This is a list of aviation-related events from 1931:
Events Bert Hinkler flies a de Havilland Puss Moth from Canada to New York City, then non-stop to Jamaica, then on to British Guiana and Brazil. He then flies across the South Atlantic Ocean to West Africa in extremely bad weather, becoming the first person to fly across the South Atlantic solo and only the second person after Charles Lindbergh in 1927 to fly solo across the Atlantic. He completes his journey by flying from West Africa to London.Australian Dictionary of Biography: Bert Hinkler For the flight, he receives the Segrave Trophy, the Johnston Memorial Prize, and the Britannia Trophy for the most meritorious flying performance of the year. Manufacturer Airspeed Ltd founded in York, England. Alexander Seversky founds the Seversky Aircraft Corporation.Angelucci, Enzo, The American Fighter: The Definitive Guide to American Fighter Aircraft From 1917 to the Present, New York: Orion Books, 1987, , p. 382. Watanabe Iron Works, the ancestor of the Kyūshū Airplane Company Ltd., begins to manufacture aircraft.Francillon, René J., Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1979, , p. 22. Franco-British Aviation (FBA) ceases aircraft design and development, the victim of a lack of civilian orders for its aircraft since the end of The company had been founded in 1913.Gunston, Bill. World Encyclopedia of Aircraft Manufacturers: From the Pioneers to the Present Day. Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton Pub. (2nd ed.), 2005, . The first Bendix trophy race takes place. The Imperial Japanese Navy decides to abolish its airship units and phase airships out of the fleet over the next few years.Peattie, Mark R., Sunburst: The Rise of Japanese Naval Air Power 1909-1941, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2001, , p. 16. In New York City, the Empire State Building is completed, topped with a 200-foot (61-meter) mooring mast for airships. Plans to disembark airship passengers prove impractical, and the mast is never used except for a single three-minute contact by the United States Navy blimp J-4.Polmar, Norman, "Ships That Were Lighter Than Air," Naval History, June 2011, p. 19. Spring 1931 – At the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory at Langley Field in Hampton, Virginia, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) begins the operation of the Full-Scale Tunnel, a wind tunnel large enough to give researchers the ability to test the performance of actual aircraft. Summer 1931 – Transcontinental and Western Air moves its headquarters from New York City to Kansas City, Missouri.TWA History Timeline
January The United States Army and United States Navy agree that the responsibility for air defense of the coasts of the United States and its overseas territories shall lie with the United States Army Air Corps. In the Soviet Union, construction of Leningrad's Shosseynaya Airport (the future Pulkovo Airport) begins. Australian National Airways (ANA), the first airline of that name, expands its route system, beginning service to Launceston and Hobart in Tasmania. January 6 – Italian General Italo Balbo leads the first formation flight across the South Atlantic. Twelve Savoia-Marchetti S.55s fly from Portuguese Guinea to Brazil. January 7 – Guy Menzies flies the first solo non-stop trans-Tasman flight (from Australia to New Zealand) in 11 hours and 45 minutes, crash-landing his Avro Sports Avian on New Zealand's west coast. January 8 – Piarco Airport, the future Piarco International Airport, opens in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad. January 9 – The Pratt-MacArthur agreement defines the United States Navys naval air force as an element of the fleet that moves with the fleet and helps it carry out its missions. The agreement settles a lengthy controversy between the United States Army and the Navy over the role of naval aviation in overall national defense, as well as internal Navy debates over the role of naval air power.Swanborough, Gordon, and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, Second Edition, London: Putnam, 1976, , p. 2. January 28 – German explorer Gunther Plüschow and his engineer Ernst Dreblow are killed when their Heinkel HD 24 seaplane crashes near the Brazo Rico (part of Argentino Lake) in Patagonia.
February Flying from Oran in French Algeria, the French aviators Antoine Paillard and Louis Mailloux fly a circuit for over 50 hours in the Bernard 80 GR in an attempt to set a new unrefueled nonstop closed-circuit world distance record. They cover before higher-than-expected fuel consumption forces them to land only short of the record. February 1 – Polish pilot Stanisław Skarżyński begins a tour around Africa in a PZL Ł.2. He will complete it on May 5. February 12 The Detroit News places an order for a Pitcairn PCA-2 autogyro with the Pitcairn Aircraft Company. It is the first commercial order for an autogyro in the United States.Century of Flight: History of the Helicopter: Contributions of the Autogyro A new regulation goes into effect in the United States requiring airlines with interstate flights to have a copilot on any aircraft flying a schedule of five or more hours with eight or more passengers aboard. The United States Department of Commerce places a radio range beacon in continuous operation at Medicine Bow, Wyoming, completing the directional radio marking of the entire route from New York City to San Francisco, California. February 14 – The United States Congress authorizes a new award, the Air Mail Medal of Honor, which the President of the United States is to award to pilots who perform distinguished service in connection with U.S. Air Mail service.Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Medal, Air Mail Medal of Honor It will first be awarded in December 1933.Johnson, Frederick L., "Modest Mal," Aviation History, March 2012, p. 19. February 20 – The United States Senate ratifies the Havana Convention, in which 21 Western Hemisphere countries guarantee the right of innocent passage of aircraft without discrimination. The Convention also formulates the rules for international air navigation between the signatory countries relating to the marking of aircraft, landing facilities, prohibited transport, competency of airmen, and the right of each country to prescribe the route to be flown over its territory. February 21 – After a Pan American-Grace Airways (Panagra) Ford Trimotor lands at Rodríguez Ballón Airport at Arequipa, Peru, armed revolutionary soldiers surround it. They demand that it fly them to another destination, but the Trimotor's pilot refuses. The standoff continues for 10 days until, on 2 March, the soldiers suddenly announce that their side won the revolution and let the pilot go in exchange for him giving one of them a ride to Lima.Aviation Safety Network Hijacking Description February 26 – Imperial Airways begins scheduled services between England and Africa using Armstrong Whitworth Argosys. February 6-March 1 – Flying the Blériot 110 over a closed circuit in French Algeria, the French aviator Maurice Rossi sets an unrefueled distance record of . The plane remains in the air for over 75 hours 23 minutes.Historic Wings: Flight Stories, "New York to Syria Non-Stop," 5 August 2012.
