This is a list of aviation-related events from 1942:

Events The United States Coast Guard begins to use the national insignia for United States Army, United States Navy, and United States Marine Corps aircraft on its own aircraft for the first time. The practice has continued ever since.Swanborough, Gordon, and Peter M. Bowers, United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911, Second Edition, London: Putnam, 1976, , p. 25.

January The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff begin to consider how to create a transportation system in the China-Burma-India Theater, primarily involving transport aircraft.Koenig, William, Over the Hump: Airlift to China, New York: Ballantine Books, 1972, p. 37. Lieutenant Ivan Chisov of the Soviet Air Force miraculously survives a fall from without a parachute after departing a heavily damaged Ilyushin Il-4 twin-engined medium bomber. After achieving a terminal velocity of about , he is decelerated when he hits the lip of a snow-covered ravine, sliding down with decreasing speed until he stops at the bottom, suffering a broken pelvis and severe spinal injuries. The Soviet Union parachutes 2,000 troops behind German lines at Medyn, near Tula, in support of Soviet Army offensive operations.Hardesty, Von, Red Phoenix: The Rise of Soviet Air Power 1941-1945, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982, , p. 76. January 4–7 – Soviet Air Force aircraft attack forward Luftwaffe airfields at Rzhev and Velikiye Luki while German transport aircraft are using them to resupply German ground units. The Soviets claim nine Junkers Ju 52s destroyed on the ground and one Dornier Do 217 shot down in aerial combat.Hardesty, Von, Red Phoenix: The Rise of Soviet Air Power 1941-1945, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982, , pp. 78-79. January 6 Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft based at Truk begin attacks on the Australian air base at Rabaul.Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, Volume III: The Rising Sun in the Pacific 1931-April 1942, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988, p. 259. The first phase of the 1941–42 winter Soviet counter-offensive comes to an end after 33 days. Since it began on December 5, 1941, the Soviet Air Force has flown 16,000 sorties in support of it, about half of them in direct support of Soviet Army ground forces and about 70 percent of them in the offensives northern sector.Hardesty, Von, Red Phoenix: The Rise of Soviet Air Power 1941-1945, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1982, , p. 78. January 11 – Japanese aircraft drop 324 naval paratroopers as part of a successful assault against Dutch forces defending the Menado Peninsula on Celebes.Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, Volume III: The Rising Sun in the Pacific 1931-April 1942, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988, pp. 280-281. January 12 – The Soviet aeronautical engineer and aircraft designer Vladimir Petlyakov dies in the crash of a Petlyakov Pe-2 near Arzamas in the Soviet Union. January 13 – Heinkel test pilot Helmut Schenk becomes the first person to escape from a stricken aircraft with an ejection seat after the control surfaces of the first prototype He 280 V1 ice up and become inoperable. The fighter, being used in tests of the Argus As 014 pulsejets for Fieseler Fi 103 cruise missile development, had had its regular HeS 8A turbojets removed, and had been towed aloft from the Erprobungstelle Rechlin central test facility in Germany by a pair of Messerschmitt Bf 110C tugs in a heavy snow-shower. At , Schenk finds he has no control, jettisons his towline, and ejects. January 16 – Transcontinental & Western Air Flight 3 crashes into Potosi Mountain in Nevada, killing all 22 aboard including movie star Carole Lombard. January 24 – The Japanese aircraft carriers Hiryū and Sōryū begin strikes on Ambon.Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, Volume III: The Rising Sun in the Pacific 1931-April 1942, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988, p. 296. January 28 The United States Army Air Forces activate the Eighth Air Force to serve in England as a strategic air force in Europe. Piloting a Lockheed PBO-1 Hudson patrol bomber over the North Atlantic, U.S. Navy Chief Aviation Machinist's Mate Donald Francis Mason attacks a German submarine, which submerges and escapes. Thinking he had sunk it, he signals "SIGHTED SUB, SANK SAME." It becomes one of the most famous signals of World War II.Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, Volume I: The Battle of the Atlantic September 1939-May 1943, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988, p. 154. January 30 Six Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi A6M Zero (Allied reporting name "Zeke") fighters shoot down the Qantas Short Empire flying boat G-AEUH off West Timor in the Netherlands East Indies, killing 13 of the 18 people on board. Canadian Pacific Air Lines is formed by the acquisition and merger of Arrow Airways and Canadian Airways, along with all the various subsidiaries of the latter. January 31 – During the winter of 1941–1942, Royal Air Force Bomber Command experiences a 2.5 percent loss rate among its aircraft attacking Germany.

