This is a list of aviation-related events from 1947:
Events
The United States' inventory of atomic bombs reaches a total of 13 weapons during the year.[1]
January
January 7 – Pioneering aviator Helen Richey is found dead at the age of 37 in her New York City apartment, apparently having committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills.[2]
January 11 – The BOACDouglas C-47AG-AGJXcrashes into a hill at Stowting in southeast England, killing eight of the 16 people on board and injuring all eight survivors. Among the injured is Member of Parliament Tom Horabin.
January 14
The United States replaces the national insignia for its military aircraft adopted in September 1943 with a new marking consisting of a white star centered in a blue circle flanked by white rectangles bisected by a horizontal red stripe, with the entire insignia outlined in blue , which is still in use in the 21st century.[4]
February 25 – The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend that the United States use atomic bombs early in any war with the Soviet Union and call for an increase in the American inventory of atomic weapons.[3]
February 28 – In a single flight, U.S. Army Air Forces CaptainRobert E. Thacker (pilot) and Lieutenant John M. Ard (co-pilot) in the North American P-82B Twin MustangfighterBetty Jo make both the longest nonstop flight without aerial refueling by a fighter aircraft, about 4,968 statute miles (7,994 km) from Hickam Field in the Territory of Hawaii to La Guardia Field in New York City, and the fastest flight between Hawaii and New York City up to that time, 14 hours 31 minutes 50 seconds at an average speed of 342 mph (550 km/h). It remains both the longest non-stop flight by a piston-engined fighter[7] and the fastest Hawaii-to-New York City flight by a piston-engined aircraft[8] in history.
March
March 3 – In Naval Strategic Planning Study 3, the Strategic Plans Division of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations asserts that U.S. Navy aircraft carriers will be able to operate successfully against the coast of the Soviet Union in the face of substantial land-based Soviet air power, stating that the carriers are "the only weapon in the possession of the U.S. which can deliver early and effective attacks against Russian air power and selective shore objectives in the initial stages of a Russo-American conflict." The findings anger U.S. Air Force planners, who view strategic attacks against the Soviet Union as a strictly Air Force mission.[9]
May 15 – The U.S. Joint War Planning Committee reports that the Soviet Air Force has 13,100 combat aircraft and that the Soviet satellite states have another 3,309, and that a month after the beginning of mobilization this could increase to 20,000 Soviet and 3,359 satellite state aircraft. It estimates that in an offensive in central Europe, the Soviet Union would employ 7,000 attack aircraft[13]
The Douglas DC-4Mainliner Lake Tahoe, operating as United Airlines Flight 521, fails to become airborne while attempting to take off from LaGuardia Airport in New York City, runs off the end of the runway, and slams into an embankment, killing 42 of the 48 people on board. It is the worst aviation disaster in American history at the time, although the death toll will be exceeded in a crash the following day.
May 30 – During a flight from Newark, New Jersey, to Florida, an Eastern Air Lines DC-4 disintegrates in flight at an altitude of 6,000 feet (1,800 m) and crashes into a swamp near Baltimore, Maryland, killing all 53 people on board. It replaces the previous day's United Airlines crash as the deadliest airline accident in American history. Among the dead are two relatives of a man who had died the previous day in the United crash. The 97 deaths in the two crashes exceed the entire commercial aviation death toll in the United States for 1946.[19]
June 17 – Pan American World Airways inaugurates what are considered the world's first scheduled commercial round-the-world flights, although the service actually operates between New York City and San Francisco without crossing the continental United States. Flight One, operated by a Douglas DC-4, departs San Francisco and stops at Honolulu, Hawaii; Midway Atoll; Wake Island; Guam; Manila, the Philippines; Bangkok; and Calcutta, where it meets Flight Two, a Lockheed Constellation that had flown from LaGuardia Airport in New York City. In Calcutta, the two aircraft swap flight designations; the DC-4 then turns back and continues as Flight Two to San Francisco, while the Constellation turns back and continues as Flight One, stopping at Karachi; Istanbul; London; Shannon, Ireland; and Gander, Newfoundland before arriving at LaGuardia Airport.[citation needed]
June 19
Pan American Airways Flight 121, the Lockheed L-049 ConstellationClipper Eclipse (registration NC88845) carrying 36 people on a flight from Karachi Airport in Karachi, British India, to Istanbul-Yesilköy Airport in Istanbul, Turkey, feathers its number one propeller due to engine problems, then suffers overheating in its other three engines. As it descends, the number two engine nacelle catches fire and the engine detaches from the airliner, which makes a belly landing near Mayadin, Syria. Fourteen of the people on board die; it is the worst aviation accident in Syrian history at the time.[20] Future Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry is among the survivors.[citation needed]
June 22 – At the Wilson-King Sky Show in St. George, Utah, a light plane involved in the air show experiences brake failure on landing and crashes into cars parked at the edge of the airfield, killing a teenaged girl. The pilot and the dead girl's mother and infant sister are injured.[22]
