fliers set an endurance record of 151 hours aloft in the Question Mark

January 27 - USS Saratoga carries out a successful simulated dawn raid on the Panama Canal in a training exercise.

March
March 30 - Imperial Airways commences the first scheduled air service between England and India.

April
April 24-26 - Sqn Ldr A. G. Jones-Wiliams and Flt Lt N. H. Jenkins make the first non-stop flight from England to India using a Fairey Long-Range Monoplane

July
July 3 - Lt A. W. Gordon hooks a Vought VO-1 onto US Navy airship USS Los Angeles in successful parasite fighter experiments.

July 4 - the Japanese aviator Masashi Goto crashes and is killed in Utah's Uinta Mountains in the beginning stages of an attempted flight around the world by crossing the continents of North America, Europe and Asia.

July 7 - Transcontinental Air Transport commences a regular service transporting passengers right across the United States in 48 hours, using a combination of trains and aircraft for different legs of the journey.

July 13 - the Polish aviator Ludwik Idzikowski crashes in the Azores and dies in an attempt of a westbound transatlantic flight.

July 17 - Delta Air Lines started commercial airline operations.

July 22 - Lufthansa uses a catapult to launch a Heinkel HE 12 mail plane from the passenger liner Bremen, 400 km (249 miles) out of New York, speeding the mail on its way before the ship reached port.

August
August 4 - 16 - the first International Tourist Aircraft Contest Challenge 1929 in Paris, with 5,942 km race over Europe, won by the German crew of Fritz Morzik on the BFW M.23 plane.

August 8-29 airship Graf Zeppelin makes a round-the-world flight, from and to Lakehurst, New Jersey.

September
September 6 - Schneider Trophy race flown at Calshot Spit, UK. Won by Flt. Off. Henry Waghorn in a Supermarine S.6 at 528.9 km/h (328.7 mph).

September 24 - Lt Jimmy Doolittle makes a completely blind take-off, flight, and landing.

September 29 - Dieudonne Costes and Maurice Bellonte arrive in Manchuria in a Breguet 19, having set a new distance record of 7,905 km (4,912 miles) from Le Bourget, France.

October
October 20 - The airfield at the Naval Air Station Glenview, located in Glenview, IL, was dedicated, and its hangar was deemed the largest in the world.

November
November 11-Hawaiian Airlines, founded as Inter-Island Airways, commenced operations.

November 27-28 - Richard Evelyn Byrd and crew make the first flight over the South Pole in a Ford Trimotor.

First flights

January
Gloster Gauntlet

February
February 1 - Lublin R-X

June
June 11 - Vickers Type 143

July
RWD-2
July 29 - Dornier Do X

August
PZL P.1

September
September 9 - De Havilland Puss Moth
September 11 - Tupolev R-6
September 17 - Adcox Student Prince

October
October 2 - Acme Sportsman

November
November 6 - Junkers G.38
November 26 - Vickers Type 177

December
December 28 - Mitsubishi B2M