January 1
- 2013 – The rebel Kachin Independence Army reports that Myanmar Air Force aircraft attacking its positions in northern Myanmar have overflown the People's Republic of China during the day, penetrating as far as one kilometer (0.6 miles) into Chinese airspace.[1]
- 2011 – The 2011 Somerset hot air balloon crash occurred early in the morning on New Year’s Day, 2011, when a balloon attempting a high-altitude flight crashed at Pratten’s Bowls Club in Midsomer Norton, near Bath, England.
- 2011 – Kolavia Flight 348: A Kolavia Flight 348, operated by Tupolev Tu-154B-2 RA-85588 of Kogalymavia catches fire while taxying for take-off at Surgut International Airport, Russia, killing three people, and injuring 43. The aircraft is destroyed by the fire.
- 2010 – American airline Northwest Airlines is merged into Delta Air Lines.
- 2007 – Adam Air Flight 574 (KI-574) was a scheduled domestic passenger flight operated by Adam Air between the Indonesian cities of Surabaya (SUB) and Manado (MDC) disappeared with 102 people on board near Polewali in Sulawesi.
- 2004 – UH-60L Black Hawk 93-26514 from 4–101st Aviation Regiment makes hard landing.[2]
- 2003 – Joe Foss, American politician and fighter pilot, dies (b. 1916). Joseph Jacob “Joe” Foss was a leading “ace” fighter pilot in the United States Marine Corps during World War II, a 1943 recipient of the Medal of Honor, a general in the Air National Guard, and the 20th Governor of South Dakota.
- 1997 – Launch of Operation Northern Watch, US European Command Combined Task Force (CTF) charged with enforcing its own no-fly zone above the 36th parallel in Iraq.
- 1987 – US Coast Guard HH-65 Dolphins and US Navy H-3 Sea Kings help rescue people trapped inside the Dupont Plaza hotel Puerto Rico after a fire there on New Year's Eve.
- 1985 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 980, a Boeing 727, impacts Mount Illimani in Bolivia. All 29 people on board are killed.
- 1983 – Eastern Air Lines‘ first revenue Boeing 757 flight.
- 1982 – Death of Albert Earl Godfrey, Canadian World War I flying ace.
- 1978 – British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley, and Scottish Aviation are absorbed into British Aerospace.
- 1978 – Air India Flight 855, a Boeing 747, crashes into the Arabian Sea as a result of instrument malfunction and pilot error; all 213 passengers and crew die.
- 1976 – Middle East Airlines Flight 438, a Boeing 720, crashes in Saudi Arabia when a bomb explodes in the forward baggage compartment, killing all 81 people on board.
- 1975 – Michael K. Hynes founded Brantly-Hynes Helicopter Inc., now known as Brantly International.
- 1970 – Société nationale industrielle aérospatiale (SNIAS) is founded by merging Nord Aviation, Sud Aviation and la Société pour l’étude et la réalisation d’engins balistiques (SEREB).
- 1967 – The United States conducts a 48-hour stand-down of air operations over Vietnam for the New Year holiday.
- 1966 – January 1–7 – The U.S. Army's 173rd Airborne Brigade and Australian troops carry out Operation Marauder, a combined helicopter and ground assault against Viet Cong forces in South Vietnam’s Mekong Delta and the first time American units operate in the Delta.
- 1962 – Inauguration of regular Yukon flights between Trenton and Marville.
- 1960 – Fiji Airways is reconstituted, becoming equally owned by BOAC, Qantas, and Tasman Empire Airways.
- 1959 – Birth of Abdul Ahad Mohmand, former Afghan Air Force aviator and first Afghan in space.
- 1959 – First flight of the I.P.D BF-1 Beija-Flor, a two-seat light helicopter designed by Henrich Focke.
- 1956 – Death of Ludwig Dürr, German airship designer.
- 1956 – Birth of Sergei Avdeyev, Russian engineer and cosmonaut.
- 1955 – Death of Alvaro Leonardi, Italian World War I pilot.
- 1951 – The first post-war RCAF squadron, No. 421(F) Sqron, was transferred overseas to Odiham. They were flying RAF de Havilland VampireS.
- 1951 – The United States Air Force reestablishes the Air Defense Command. It also returns the Air Defense Command to the status of a major command, a status it has not held since December 1948.
- 1947 – Birth of Vladimir Titov, Russian Air Force pilot and former cosmonaut.
- 1946 – A British South American Airways Avro Lancastrian becomes the first commercial flight to depart Heathrow Airport
- 1946 – British European Airways (British European Airways) is formed.
- 1946 – The first civil flight from Heathrow Airport occurs.
- 1945 – Lockheed P-38G Lightning, 42-13400 suffers crash landing on Attu Island in the Aleutians, 2,000 miles (3,200 km) W of Anchorage, Alaska, whilst on a training mission, pilot 2nd Lt. Robert Nesmith unhurt. Airframe suffers propellers torn off, broken horizontal stabilizer, buckled left nacelle. After simple parts salvage, it is abandoned in place. Recovered June 1999, it is transported by helicopter to the U.S. Coast Guard station at Attu, then flown to Anchorage in an Alaska Air National Guard Lockheed C-130 Hercules. Registered as N55929 but not taken up. Restored at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, it is placed on display at McCloud Memorial Park, Elmendorf AFB, in April 2000.
- 1945 – The Luftwaffe begins targeting Allied airfields in Europe as "Operation Bodenplatte" Focke-Wulf Fw 190D-9, '12', of 10./JG. 54, flown by Leutnant Theo Nibel of the Grimbergen force, is downed when he strikes a partridge which holes his coolant radiator, makes forced gear-up landing near Brussels.
