AVIA 1903 Aviation History: Chapter 6 - Golden Age, Section D: Aviation Radio & Military Aviation

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering early aviation radio technology, pioneering flights, international conflicts, and the rise of militarism and totalitarianism during the Golden Age of aviation.

Sextant

An instrument used by early American pilots to navigate through celestial means prior to the implementation of radio navigation.

Air Commerce Act of 1926

Federal legislation under which the Federal Airways System was created in 1926 to manage the construction and operation of aids to air navigation.

Transcontinental Airway

A ground-based federal airway system that measured 4,121 miles when acquired in 1926, grew to 13,459 miles in 1930, and peaked at 23,110 miles in 1936.

Lieutenant Jimmy Doolittle

The aviator who completed the first true 'instrument flight' in 1929 using a direction finder radio inside a hood-covered cockpit.

Cleveland Municipal Airport

The airport where the very first radio-equipped control tower was built in 1930.

Instrument Rating

A pilot qualification established for United States pilots in 1939, though it had already been required by Germany's Luft Hansa since 1929.

Four-Course Radio

A ground-based navigational beacon that transmitted the Morse letter N (dash-dot) and letter A (dot-dash); straying off course resulted in hearing an N or an A, while staying on course produced a steady dash.

Adcock Antenna

A low-frequency, short-range antenna system mounted to four poles that four-course radio systems relied upon.

Juan Trippe

The founder of Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) who set up long-range direction-finding equipment on Pacific islands.

China Clipper

Pan Am flying boat guided from California to the Philippines using island-based long-range direction-finding equipment.

Lockheed Electra

The twin-engine aircraft equipped with radio equipment and used by Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan during their 1937 attempt to circumnavigate the globe.

Trailing Aerial

A 250-foot antenna that had to be reeled out during flight and reeled in before landing; removed from Amelia Earhart's aircraft prior to leaving the US to reduce pilot workload and plane weight.

Howland Island

The mid-Pacific destination Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan were en route to in 1937 when they disappeared due to broadcast frequency and procedural confusion with the Coast Guard.

Chaco War

A military conflict beginning on June 15, 1932, sparked by a border dispute between Bolivia and Paraguay over the Chaco Boreal territory, marking the use of aircraft for reconnaissance, bombing, transport, ambulance, and combat.

Fascism

A political system originating from the Italian word 'fascio' (bundle or political group), headed by a dictator and defined by extreme nationalism, imperialism, militarism, violence, non-rationalism, and the subordination of individual will to the common good.

Benito Mussolini

The Italian dictator known as 'il Duce' (the Leader) who rose to power in 1921, established domestic totalitarian rule to resurrect a new Roman Empire, and launched the 1935 invasion of Abyssinia.

Abyssinia

An African nation (also known as Ethiopia) invaded in 1935 by Italian forces utilizing modern war machines against spears and obsolete rifles, leading to condemnation by the League of Nations.

Spanish Civil War

A conflict starting in 1936 when Francisco Franco led revolts against Spain's leftist republican government, drawing 60,000 troops from Italy and Germany to aid the Nationalists and 20,000 troops from the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and the US to oppose them.

Francisco Franco

The military general known as 'el Caudillo' (the leader) who led the fascist Falange party (Nationalists) to victory in the Spanish Civil War.

Falange Party

The Spanish fascist political organization led by Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War, whose members became known as Nationalists.

Adolf Hitler

The leader known as 'der Fuhrer' (the Leader) who brought the Nazis to power in Germany in 1933, withdrew from the Geneva Disarmament Conference, renounced the Treaty of Versailles, and rearmed the military.

Third Reich

The name given to the Third German Empire established in 1933 under Adolf Hitler's totalitarian regime, centered around the concept of an Aryan 'new man'.

Fifteen Year War

The military expansion begun in 1931 by Japan's authoritarian and totalitarian imperial government when it invaded the Asian mainland.