March The French aviator Marcel Goulette flies a Farman F.304 trimotor from Paris, France, to Tananarive, Madagascar, and back. March 9 – Flying a Farman F.302, French aviators Jean Réginensi and Marcel Lalouette set new distance and duration records over a closed circuit with a 2,000-kilogram (4,409-pound) payload, flying in 17 hours. March 21 Australia suffers its first airline disaster when the Australian National Airways Avro 618 Ten Southern Cloud disappears in bad weather over the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales, Australia, with the loss of all eight people on board. The aircrafts wreckage will not be discovered until October 26, 1958. Zygmunt Puławski, one of Poland's leading aircraft designers, dies during the sixth flight of the PZL.12 flying boat prototype – which he designed and built – when the PZL.12 stalls after take-off due to a strong wind and crashes in Warsaw, Poland. March 23–24 (overnight) – The French aviators Joseph Le Brix and Marcel Doret take off from Istres, France, in the prototype Dewoitine D.33 and fly a triangular course from Istres to Montpellier to Nîmes. Although fog forces them to shorten their course during the night of 23–24 March, they remain aloft continuously for 32 hours 17 minutes over a distance of at an average speed of . The flight sets seven new world records, for both duration and distance by an aircraft carrying a load of , both duration and distance by an aircraft carrying a load of , both duration and distance by an aircraft carrying a load of , and average speed by an aircraft over a distance of . March 26 – Ad Astra Aero and Balair merge to form Swissair. March 30–April 2 – Flying the Benard 80 GR, French aviators Jean Marmoz and Antoine Paillard set a new closed-circuit unrefueled flight distance record, covering in a time of 52 hours 44 minutes. A loss of coolant finally brings the flight to an end, although during the last part of the flight the two men pump champagne, eau de Vittel, and coffee into the radiator to keep the engine cool. March 31 – A Transcontinental & Western Air Fokker F-10A crashes near Bazaar, Kansas, killing all eight on board, including American football coach Knute Rockne.
April April 8 – Flying a Pitcairn PCA-2 over Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, Amelia Earhart sets an autogiro altitude record, reaching .ameliaearhart.com Achievementscentury-of-flight.net Century of Flight: History of the Helicopter: Contributions of the Autogyro April 10 – C. W. A. Scott breaks the record for the fastest solo flight from England to Australia, making the flight between April 1 and April 10 in a time of 9 days 4 hours 11 minutes. April 14 – Honduras founds its National Aviation School. It is the forerunner of the Honduran Air Force. April 21 – Pitcairn-Cierva Autogiro Company pilot Jim Ray lands a Pitcairn PCA-2 autogiro on the White House lawn in Washington, D.C., for a ceremony in which U.S. President Herbert Hoover presents the Collier Trophy to autogiro manufacturer Harold Pitcairn. After the ceremony, Ray takes off again in the PCA-2.
May May 4 – The first grounding of an aircraft type takes place when the United States Department of Commerce's Aeronautics Branch orders all Fokker F-10A aircraft out of passenger service after an investigation of the March 31 crash of a Transcontinental & Western Air Fokker F-10A discloses defective wing construction. Although most of the grounded planes eventually return to service, the loss of public confidence in the Fokker F-10A and the costly periodic inspection the Aeronautics Branch imposes on operators of it leads to the demise of the once-popular airplane. May 5 – Polish pilot Stanisław Skarżyński completes a tour around Africa in a PZL Ł.2. He began the tour on February 1. May 14 – A de Havilland Gypsy Moth piloted by professional hunter Denys Finch Hatton and carrying his Kĩkũyũ servant Kamau takes off from the airfield at Voi, Kenya, circles the field twice, stalls, and crashes, killing both men. May 27 – Launching from Augsburg, Germany, Swiss professor Auguste Piccard and his assistant Paul Kipfer ascend to an altitude of in a balloon, establishing a new world altitude record for human flight and gathering substantial data on the upper atmosphere and cosmic rays before landing on a glacier in Austria. May 28