William Dean made the first Australian hot air balloon acent in Melbourne.

Henri L'Estange used an emergency parachute after balloon burst in flight over Melbourne.

Lawreence Hargrave invents rotary aircraft engine, with cylinder and propellers attacthed to each other.

George A. Taylor makes the first heavier than air flight in Australia.

The Commonwealth Government's Defence Department orders two BE-2a and two Deperdussin aircraft for military use.

Australia's first air mail was sent with 1,785 letters left Melbourne and arrived 2.5 days later in Sydney on July 18. (actual flying time was 9 hours and 15 minutes)

A BE.2c flown by Capt. H. Wrigley & Sgt. A. Murphy arrived, having departed from Point Cook on Nov. 16th.

The first single-engined aircraft flight from England to Australia leaves Hounslow, England.

The Australian Air Force was created on March 31, 1921, and Williams became Wing Commander. It became the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) on Aug. 31, 1921.

Brisbane Airport at Eagle Farm was acquired by Government.

On May 15, the Flying Doctor Service came into being; its first pilot was A. Affleck, piloting for Dr. K.H. Vincent Welsh in a DH.50A fitted for two stretchers, operating from Cloncurry, Qld.

In 1936 the first air navigation radio station was set up 1.6 km south of Mascot Airport, Sydney.

In August, the first flight of an Australian-built DAP Beaufort bomber took place.

CAC test pilot J. Schofields made the first test flight in the CA-15 at Fishermen's Bend, Vic. It was the fastest piston engined fighter to fly in Australia, at 721 km/hr

In June, the first jet-engined aircraft in Australia, a RAAF Meteor F.4, was flown by S/Ldr. D.R. Cuming at RAAF Laverton.

The first RAF D.H. Vampire jet fighters arrived for evaluation, prior to manufacture in Australia.

A Sikorsky S.51, the RAAF's first helicopter, was test flown at Laverton, Vic.

The RAAF's first Australian-built jet, the DHA Vampire F.30, was flight tested at Bankstown, NSW. On Sept. 26 the first DHA Vampire was delivered to the RAAF.

The first sonic booms were heard in Australia when Scott broke the sound barrier by diving the Sabre on August 11 and 14.

TAA began a weekly DC-4 Melbourne-Alice Springs-Darwin service. This year also saw the opening of Adelaide Airport, at this stage handling only domestic flights.

The idea of a crash and fire protected device to record both the voices and the instrument readings in the cockpit - later known as a black box - originated with a Dr. David Warren, a young scientist at ARL.

July 29 QEA's first Boeing 707-138 jet flight was made on the Sydney-San Francisco route.

Australia made fitting them to aircraft mandatory in 1961, becoming the first country to do so.

Russian pilots test-flew the world's first supersonic transport plane, the Tu-144.

The first jumbo jet, the Boeing 747, entered airline service.

The International Terminal at Kingsford Smith Airport, Sydney, was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth.

This was a decade of infamous jet air disasters around the globe (although not in Australia) that led to better understanding of the causal factors involved in such events. In Australia, 1988 saw establishment of a separate air safety regulator said to operate on economic principles and the operation of an independent air accident investigation bureau.

The Minister for Aviation The Hon Kim Beazley MP introduced the Air Navigation Amendment Bill 1984, to give protection to aircraft crew-members from the use of cockpit voice recorders for purposes not related to safety

The first Australian-built BAe Hawk lead-in fighter flew at Williamtown on 12th May, 2000. 21 are being built in Australia, whilst 12 are under construction in England. It will fill the trainer role previously occupied by the ageing Macchi 326's (of which some air museums hope to acquire examples), and the Pilatus PC-9. At the end of 2000, roughly half the initial order had been delivered.

World War I

War delcared on Germany September 3rd 1939, Germany surrenders May 7th 1945 and finally Japan surrenders April 5th 1945.