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The Aviation Portal

A Boeing 747 operated by Pan Am

Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. Aircraft includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air balloons and airships.

Aviation began in the 18th century with the development of the hot air balloon, an apparatus capable of atmospheric displacement through buoyancy. Some of the most significant advancements in aviation technology came with the controlled gliding flying of Otto Lilienthal in 1896; then a large step in significance came with the construction of the first powered airplane by the Wright brothers in the early 1900s. Since that time, aviation has been technologically revolutionized by the introduction of the jet which permitted a major form of transport throughout the world. (Full article...)

Selected article

A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine driven rotors. In contrast with fixed-wing aircraft, this allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards and laterally. These attributes allow helicopters to be used in congested or isolated areas where fixed-wing aircraft would not be able to take off or land. The capability to efficiently hover for extended periods of time allows a helicopter to accomplish tasks that fixed-wing aircraft and other forms of vertical takeoff and landing aircraft cannot perform.

The word 'helicopter' is adapted from the French hélicoptère, coined by Gustave de Ponton d'Amecourt in 1861, which originates from the Greek helix/helik- (ἕλικ-) = 'spiral' or 'turning' and pteron (πτερόν) = 'wing'.

Helicopters were developed and built during the first half-century of flight, with some reaching limited production, but it was not until 1942 that a helicopter designed by Igor Sikorsky reached full-scale production, with 131 aircraft built. Though most earlier designs used more than one main rotor, it was the single main rotor with antitorque tail rotor configuration of this design that would come to be recognized worldwide as the helicopter. (Full article...)

Selected image

Credit: Alfred T. Palmer
Assembling B-25 bombers at North American Aviation -- Kansas City, Kansas; Reproduction from color slide

Did you know

...that Astro Flight, Incorporated of Marina del Rey, California created the world's first practical electric-powered radio controlled model airplane and the world's first full-scale solar-powered airplane? ...that during World War II, Marine Fighting Squadron 215 established four new U.S. Marine Corps records in the South Pacific including having the most ace pilots? ... that in the middle of building Fagernes Airport, Leirin, the authorities changed their minds and gave the airport more than twice the runway length?

More Did you know facts

General images - load new batch

The following are images from various aviation-related articles on Wikipedia.

In the news

Wikinews Aviation portal
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Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Selected biography

Charles Yeager
Charles Elwood "Chuck" Yeager (born February 13, 1923) is a retired Brigadier-General in the United States Air Force and a noted test pilot. In 1947, he became the first pilot (at age 24) to travel faster than sound in level flight and ascent.

His career began in World War II as a private in the U.S. Army Air Forces. After serving as an aircraft mechanic, in September 1942 he entered enlisted pilot training and upon graduation was promoted to the rank of Flight Officer (WW 2 U.S. Army Air Forces rank equivalent to Warrant Officer) and became a P-51 Mustang fighter pilot. After the war he became a test pilot of many kinds of aircraft and rocket planes. Yeager was the first man to break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1 at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13,700 m). Although Scott Crossfield was the first man to fly faster than Mach 2 in 1953, Yeager shortly thereafter exceeded Mach 2.4.[1] He later commanded fighter squadrons and wings in Germany and in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, and in recognition of the outstanding performance ratings of those units he then was promoted to Brigadier-General. Yeager's flying career spans more than sixty years and has taken him to every corner of the globe, even into the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War.

Selected Aircraft

Concorde at Heathrow
Concorde at Heathrow

Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde supersonic transport (SST), along with the Tupolev Tu-144, was one of only two models of supersonic passenger airliners to have seen commercial service.

Concorde had a cruise speed of Mach 2.02 (around 2170 km/h or 1,350 mph) and a maximum cruise altitude of 60,000 feet (18 300 metres) with a delta wing configuration and a reheat-equipped evolution of the engines originally developed for the Avro Vulcan strategic bomber. The engines were built by Rolls-Royce. Concorde was the first civil airliner to be equipped with an analogue fly-by-wire flight control system. Commercial flights, operated by British Airways and Air France, began on January 21, 1976 and ended on October 24, 2003, with the last "retirement" flight on November 26 that year.

Construction of the first two prototypes began in February 1965. Concorde 001 was built by Aerospatiale at Toulouse and Concorde 002 by BAC at Filton, Bristol. Concorde 001 took off for the first test flight from Toulouse on March 2, 1969 and the first supersonic flight followed on October 1. As the flight programme of the first development aircraft progressed, 001 started off on a sales and demonstration tour beginning on September 4, 1971. Concorde 002 followed suit on June 2, 1972 with a sales tour of the Middle and Far East. Concorde 002 made the first visit to the United States in 1973, landing at the new Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to commemorate its opening.

  • Span: 84 ft 0 in (25.6 m).
  • Length: 202 ft 4 in[2] (61.66 m)
  • Height: 40 ft 0 in (12.2 m )
  • Engines: 4× Rolls-Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593 Mk 610 afterburning turbojets 170 kN each.
  • Cruising Speed: Mach 2.04 (1,350 mph, 2,170 km/h)
  • First Flight: March 2, 1969
  • Number built: 20 (including prototypes)

