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

1934–35
March 10: The Army Air Corps temporarily suspended domestic airmail
deliveries because of nine crash fatalities. Lack of instruments in Army
aircraft for night and bad-weather flying contributed to the accidents.
After some reorganization, equipment overhauls, and reduction of
routes and flights, Air Corps airmail flights resumed on March 19.
June 1: Commercial airlines resumed airmail service under new government
contracts, relieving the Army Air Corps of that responsibility.
June 28: The Army and the Boeing Aircraft Company signed a contract for
the design of a B–15, the first four-engine monoplane bomber and
ancestor of the B–17 Flying Fortress.
July 18: A War Department board headed by Newton D. Baker, former secretary
of war, issued a report recommending formation of a centrally
controlled aerial strike force. The Drum Board had come to the same
conclusion in its recommendation in 1933 for a General Headquarters
Air Force.
August 20: Lt. Col. Henry H. Arnold and 10 Martin B–10 bomber crews
completed a month-long air trip of more than 7,000 miles from
Bolling Field, Washington, D.C., to Fairbanks, Alaska, and back.
1935
January 12: Amelia Earhart, flying a Lockheed Vega, completed the first solo
flight from Hawaii to California.
February 12: The airship USS Macon crashed in the Pacific Ocean off the
coast of California. Two persons died.
March 1: The War Department activated the General Headquarters Air
Force under Brig. Gen. Frank M. Andrews at Langley Field, Virginia,
to manage tactical air units in the United States, with the exception of
observation squadrons allotted to ground forces. This action largely
fulfilled the recommendations of the Drum and Baker Boards of 1933
and 1934.
March 14: Chancellor Adolf Hitler of Germany publicly celebrated the naming
of a German fighter squadron after Manfred von Richthofen,
revealing the existence of a German air force—the Luftwaffe. Such a
force had been prohibited by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles.
March 28: Dr. Robert H. Goddard launched the first rocket equipped with
gyroscopic controls. It reached a height of 4,800 feet and a speed of
550 miles per hour.
32