1949 in aviation

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1949:

[edit] Events

February 26-March 2 - B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II of the 43rd Bombardment Group, completed the first non-stop around-the-world flight from and to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Tucson, Arizona. The 23,452 mile (37,742 km) journey takes 94 hours 1 minute.

April 4 - NATO is formed
April 20-21 - a Short Sunderland flies medical personnel and supplies to HMS Amethyst, shelled by Chinese Communist forces on the Yangtze River.

the United States Marine Corps practices deploying by helicopter for the first time, in Exercise Packard III.
May 4 - The Canadian Blue Devils aerobatic team is formed.
May 11 - No. 28 Squadron RAF flies from Malaya to Hong Kong to help reinforce the island against Communist forces on mainland China.
May 19 - a JRM Mars sets a new record of 308 for the largest number of people to be carried on a single aircraft.
May 21 - a Sikorsky S-52 sets a new helicopter altitude record of 21,200 ft (6,468 m).

July 25 - Second Lieutenant Bob Kipp of the Canadian Blue Devils aerobatic team is killed in a training accident.

August 9 - US Navy Lt. J. L. Fruin loses control of his F2H-1 Banshee and ejects, becoming the first American pilot to use an ejector seat during an actual in-flight emergency.
August 23 - BOAC commences its first services to the Far East to be flown entirely by landplanes.

September 9 – Canadian Pacific Airlines DC-3 exploded in mid-flight en route from Quebec City to Baie-Comeau as the result of an on board bomb, killing all 23 on board. See Albert Guay affair.
September 30 - the Berlin Airlift officially ends, with 2,325 tons (2,362 tonnes) of food and supplies having been flown into the city. The final flight is made a week later.

October 27 – Air France Lockheed Constellation crashed in the Azores – 48 died including French boxing star Marcel Cerdan and the young concert violinist, Ginette Neveu.

November 1 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 537, a Douglas C-54B-10-DO, en route from Boston, Massachusetts to Washington, D.C. collided with a P-38 fighter on its final approach to National Airport. Both planes crashed, killing all 55 people on board the Douglas. The P-38 pilot, Eric Rios Bridaux, survived. Bridaux was a Bolivian Air Force pilot. Among the dead were Congressman George J. Bates and former Congressman Michael J. Kennedy.
November 18 - a Douglas C-74 Loadmaster carries 103 passengers and crew over the North Atlantic, the largest number to have made the crossing in a single flight.