Aviation in the interwar period

During this period civil aviation became widespread and many daring and dramatic feats took place such as round-the-world flights, air races and barnstorming displays.

In military aviation, the fast all-metal monoplane equipped with retractable landing gear — first placed into production by the Soviet Union with the Polikarpov I-16 of 1934 — emerged in such classic designs as the German Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the British Supermarine Spitfire, which would go on to see service in the coming war.

A number of nations operated airships between the two world wars, including Britain, the United States, Germany, Italy, France, the Soviet Union and Japan.

Before the First World War, pioneers such as the German Zeppelin company had begun passenger services, but the airships constructed in the years following were altogether larger and more famous.

[4] Airship operations suffered a series of highly publicised fatal accidents, notably to the British R101 in 1930 and the German Hindenburg in 1937.

The de Havilland DH.88 Comet racer of 1934 was one of the first designs to incorporate all the features of the modern fast monoplane, including; stressed-skin construction, a thin, clean, low-drag cantilever wing, retractable undercarriage, landing flaps, variable-pitch propeller and enclosed cockpit.

[5] The Comet was powered by two race-tuned but otherwise standard production de Havilland Gipsy Six engines with a combined output of 460 hp (344 kW).

The two men were unaware of the other's work, and both Germany and Britain would go on to develop jet aircraft by the end of World War II.

Many of these new routes had few facilities such as modern runways, and this era also became the age of the great flying boats such as the German Dornier Do X, American Sikorsky S-42 and British Short Empire, which could operate from any stretch of clear, calm water.

This period also saw the growth of barnstorming and other aerobatic displays which produced a corps of skilled pilots who would contribute to military air forces during World War II on all sides of the conflict.

These were pioneered in late 1933 by the Soviet Union with the Polikarpov I-16 fighter, powered initially with an American Wright Cyclone nine-cylinder radial engine.