One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University

1924
The NBL–1 Barling bomber could fly neither fast enough nor high enough to be
practical.
1924
March 4: After six hours of bombing, Air Service crews in two Martin
bombers and two DH–4s broke an ice jam in the Platte River at North
Bend, Nebraska.
July 1: The U.S. Post Office began the first regular transcontinental airmail
service with a route between New York and San Francisco, including
stops at Chicago, Omaha, and Salt Lake City.
September 28: Flying two Douglas World Cruisers—the Chicago and the New
Orleans—Lt. Lowell H. Smith, Lt. Leslie P. Arnold, Lt. Erik H. Nelson,
and Lt. John Harding of the Air Service completed the first flight
around the world, which they had begun on 6 April. Two other Douglas
World Cruisers—the Seattle and the Boston—crashed on the way,
but the pilot and mechanic of the Boston, Lt. Leigh Wade and SSgt.
Henry H. Ogden, respectively, completed the flight in a replacement
aircraft, the Boston II.
October 15: The German zeppelin ZR–3 completed a flight from
Friedrichshafen, Germany, to Lakehurst, New Jersey. Renamed the Los
Angeles, it was the first dirigible sent from Germany to the Navy under
a reparations agreement.
October 28: In a fog-dispersing experiment, Air Service airplanes dropped
electrically charged sand on cloud formations 13,000 feet over Bolling
Field, Washington, D.C. The clouds diminished.
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