Timeline of military aviation


 * 1794 - French Aerostatic Corps use a tethered balloon at the Battle of Fleurus as a vantage point.
 * 1849 - The Austrian ship Vulcano launches a manned hot air balloon to bomb Venice; this is the first aerial attack in history.
 * 1861 - The Union Army Balloon Corps is established during the American Civil War.
 * 1878 - The British Army Balloon Equipment Store is established at Woolwich by the Royal Engineers.
 * 1885 - Balloons are deployed by the British Army to Bechuanaland and Suakin.
 * 1888 - The British Army School of Ballooning is established.
 * 1907 - The first military air organization, the Aeronautical Division of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, is formed 1 August
 * 1907 - British Colonel John Capper flies the military airship Nulli Secundus from Farnborough to Crystal Palace in London.
 * 1909 - Heavier-than-air military aviation is born with the US Army's purchase of Signal Corps Aeroplane No. 1.
 * 1910 - The first experimental take-off of a heavier-than-air craft from the deck of a US Navy vessel, the cruiser USS Birmingham (CL-2)
 * 1910 - The Aviation Militaire of the French Army is formed 22 October.
 * 1911 - The Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers is formed, the first British heavier-than-air unit.
 * 1911 - Heavier-than-air aircraft are used in war for the first time during the Italo-Turkish War, when Italian pilot Lieutenant Giulio Gavotti dropped four grenades from his Taube monoplane onto a Turkish camp at Ain Zara.
 * 1912 - The Royal Flying Corps is formed. A few months later the Dominion of Australia also formed the Australian Flying Corps.
 * 1914 - The Royal Naval Air Service is formed by splitting airship squadrons away from the Royal Flying Corps.
 * 1914 - In August, Russian Staff-Captain Pyotr Nesterov becomes the first pilot to ram his plane into an enemy spotter aircraft.
 * 1914 - In October, a plane is shot down by another aircraft with a handgun over Rheims, France.
 * 1914 - The first conventional air-to-air kill occurs on October 5th when a French Voisin machine-guns a German Aviatik in World War I.
 * 1918 - The Royal Air Force, the world's first independent air force is formed.
 * 1918 - The HMS Argus became "the world's first carrier capable of launching and landing naval aircraft".
 * 1940 - The Battle of Britain, the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces, was fought.
 * 1958 - The first ever air-to-air kill with a missile, when a Chinese Nationalist F86 kills a Chinese Communist MiG 15 during the Quemoy-Matsu Crisis
 * 1980 - The only confirmed air-to-air helicopter battles occur during the Iran-Iraq War.