Today in Aviation

August 9

  • 2010 – JetBlue flight attendant incident was an altercation that occurred after JetBlue Airways Flight 1052, a flight from Pittsburgh to New York City, had landed. The incident garnered significant media attention when, upon landing, Steven Slater, a flight attendant, announced over the plane’s public address system that he had been called an obscenity by a passenger, quit his job, deployed the evacuation slide at the terminal gate, and slid down it. Slater claimed to have been injured by a passenger when he instructed her to sit down. Slater’s account of the event was not corroborated by others.
  • 2007 – Air Moorea Flight 1121, operated on an Air Moorea de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter airplane, crashed shortly after taking off from Temae Airport on Moorea island in French Polynesia; the plane was bound for Tahiti. According to the official report by Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses pour la sécurité de l’Aviation Civile, all 20 occupants, including 19 passengers and one crew member, died.
  • 2006 – Transatlantic aircraft plot was a terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives carried on board at least 10 airliners travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States and Canada. The plot was discovered and foiled by British police before it could be carried out and, as a result, unprecedented security measures were immediately put in place.
  • 1996 – Sir Frank Whittle, inventor of the jet engine, dies at 89.
  • 1995 – Aviateca Flight 901, a Boeing 737, crashes into San Vicente volcano while on approach to Cuscatlán International Airport; all 65 on board die.
  • 1980 – Jacqueline Cochrane, US pilot / first female to fly faster than sound, dies at 70.
  • 1976 – USSR launches Luna 24, last Lunar flight to date from Earth.
  • 1976 – Sikorsky YUH-60A UTTAS, 73-21650, first prototype to fly, fully loaded with 14 Army personnel during testing, makes emergency landing at 2315 hrs. in a wooded area of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, due to vibration caused by outer skin of a main rotor blade coming loose. Due to heavy mist, pilot CW2 Charlie Lovell believes he is landing in a cornfield but instead comes down in a pine forest. Main rotor scythes down 40 pines, some as large as five inches in diameter, as it lands, but main rotor blades do not shatter. Only injury is to a soldier who bumps his head against a truncated pine as he egresses the helicopter. After cutting down stumps around the aircraft, and replacing the main and tail rotors, the now-nicknamed "Phoenix" is flown out of the site three days later. US Army, duly impressed by the crash survivability shown, will award the UTTAS contract to Sikorsky and the design will be named the Blackhawk. This airframe will be destroyed in a crash on 19 May 1978.
  • 1974 – A Buffalo of 116 ATU was shot down by a Syrian Missile while on a routine flight between Beirut and Damascus. The flight was commanded by Capt. Gary Foster of Comox. Nine Canadians lost their lives.
  • 1974 – RAF McDonnell Douglas/Hawker Siddeley F-4M Phantom FGR.2, XV493, 'F', of No. 41 Squadron was involved in fatal mid-air collision with a Piper Pawnee crop-sprayer, G-ASVK, over Fordham Fen near Downham Market, Norfolk, England. Two Phantom and one Pawnee crew all KWF.
  • 1970 – LANSA Flight 502, a Lockheed L-188 Electra turboprop, crashes and burns shortly after takeoff from Cuzco, Peru, killing 99 people on the plane and two on the ground; among the dead are 49 U.S. high school exchange students.
  • 1967 – The world’s first radar-equipped antsubmarine helicopter enters service, a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm Westland Wessex HAS.3 with No. 814 Squadron.
  • 1961 – The Holtaheia Accident: An Eagle Airways Vickers VC.1 Viking crashes at Holta, Strand, Norway, killing all 39 on board, including 36 people from the Archbishop Lanfranc School.
  • 1950 – The first Canadian built Sabre Mark 1 flew.
  • 1950 – Al Lily became the first Canadian to break the Sound Barrier.
  • 1949 – US Navy pilot Lt. J. L. "Pappy" Fruin of VF-101 loses control of his McDonnell F2H-1 Banshee at 500 mph and 30,000 feet and ejects over Walterboro, South Carolina, becoming the first American Naval aviator to use an ejector seat during an actual in-flight emergency. VF-101 was the first Navy unit to receive the type.
  • 1949 – The first Canadian passenger jet (second in the world after the British), the Avro Canada Jetliner, is flown at Malton. Despite its advanced design, it never saw production and was later sold for scrap.
  • 1945 – Carrier aircraft of Task Force 38 conduct devastating strikes against Japanese airfields in northern Honshu where the Japanese had been marshalling aircraft for a planned major suicide strike on B-29 bases in the Mariana Islands. The Americans claim 251 Japanese aircraft destroyed and 141 damaged.
  • 1942 – The P-38 Lightning fighter scores its first aerial victories when two P-38 s of the 343rd Fighter Group flown by U. S. Army Air Forces Lieutenants K. Ambrose and S. A. Long shoot down two Japanese Kawanishi H6 K4 flying boats near the Aleutian Islands.
  • 1941 – Flying a Dornier Do 215 B-5 night fighter, Luftwaffe Oberleutnant Ludwig Becker achieves Germany’s first aerial victory employing airborne radar, using a Lichtenstein radar to detect and close with a British Vickers Wellington bomber participating in a raid on Hamburg, Germany, before shooting down the Wellington.
  • 1936 – Six aircraft support a Republican seizure of Ibiza.
  • 1918 – Eight Italian Ansaldo SVA biplanes of the 87 Squadriglia “Serenimissa”, led by Gabriele D’Annunzio, fly over Vienna for 30 min taking photographs and dropping leaflets before returning to base without loss.
  • 1896 – Otto Lilienthal crashes during a routine flight in the hills of Stölln and dies next day because of a spinal injury.
  • 1884 – The first fully controllable free-flight is made in a French Army dirigible La France by Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs. The electric-powered flight covers 8 km (5 miles) in 23 min. It was the first full circle flight with landing on the starting point.

References

  1. ^ Yeager, Chuck and Janos, Leo. Yeager: An Autobiography. p. 252 (paperback). New York: Bantam Books, 1986. ISBN 0-553-25674-2.
  2. ^ "Cargo Plane Handed Over to Libya Rebels". Arabs Today. Agence France-Presse. 11 August 2011. Retrieved 28 August 2011.
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