June 30 – The Evaluation Board for Operation Crossroads submits its final report on the July 1946 atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll. It finds that an atomic attack could go beyond stopping a country's military effort and in addition wreck its economic and social structure for lengthy periods, and could even depopulate large portions of the earth's surface, threaten the existence of civilization, and cause the extinction of mankind. It recommends that the United States develop a large inventory of atomic weapons and the means to deliver them promptly and be prepared to strike first, with legal authority to launch a massive atomic strike to preempt a foreign strike if there are indications that an adversary is preparing one.[3]
United States Army Air ForcesC-54G Skymaster45-519 crashes in the Atlantic Ocean 294 miles (473 km) off Florida after loss of control caused by turbulence from a storm, killing the 6 crew.[23]
July 13 – A Burke Air TransportDouglas DC-3C (registration NC79024) operating a non-scheduled passenger flight from Daniel Field in Augusta, Georgia, to Miami International Airport in Miami, Florida, begins a gradual descent after suffering engine trouble, culminating in a crash-landing among trees and stumps outside of Melbourne, Florida. Fourteen of the 36 people on board die.[24]
July 15 – Northwest Airlines launches the first commercial passenger service from the U.S. to Asia's Far East along the North Pacific route with Douglas DC-4 The Manila, linking Minneapolis/St. Paul (USA) and Tokyo (Japan), Shanghai (China) and Manila (Philippines) by way of Edmonton (Canada) (technical stop), Anchorage (Alaska USA) and Shemya (USA) (technical stop). The Northwest Seattle—Anchorage service offered a connection (at Anchorage) with this new operation to the Orient. Seoul (South Korea) was included as a stop on the Northwest Airlines route to the Orient in August 1947.
July 26 – President of the United States Harry S. Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947, creating the United States Department of Defense. Among its many provisions is one which states that the soon-to-be established United States Air Force "shall include aviation forces both combat and service not otherwise assigned." This wording allows the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps to retain their aviation forces upon the establishment of the independent Air Force in September 1947.[26]
Bad weather forces a U.S. Marine Corps pilot down in communist-controlled territory near Qingdao, China, during the Chinese Civil War. A landing party of U.S. Marines and U.S. Navy sailors destroys his plane to prevent its capture but fails to retrieve him, and the Chinese Communists return him to U.S. custody only after lengthy negotiations.[29]
August 4 – In an assessment of the defense of the Iberian Peninsula from Soviet invasion if Soviet forces reached the Pyrenees, the U.S. Joint Warfare Planning Committee reports that the Spanish Air Force has only 330 combat aircraft, all obsolete, and that the Portuguese Air Force is small and also obsolete, and that they would face about 1,000 Soviet aircraft. It finds that a defense of the peninsula at the Pyrenees would require the deployment of 739 ground-based combat aircraft and nine aircraft carriers to the area.[30]
August 29 – The U.S. Joint Warfare Planning Committee reports that in East Asia as of July 1 the Soviet Union has about 2,200 aircraft, increasing to 3,000 by 135 days after the start of war, opposed by 978 aircraft of the U.S. Army Air Forces in East Asia and the Territory of Alaska, 212 British and British Empire aircraft in the theater of war, and 480 operational Republic of China Air Force aircraft.[37]
September
September 6 – In an early test of the feasibility of fielding naval strategic missiles, the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Midway (CV-41) launches a V-2 rocket off her flight deck while steaming in the Atlantic Ocean off Bermuda.[38]
September 23 – The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff recommend that the United States Government pass legislation authorizing the United States Armed Forces to launch an atomic attack on the Soviet Union if one is required to prevent a Soviet atomic attack on the United States.[41]
September 30 – The U.S. Joint Warfare Planning Committee reports that the Soviet Union lacks a strategic air force and poses no threat to the United States or Canada. It finds that the Soviets have about 100 heavy bombers that could reach Greenland and the Azores if Soviet ground forces captured forward bases for them in Norway and Spain, and about 100 medium bombers capable of striking Bear Island, Spitsbergen, Jan Mayen, Iceland, and the Faeroe Islands.[42]
The U.S. Joint Intelligence Committee predicts that the Soviet Union probably will have atomic bombs by 1951 or 1952, and that the major target for such weapons would be American atomic bomb plants and major American cities.[3]
October 8 – A modified de Havilland Mosquito launches an expendable, unmanned, rocket-powered 30-percent-scale model of the cancelled British Miles M.52 supersonic research aircraft at high altitude, planning for it to reach Mach 1.3 70 seconds after launch, but the model explodes just after launch. A second flight will take place in October 1948 and will be successful.
October 14 – U.S. Air Force CaptainChuck Yeager takes the rocket-powered Bell X-1 past the speed of sound in the first controlled, supersonic, level flight. The flight, which achieves Mach 1.06, sets a new world air speed record of 807.2 mph (1,299.1 km/h). A few days later, the same aircraft sets a new world altitude record, reaching 21,372 meters (70,118 feet).[43]
October 24 – United Airlines Flight 608, a DC-6 (NC37510) en route to Chicago from Los Angeles, catches fire and crashes while attempting an emergency landing at the Bryce Canyon, Utah, airport, killing all 52 people aboard. American professional football player Jeff Burkett is among the dead.[5] It is the first crash of a DC-6 and the second-deadliest air crash in U.S. history at the time.
