- On January 18, 1911, the first landing on a ship was completed on the third attempt in San Francisco bay using a specially constructed landing platform built on the fantail of the battleship USS Pennsylvania
- On October 5, 1914, a French pilot made the first air-to-air kill in a Voisin III biplane bomber
- On May 16, 1919, Navy NC “flying boats” left Nova Scotia on a bid to be the first to cross the Atlantic non-stop; NC4 completed the journey to Portugal arriving on May 27
- On September 24, 1929, an Army Air Corp pilot completed the first flight to rely completely on instruments from under a canvas camopy installed in the cockpit for the occasion
- On June 27, 1944, the first midair refueling took place using a 50-foot rubber hose that had to be manually caught and connected
- On November 28, 1945, the first two hoist rescues from a helicopter were completed to save two men from a burning barge off the coast of Connecticut
- On October 16, 1947, test pilot Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier for a period of 20 seonds
- On December 8, 1966, a United Carvelle jet made the first completely computer-controlled landing in the U.S. at Dulles Airport
