1913 in aviation

Events

• The Serbian air force is established as an army air service. Six officers receive pilot training in France.
• Mexican pilot Gustavo Salinas Camilla and Frenchman Didier Masson, flying for rebel forces led by Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution, attack Mexican federal ground and naval forces.
• The Imperial Japanese Navy places its first aviation ship, the naval auxiliary Wakamiya, in service to operate naval floatplanes.
• The Imperial Russian Navy experiments with shipboard airplane operations for the first time, embarking a Curtiss floatplane aboard the protected cruiser Kagul in the Black Sea. It is its only such experiment prior to World War I.
• The Royal Swedish Navy acquires its first seaplane.
• Short Brothers patents the first folding wing mechanism.
• Pierre Levasseur's manufacturing firm, Sociéte Pierre Levasseur Aéronautique, which previously made propellers, begins to manufacture aircraft.
• In the United Kingdom, a Sopwith Type C floatplane succeeds in lifting a 14-inch, 900-lb torpedo into the air.

  January–June

• 13 January – Brazilian naval aviation commences with the foundation of a flying school.
• 8 February – Russian pilot N. de Sackoff becomes the first pilot shot down in combat when his biplane is hit by ground fire following a bombing run on the walls of Fort Bezhani during the First Balkan War. Flying for Greece, he comes down near Preveza, on the coast north of the Ionian island of Lefkada, secures local Greek assistance, repairs his airplane, and flies back to base.
• 11 February – The Chilean Army establishes a Military Aviation School at Lo Espejo.
• March – The Republic of China obtains twelve military aircraft from France.
• 13 February – The Kingdom of Serbia adopts regulations governing the operation of aircraft, making it the fifth country to do so after Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Austria-Hungary.
• 15 March – The United States Army forms the 1st Aero Squadron under Capt Charles Chandler at Texas City to scout for Mexican incursions along the border.
• April – Austro-Hungarian Navy battleships transport flying boats from Pola to the Gulf of Cattaro as part of an international peacekeeping force sent to the region toward the end of the First Balkan War.
• 16 April – The inaugural 1913 Schneider Trophy race is won by Maurice Prévost in a Deperdussin monoplane, who completes 28 circuits of the course with an average speed of 73.63 km/h.
• 24 April – The French aviator Eugene Gilbert makes a record non-stop cross-country flight of 826 km, flying from Villacoublay, France, to Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain. The flight takes 8 hours 23 minutes.
• 27 April – Flying a Gage biplane, Robert G. Fowler makes the first nonstop flight across the Isthmus of Panama, covering 83 km in 1 hour 45 minutes Technically, this is the first nonstop flight across North America from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
• 7 May – HMS Hermes, formerly a protected cruiser, recommissions as the Royal Navys first experimental seaplane carrier.
• 13 May – The Cuban aviator Domingo Rosillo makes the first flight across the Florida Strait, flying 90 miles from Key West, Florida, to Havana, Cuba, in 2 hours 8 minutes in a Morane-Saulnier monoplane, aided by a naval escort to ensure that he keeps on course.
• 15 May – Cuban-born pilot Austin Parlá flies across the Florida Strait without surface support, relying only on a compass, the first person to do so.
• 26 May – Igor Sikorsky flies the world's first four-engine fixed-wing aircraft as he takes his Bolshoi Baltisky biplane Ilya Mourometz into the sky for the Imperial Russian Air Service near Saint Petersburg. Powered by 220 horsepower engines, the bomber could carry up to 1,543 pounds of bombs and has room for four machine guns and a crew of five. It is also the first plane fitted with a lavatory.
• 9 June – A German Zeppelin flies from Baden-Baden, Germany, to Vienna, Austria-Hungary, in only half the time required by the fastest train.
• 21 June – Georgia "Tiny" Broadwick becomes the first woman to parachute from an airplane, jumping over Los Angeles, California, from a plane piloted by Glenn L. Martin.