- 1943 – The sole Lockheed XP-49, 40-3055, a development of the P-38 Lightning, first flown 11 November 1942, suffers a crash landing at Burbank, California when the port landing gear fails to lock down due to a combined hydraulic and electrical problem. Pilot was Joe C. Towle. Repaired, it returns to flight on 16 February 1943, and is sent to Wright Field, Ohio, for further testing. Despite improved performance over the P-38, difficulties with the new engines, as well as the success of the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt and the P-51 Mustang, leads to no additional orders or production.
- 1942 – Birth of Gennadi Sarafanov, Soviet cosmonaut.
- 1941 – First mobile Ground Controlled Interception (GCI) radar station, at Sopley, is sited and staffed.
- 1940 – Identification friend or foe (IFF) coding is introduced to identify Bomber, Coastal and Fighter Command aircraft for the air defence system. VHF Radio Telephone installations are also completed eight selected sectors.
- 1937 – Lt. Col. Frederick Irving Eglin (1891–1937), first rated as a military aviator in 1917 and helped train other flyers during World War I, is killed while assigned to General Headquarters, Air Force, Langley Field, Virginia, in the crash of his Northrop A-17 pursuit aircraft, 35-97, at Chesa Mountain, Alabama in bad weather during flight from Langley to Maxwell Field, Alabama. The Valparaiso Bombing and Gunnery Base renamed Eglin Field 4 August 1937, later Eglin Air Force Base on 24 June 1948.
- 1937 – Blériot Aéronautique is incorporated in the Societe Nationale de Construction Aeronautiques du Sud-Ouest (SNCASO) under the directorship of Marcel Bloch (aviator).
- 1934 – The airline Deutsche Luft Hansa changes its name to Lufthansa.
- 1931 – Amy Johnson takes off in her de Havilland Gipsy Moth Jason III for an attempt to reach Peking.
- 1929 – Polish airline LOT formed.
- 1929 – January 1–7 – Carl Spaatz, Ira Eaker, and Elwood Quesada set an endurance record of 151 hours aloft in a Fokker F.VIIa-3 m.
- 1929 – Death of George Holt Thomas, aviation industry pioneer and newspaper proprietor. Founder of the Aircraft Manufacturing Company Limited or Airco.
- 1925 – French airline CIDNA is formed.
- 1922 – First Airline Uniforms are introduced by Instone Air Line.
- 1920 – French airline * 1919 – Birth of Vasile ‘Chitu’ Gavriliu, Romanian World War II fighter ace.
- 1919 – Colombian airline “Colombian-German Air Transport Society (SCADTA) is formed. The first airline of the American continent
- 1919 – Civil aviation resumes in Germany.
- 1917 – Five Royal Naval Air Service crew en route from Manston, England to Villacoublay, France in a Handley Page 0/100 bomber, run into clouds, lose their direction due to a compass fault, and land to ask directions. Unfortunately, they come down behind German lines at Chalandry, near Lâon, France, and before they can either burn the machine or take off, a German infantry patrol captures them and their intact bomber. An unconfirmed story states that Manfred von Richthofen flew this machine to 10,000 feet (3,000 m)10,000 feet before the Kaiser at a later date.
- 1916 – First flight of the Zeppelin LZ60 (LZ90), German dirigible.
- 1914 – The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line starts services, becoming the first airline to provide regular services, with Anthony Jannus conveying passengers in a Benoist XIV flying boat. A. C. Pheil is the first airline passenger.
- 1914 – The Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps is given the responsibility for the operation of all British military airships. The Royal Navy will retain control of all British airships until December 1919.
- 1914 – The U.S. Weather Bureau begins daily publication of a weather map of the Northern Hemisphere designed specifically as an aid to aviation.
- 1910 – Edwin Alliott Verdon Roe with his brother Humphrey founded the A. V. Roe Aircraft Co. at Brownsfield Mill, Great Ancoats Street, Manchester.
- 1903 – Konstantin Tsiolkovsky deduces the Basic Rocket Equation in his article Explorations of outer space with the help of reaction apparatuses.
- 1897 – Birth of Francis Mansel Kitto, Welsh WWI flying ace.
- 1895 – Birth of Bertrand Blanchard ‘Bert’ Acosta, known as ‘the Bad Boy of the Air’, American record setting aviator. He flew in the Spanish Civil War in the Yankee Sqron and received numerous fines and suspensions for flying stunts such as flying under bridges or flying too close to buildings.
- 1895 – Birth of Paul Bona, German World War I flying ace.
- 1894 – Birth of Vasili Ivanovich Yanchenko, second ranking Russian World War I flying ace.
- 1893 – Birth of Vincenzo Magliocco, Italian World War I and Italo-Abyssinian War pilot, Brigadier General of the Regia Aeronautica.
- 1892 – Birth of Clinton Leonard Jones, Jr, American World War I flying ace.
- 1887 – Birth of Basile Felicien Sauné, French World War I flying ace.
- 1887 – Birth of Max Ritter von Müller, German World War I fighter ace.
- 1879 – Birth of Albert Hoyt Taylor, American electrical engineer who made important early contributions to the development of radar.
- 1874 – Birth of Gustave Whitehead, born Gustav Albin Weisskopf, aviation pioneer who immigrated from Germany to the U. S., where he designed and built early flying machines and engines to power them. He claimed to have made controlled, powered airplane flights more than two years before the Wright brothers.