Aviation Milestones

Originally published in 2001

Looking back in history these are selective technological highlights of the 1940s:

• 1940 – First flight of the prototype Avro Lancaster, the RAF’s leading heavy bomber of World War II.
• 1941 – First flight of the piston-powered prototype of the Messerschmitt Me 262, which became Germany’s first operational jet fighter.
• 1942 – First flight of the prototype Northrop P-61 Black Widow, the first aircraft designed as a radar-equipped night fighter.
• 1942 – Airworthiness regulations for aircraft components and accessories became law, 1930.
• 1942 – First flight of the Bell X-1, which later became the first aircraft to achieve Mach 1.
• 1943 – First flight of the Lockheed Constellation, a popular commercial airline of the 1940s.
• 1946 – The Bell 47 two-seat rotorcraft became the first helicopter certified for civil use.
• 1947 – First flight of a jet-powered Soviet MIG flighter.
• 1949 – First flight of the prototype de Havilland D.H. 106 Comet, the world’s first commercial jetliner.