  July–December

• 1 July – Royal Netherlands Army forms its Aviation Division
• 5 July – A seaplane carrier participates in the British Royal Navys annual maneuvers for the first time, as HMS Hermes embarks two seaplanes, the Short Folder S.64 biplane and a Caudron G.3 amphibian. The Short aircraft is the first with folding wings to be used aboard a ship. The maneuvers, which conclude on October 6, demonstrate both the feasibility of extended operations by aircraft at sea and the value of folding wings.
• 17 July – The Royal Navy introduces the term "seaplane"; previously, seaplanes had been known as "hydro-aeroplanes." The term "seaplane" comes into general use during the year.
• 28 July – A Caudron G.3 amphibian takes off from a platform aboard the Hermes while she is underway and lands at Great Yarmouth. It is the first time an aircraft launches from the deck of a ship and lands ashore.
• 7 August – American-born aviation pioneer Samuel Franklin Cody is killed with his passenger when his Cody Floatplane breaks up in flight over Hampshire in England.
• 20 August – The French aviator Adolphe Pegoud becomes the first person in Europe to jump from an airplane and land safely when he parachutes from 700 feet above Buc, Yvelines, France.
• 1 September – Adolphe Pégoud makes the first inverted flight, flying upside down for 0.4 km.
• 3 September – During the Imperial German Navy′s autumn 1913 maneuvers, an Avro 503 flown by Leutnant W. Langfeld becomes the first airplane to fly the 40 miles across the North Sea from Wilhelmshaven to Heligoland. It flies back to the German mainland on 15 September, landing at Cuxhaven.
• 9 September
• *Imperial Russian Army pilot Pyotr Nesterov becomes the first person to loop an airplane, flying a Nieuport IV monoplane over Syretzk Aerodrome near Kiev, Russia.
• *Maurice Prevost reaches 204 km/h in a Deperdussin racing aeroplane.
• *Helgoland Island air disaster: The first fatalities aboard a German airship occur when the Imperial German Navy Zeppelin dirigible LZ 14 is forced down into the North Sea off Heligoland during a thunderstorm, killing 16 of the 22 men on board. Among the dead are the commanding officer of the Naval Airship Division, Kapitänleutnant Matzing.
• 13 September – Aurel Vlaicu, Romanian engineer and inventor, dies near Câmpina, Romania, while attempting to fly across the Carpathian Mountains in his Vlaicu II airplane.
• 20 September – The second annual Aerial Derby takes place, sponsored by the Daily Mail. Nine participants fly a single circuit of a 94-mile course, starting and finishing at Hendon Aerodrome in London, with control points at Kempton Park, Esher, Purley, and Purfleet. Gustav Hamel is the overall winner in a Morane-Saulnier airplane with a time of 1 hour 15 minutes 49 seconds and receives a gold trophy and £200 prize. Shell awards prizes of £100, £70, and £50 for the handicap competition, which Bentfield Hucks wins in a Blériot airplane.
• 21 September – Adolphe Pégoud loops a Blériot XI over France, believing it to be the first loop in history. The feat is widely publicized as the worlds first loop until word of Pyotr Nesterovs loop over Russia of 12 days before spreads.
• 23 September – Roland Garros makes the first flight across the Mediterranean Sea, from Saint-Raphaël, Var, France, to Bizerte, Tunisia, in 7 hours 53 minutes.
• October – The Imperial Japanese Navy includes an aviation ship, the naval auxiliary Wakamiya, in its annual naval exercises for the first time. Wakamiya operates one or two Farman floatplanes during the exercise, which lasts into November.
• 17 October – Johannisthal Air Disaster: Imperial German Navy Zeppelin LZ 18 burns in mid-air near Johannisthal Air Field in Germany and crashes, killing all 28 on board.
• November
• *The first air-to-air combat in history takes place over Mexico when aircraft exchange pistol shots during the Mexican Revolution, apparently scoring no hits.
• *The second Cody V biplane, having flown for around 2½ hours only between January and March, is presented to the Science Museum in London.
• 29 November – Raymonde de Laroche flies solo in four hours. The flight will win her the 1913 Fémina Cup for the longest solo flight by a woman that year.
• December – The United States Army makes its 1st Aero Squadron, previously a provisional organization, into its first official aviation squadron.
• 13–14 December – German balloonist Hugo Kaulen stays aloft for 87 hours. This record lasts until 1935.

  First flights

• Avro 511
• Autumn 1913 – Grigorovich M-1

  January

• Avro 501

  May

• 26 May – Sikorsky Russky Vityaz

  August

• 12 August – Bristol T.B.8

  September

• 18 September – Avro 504

  November

• Sopwith Tabloid

  December

• 11 December – Sikorsky Ilya Muromets

  Entered service