February The United States Army Air Forces redesignate various organizations as the Fifth (in the Far East), Sixth (in the Panama Canal Zone), Seventh (in the Territory of Hawaii), and Eleventh (in the Territory of Alaska) Air Forces.Maurer, pp. 461-462, 466. The Commanding General of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Henry H. Arnold, tells President Franklin D. Roosevelt that an air cargo route between India and China should be established to make up for the likely imminent loss of Rangoon, Burma, to Japanese forces.Koenig, William, Over the Hump: Airlift to China, New York: Ballantine Books, 1972, p. 25. Roosevelt orders Arnold to commandeer 25 civilian Douglas DC-3s to begin the airlift.Koenig, William, Over the Hump: Airlift to China, New York: Ballantine Books, 1972, p. 42. Royal Air Force Bomber Command begins using "Shaker" – long-burning flares – to illuminate targets for its aircraft. The Luftwaffes Fliegerkorps II greatly intensifies its bombing campaign against Malta.Macintyre, Donald, The Naval War Against Hitler, New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1971, no ISBN, p. 217. February 1 – The U.S. Navy aircraft carriers and launch air strikes against Japanese bases in the Marshall Islands. It is the first offensive operation by American forces in World War II.Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, Volume III: The Rising Sun in the Pacific 1931-April 1942, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988, pp. 259-264. February 8 – Dr. Fritz Todt, the German Reich Minister for Armaments and Ammunition, dies in the crash of a Junkers Ju 52 shortly after takeoff from Rastenburg, East Prussia. February 11–13 – 250 Messerschmitt Bf 109 and Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighters and 30 Messerschmitt Bf 110 night fighters participate in Operation Thunderbolt, the German Luftwaffes defense of the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen as they make the "Channel Dash" (Operation Cerberus) from Brest, France, to Wilhelmshaven and Brunsbüttel, Germany, via the English Channel and Strait of Dover. On February 12, six Fleet Air Arm Fairey Swordfish – all of which are shot down; their commander, Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde receives a posthumous Victoria Cross for the attack – and some Royal Air Force Coastal Command Bristol Beauforts attempt torpedo attacks, but score no hits. February 12 The U.S. Army Air Forces activate the Tenth Air Force for service in China, Burma, and India.Maurer, p. 465. German dive bombers sink the British destroyer at Malta.Macintyre, Donald, The Naval War Against Hitler, New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1971, no ISBN, p. 223. February 13 – One hundred Japanese aircraft drop 700 Japanese paratroopers onto Palembang on Sumatra.Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, Volume III: The Rising Sun in the Pacific 1931-April 1942, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988, p. 309. February 19 – Imperial Japanese Navy aircraft conduct a devastating raid on Darwin, Australia, where 45 ships are in the harbor. Known as the "Great Darwin Raid", it is both the first and the largest air attack in history against Australian territory. A first wave of 188 Mitsubishi A6M (Allied reporting name "Zero") fighters, Aichi D3A1 (Allied reporting name "Val") dive bombers, and Nakajima B5N2 (Allied reporting name "Kate") torpedo bombers from the aircraft carriers Akagi, Kaga, Hiryū, and Sōryū is followed by a second wave of 54 land-based Mitsubishi G3M2 (Allied reporting name "Nell") and Mitsubishi G4M1 (Allied reporting name "Betty") bombers. Allied losses in the raid are eight ships sunk (including the U.S. Navy destroyer ), three ships run aground, 25 ships damaged (including the hospital ship Manunda), 30 aircraft destroyed, 310 people killed, and 400 people wounded; Japanese bombs also destroy the towns hospital and damage its post office, and the explosion of the docked cargo ship Neptuna – loaded with ammunition – virtually destroys the harbors facilities and sets fire to several large oil-storage tanks. In exchange, the Japanese lose three Vals, one Zero, two men killed, and one man captured. Flying a Curtiss P-40E Warhawk, United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) Lieutenant Robert Oestreicher shoots down two Vals, while Zeroes shoot down four other USAAF P-40Es; the six downed aircraft are the first confirmed aerial victories ever to occur over Australia. Although Japanese carrier aircraft never strike Darwin again, Japanese land-based aircraft will bomb the town 63 more times, the last raid taking place in mid-November 1943.Wilkinson, Stephan, "Australia's Pearl Harbor," Military History, March 2015, pp. 26-33. February 20 – The first combat between carrier-type aircraft of the Japanese and U.S. navies takes place between Rabaul-based Japanese aircraft and fighters from the aircraft carrier north of the Solomon Islands. The Americans lose two planes and one pilot, but claim to have shot down most of the 18 Japanese attackers; Lieutenant Edward H. "Butch" O'Hare shoots down five bombers to become the second U.S. Navy ace and the first in World War II.Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, Volume III: The Rising Sun in the Pacific 1931-April 1942, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988, p. 267. February 21 – Air Marshal Arthur T. Harris assumes command of RAF Bomber Command. Known to the press as "Bomber" Harris, he will command Bomber Command for the remainder of World War II.Hinchcliffe, Peter, The Other Battle: Lufatwaffe Night Aces vs. Bomber Command, Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books, 1996, , pp. 82-83. February 26 – First Intercontinental Division (ICD) flight, with ex-TWA Boeing 307 Stratoliners in USAAF service, but crewed by civilian TWA personnel, beginning the transatlantic passenger and critical cargo aerial ferry service between North American and Europe. February 26–27 (overnight) – 49 British bombers attack Kiel, Germany, with the loss of three aircraft. They score two hits on the German battlecruiser Gneisenau, killing 116 of her crew and damaging her so badly that she never is seaworthy again. February 27 – The aircraft tender USS Langley (AV-3), which once had been the U.S. Navys first aircraft carrier as , is sunk by Japanese aircraft in the Indian Ocean while trying to deliver Curtiss P-40 fighters from Australia to Java.Morison, Samuel Eliot, History of U.S. Naval Operations in World War II, Volume III: The Rising Sun in the Pacific 1931-April 1942, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1988, pp. 359-363.