An aviator is a person who flies or travels via aircraft for pleasure or as a profession. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887 as a variation of the French ‘aviation’, from the Latin ‘avis’, coined 1863 by G. de la Landelle in “Aviation ou Navigation Aérienne”. The term aviatrix is used [...]
Pioneer aviatrix include the American Amelia Earhart, first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic (1932), Bessie Coleman, first person of African American descent to become a licensed airplane pilot (1921), and the British Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo from Britain to Australia (1930).
1914 – In the first few months of the first world war, combat between airplanes was unknown; they were used for reconnaissance photographs and some far-sighted aviators could envision using them for bombing. After some pilots took up pistols and rifles, some planes had machine guns mounted in the observer’s seat, which typically fired rearward [...]