October 26 – November 7 – Rhulin A. Thomas makes the first solo coast-to-coast flight by a deaf pilot. (Calbraith Perry Rodgers was an earlier deaf pilot who flew coast-to-coast in 1911, but was supported by a team on the ground.)
November 2 – With Howard Hughes at the controls, the Hughes H-4 Hercules, also known as the "Spruce Goose," makes its first flight, traveling at 135 mph (217 km/h) for about a mile (1.6 km) at an altitude of 70 feet (21 meters) over Long Beach Harbor in California with 32 people on board. Both the largest flying boat and the aircraft with the largest wingspan (319 feet 11 inches; 97.51 meters) ever built, it never flies again.
The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff note that the U.S. Air Force has 33 strategic bombers capable of dropping atomic bombs, and that this will rise to 120 bombers in November 1948. They also note that the number of atomic bomb assembly teams will rise to three by June 1948 and seven by July 1949; each bomb requires two days to assemble. They call for the production of 400 atomic bombs by January 1, 1953.[46]
December 17 – In the first Israeli combat action using an aircraft in the 1947–1949 Palestine war, pilot Pinchas Ben-Porat and a gunner from Beit Eshel remove the doors from an RWD 13 for an improvised machine gun and hand grenade attack on a Bedouin ground force assaulting Nevatim, successfully driving the raiders away.[47]
December 27 – An Air IndiaDouglas C-48C-DOcrashes into Korangi Creek shortly after takeoff from Karachi, Pakistan, killing all 23 people on board. It is the first fatal airline accident in Pakistan's history as an independent country.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945–1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, p. 12.
^Lynch, Adam, "Hometown Heroine," Aviation History, March 2012, p. 58.
^ abcdefRoss, Steven T., American War Plans 1945–1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, p. 54.
^Angelucci, Enzo, with Peter Bowers, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1985, ISBN978-0-517-56588-9, pp. 21.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 340.
^Isenberg, Michael T., Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, Volume I: 1945–1962, New York: St. Martin's Press, ISBN0-312-09911-8, p. 131.
^Sturtivant, Ray, British Naval Aviation: The Fleet Air Arm, 1917–1990, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1990, ISBN0-87021-026-2, p. 182.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945–1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, pp. 36–37, 40.
^Bedwell, Don, "Beating the Odds," Aviation History, March 2016, p. 46.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 274.
^Isenberg, Michael T., Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, Volume I: 1945–1962, New York: St. Martin's Press, ISBN0-312-09911-8, p. 111.
^Marolda, Edward J., "Asian Warm-Up to the Cold War", Naval History, October 2011, pp. 29–30.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945–1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, pp. 41–42.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945–1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, p. 44.
^Isenberg, Michael T., Shield of the Republic: The United States Navy in an Era of Cold War and Violent Peace, Volume I: 1945–1962, New York: St. Martin's Press, ISBN0-312-09911-8, p. 657.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945–1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, p. 18.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945–1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, ISBN0-7146-4192-8, p. 46.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 115.
^Ross, Steven T., American War Plans 1945–1950: Strategies For Defeating the Soviet Union, Portland, Oregon: Frank Cass, 1996, 0-7146-4192-8, p. 106.
^Cohen, Eliezer (1993). Israel's best defense: the first full story of the Israeli Air Force. Translated by Gordis, Jonathan. New York City: Orion Books. pp. 8–9. ISBN0-517-587904.
^ abDonald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN0-7607-0592-5, p. 121.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 298.
^Swanborough, Gordon, and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, London: Putnam, 1976, ISBN978-0-370-10054-8, p. 467.
^Donald, David, ed., The Complete Encyclopedia of World Aircraft, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, ISBN978-0-7607-0592-6, p. 272.
^Dorr, Robert F., "Mystery Ship Answer," Aviation History, January 2015, p. 10.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, ISBN978-0-517-56588-9, p. 342.
^Polmar, Norman, "Historic Aircraft: The God of the Sea's Namesake", Naval History, October 2011, p. 16.
^Dorr, Robert F., "Mystery Ship Answer," Aviation History, July 2012, p. 12.
^Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, p. 413.
"Aircraft Production List: 6: The Piper Vagabond: Part One". Archive. No. 4. Air-Britain. 1993. pp. 101–102. ISSN0262-4923.
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Bridgman, Leonard. Jane's All The World's Aircraft 1951–52. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, Ltd, 1951.
de Narbonne, Roland (June 2007). "June 1947, dans l'aéronautique française: L'aviation légère et sportive à l'honneur". Le Fana de l'Aviation (in French). No. 451. pp. 75–79.
de Narbonne, Roland (July 2008). "Juillet 1948, dans l'aéronautique française: Trop vite, trop tôt, le NC 211 "Cormoran"". Le Fana de l'Aviation (in French). No. 464. pp. 76–79.
Plocek, Pierre (February 2001). "Le Hodek Hk-101, Chasseur de Sport". Le Fana de l'Aviation (in French). No. 375. pp. 60–65.
