1945 in aviation

This is a list of aviation-related events from 1945:

Events

The probe-and-drogue aerial refueling system, in which the tanker aircraft trails a hose with a stabilizing conical drogue at its end which mates to a fixed probe mounted on the receiving aircraft, is perfected. It is superior to and replaces the looped-hose system which had been in use since 1934, and it remains in use today.

January

January 1 - The Luftwaffe targets Allied airfields in Europe in "Operation Bodenplatte."
January 4 - The escort aircraft carrier USS Ommaney Bay (CVE-79) is fatally damaged by a Japanese kamikaze in the Sulu Sea and scuttled later in the day. No United States Navy aircraft carrier has been sunk by enemy action since.

February

The U.S. Navy's first recorded use of JATO, utilized to lift a PBM-5 Mariner off of a stretch of the Colorado River near Yuma, Arizona after being forced down.
February 6 - The United States Coast Guard's efforts to develop the United States Department of the Navy's capability to use the helicopter as an antisubmarine warfare platform comes to an end.
February 13-15 - Allied bombers attack Dresden with incendiary weapons, destroying most of the city and killing some 50,000 people.
February 21 - aircraft carrier USS Saratoga is badly damaged by a kamikaze attack

March

March 9 - Disappointed in strategic bombing results against Japan with B-29 Superfortresses employing high-altitude daylight bombing as used in Europe, the United States Army Air Forces' 20th Air Force switches to low-altitude night bombing of Japan using incendiary bombs for the rest of World War II.
March 9-10 - The Great Tokyo Air Raid, an overnight incendiary bombing raid by B-29 Superfortresses on Tokyo, is one of the most destructive air raids in history. It creates a firestorm which destroys 41 square kilometers (16 square miles) of the city, killing an estimated 88,000 to 125,000 people, injuring at least 41,000 and perhaps as many as a million people, and leaving probably a million people homeless.
March 13-14 - An Avro Lancaster of No. 617 Squadron RAF drops the first 22,000 lb (9,980 kg) Grand Slam bomb
March 21 - The Imperial Japanese Navy uses its Yokosuka MXY7 Ohka ("Cherry Blossom") rocket-powered human-guided anti-shipping kamikaze attack plane operationally for the first time, but without success.
March 24 - Allied forces began large-scale crossings of the Rhine as Operation Varsity, the operation involved 2,000 transport aircraft and gliders.
March 27 - The final V-2 missile to hit England falls in Kent

April

April 1 - Ohkas score hits on the USS West Virginia and three of her escorts.
April 10 - The Luftwaffe flies its final sortie over the United Kingdom, a reconnaissance mission from Norway by an Arado Ar 234.
April 12 - The destroyer USS Mannert L. Abele (DD-733) is sunk by an Ohka.
April 23 - The United States Navy puts its first radar-guided bomb, the SWOD-9 "Bat" into use, dropping it from Consolidated PB4Y Liberators on Japanese shipping in Balikpapan Harbour.
April 25 - 275 B-17s escorted by four groups of P-51 Mustangs attack the Pilzen-Å koda armament factory in Czechoslovakia. It is the last heavy bomber mission by the United States Army Air Forces' 8th Air Force against an industrial target.

May

May 3 - the Royal Air Force sinks Cap Arcona, Thielbek, and Deutschland
World's top-scoring fighter ace German pilot Erich Hartmann surrenders to Allied forces
May 7 - the Royal Air Force sinks its last German submarine
May 8 - VE Day - Germany surrenders, ending the Second World War in Europe

July

July 5 - American Airlines acquires American Export Airlines and forms American Overseas Airlines
July 12 - An Eastern Air Lines flight en route from Boston. Massachusetts, to Miami, Florida, with stops in Washington, D.C. and Columbia South Carolina, collides with a United States Army Air Forces A-26 Invader bomber 3,100 feet above Syracuse, South Carolina, (about 20 miles from Florence, South Carolina). The commercial pilot, G. D. Davis, lands his airliner in a cornfield. One passenger, an infant, is killed aboard the airliner. A-26's tail is sheared off; two aboard the bomber die and one is able to parachute safely.
July 28 - A B-25 Mitchell bomber crashes into the Empire State Building in New York City.

August

August 1 - Toyama, Japan is the target of an incendiary attack by the USAAF that destroys almost the entire city
August 6 - B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay drops "Little Boy" the first nuclear weapon used in warfare over the Japanese city of Hiroshimaext
August 9 - B-29 Bockscar drops a plutonium-239 nuclear weapon, Fat Man, on Nagasaki, Japan.
August 14 - VJ Day - Japan surrenders, ending the war in the Pacific arena, and World War II was finally over.
August 15 - seven Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft make the last kamikaze attack of the war.
August 17 - The proclamation day of Indonesia held by Sukarno and Mohammad Hatta, reading proclamation text. This day was the independence day of Indonesia, held every year.
August 19 - two Mitsubishi G4Ms carry Japan's surrender delegation to Ie Shima

September

a captured Focke Achgelis Fa 223 makes the first helicopter crossing of the English Channel
September 20, an experimental Gloster Meteor with Rolls-Royce Trent engines, makes the first turboprop-powered flight.

October

1 October - 1st annual general meeting of the International Air Transport Association begins in Montreal, Canada.
24 October - AOA - American Overseas Airlines operated the first scheduled commercial transatlantic flight by a landplane (Douglas C-54 Skymaster), between New York City, NY USA and London, England UK. Since the new London-Heathrow airport was not yet available for commercial operations, AOA had to use Bournemouth-Hurn Airport.

November

November 7 - Gp Cpt H. J. Wilson sets a new official airspeed record of 606 mph (976 km/h) in a Gloster Meteor. Unofficial German speed records by the rocket-powered Messerschmitt Me 163 during the war had already exceeded 625 mph (1,000 km/h)

December

December 4 - A Mk5 Sea Vampire became the first jet aircraft to intentionally take off and land from an aircraft carrier, HMS Ocean.

First flights

January

January 26 - McDonnell XFD-1 Phantom, the first jet aircraft to operate from a US Navy aircraft carrier

February

February 1 - Kawasaki Ki-100
February 7 - Consolidated-Vultee XP-81
February 21 - Hawker Sea Fury prototype SR661
February 25 - Bell XP-83

March

March 1 - Bachem Ba 349
March 3 - Mikoyan-Gurevich I-250 (N), first Soviet thermojet.
March 18 - Douglas XB2D-1, prototype of the AD Skyraider

April

April 19 - de Havilland Sea Hornet prototype PX212
April 27 - Pilatus P-2

May

May 17 - Lockheed Neptune Bu48237

June

June 10 - Ilyushin IL-16
June 14 - Avro Tudor 1 G-AGPF
June 22 - Vickers Viking prototype G-AGOK

August

August 3 - Kyūshū J7W Shinden
August 7 - Nakajima Kikka, first Japanese jet

September

September 5 - C-74 Globemaster

October

October 27 - Bristol Buckmaster
October 28 - LWD Szpak

November

November 10 - Yakovlev Yak-11
November 15 - PZL S-1
November 20 - Saab 91 Safir

December

December 2 - Bristol 170 G-AGPV
December 8 - Bell 47 prototype NC1H
December 19- Grumman Guardian prototype Bu90504
December 22 - Beechcraft Bonanza

Unknown Date

Thorp T-211

Entered service

January

Ilyushin IL-10 in the Soviet Air Force

August

Avro Lincoln with No. 57 Squadron RAF

November

Hawker Tempest II with No. 54 Squadron RAF

1945 in Aviation Pictures

More aircraft.

Source: WikiPedia