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The Aviation Portal

A Boeing 747 in 1978 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 aircraft 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. Clément Ader built the "Ader Éole" in France and made an uncontrolled, powered hop in 1890. This is the first powered aircraft, although it did not achieve controlled flight. 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

Traditional general aviation fixed-wing light aircraft, the most numerous class of aircraft in the sector
Traditional general aviation fixed-wing light aircraft, the most numerous class of aircraft in the sector
General aviation in the United Kingdom has been defined as a civil aircraft operation other than a commercial air transport flight operating to a schedule. Although the International Civil Aviation Organization excludes any form of remunerated aviation from its definition, some commercial operations are often included within the scope of general aviation in the UK. The sector operates business jets, rotorcraft, piston and jet-engined fixed-wing aircraft, gliders of all descriptions, and lighter than air craft. Public transport operations include business (or corporate) aviation and air taxi services, and account for nearly half of the economic contribution made by the sector. There are 28,000 Private Pilot Licence holders, and 10,000 certified glider pilots. Although GA operates from more than 1,800 aerodromes and landing sites, ranging in size from large regional airports to farm strips, over 80 per cent of GA activity is conducted at 134 of the larger aerodromes. GA is regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority, although regulatory powers are being increasingly transferred to the European Aviation Safety Agency. The main focus is on standards of airworthiness and pilot licensing, and the objective is to promote high standards of safety. (Full article...)

Selected image

Airport traffic pattern diagram
Airport traffic pattern diagram
An airfield traffic pattern is a standard path followed by aircraft when taking off or landing at an airport.The pattern (or circuit) is used to coordinate air traffic, and differs from straight-in approaches and departures in that aircraft remain in close proximity to the airport. Circuits are usually employed at small general aviation (GA) airfields and military airbases.

Did you know

...that BŻ-1 GIL was the first Polish experimental helicopter? ... that the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, Michigan houses the only SR-71B Blackbird in existence? ... that teenage aviatrix Elinor Smith, the "Flying Flapper of Freeport", had her pilot's license suspended for 15 days for flying under New York City's four East River bridges in 1928?

More Did you know facts

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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

Elizabeth 'Bessie' Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926), popularly known as "Queen Bess", was the first African American (male or female) to become an airplane pilot, and the first American of any race or gender to hold an international pilot license. Growing up in Chicago, she heard tales of the world from pilots who were returning home from World War I. They told stories about flying in the war, and Coleman started to fantasize about being a pilot. She could not gain admission to American flight schools because she was black and a woman. No black U.S. aviator would train her either. Coleman took French language class at the Berlitz school in Chicago, and then traveled to Paris on November 20, 1920. Coleman learned to fly in a Nieuport Type 82 biplane.

Selected Aircraft

A spitfire in flight
A spitfire in flight

The Supermarine Spitfire was a single-seat fighter used by the RAF and many Allied countries in World War II.

Produced by Supermarine, the Spitfire was designed by R.J. Mitchell, who continued to refine it until his death from cancer in 1937. The elliptical wing had a thin cross-section, allowing a faster top speed than the Hurricane and other contemporary designs; it also resulted in a distinctive appearance. Much loved by its pilots, the Spitfire saw service during the whole of World War II, in all theatres of war, and in many different variants.

More than 20,300 examples of all variants were built, including two-seat trainers, with some Spitfires remaining in service well into the 1950s. It was the only fighter aircraft to be in continual production before, during and after the war.

The aircraft was dubbed Spitfire by Sir Robert MacLean, director of Vickers (the parent company of Supermarine) at the time, and on hearing this, Mitchell is reported to have said, "...sort of bloody silly name they would give it." The word dates from Elizabethan times and refers to a particularly fiery, ferocious type of person, usually a woman. The name had previously been used unofficially for Mitchell's earlier F.7/30 Type 224 design.

The prototype (K5054) first flew on March 5, 1936, from Eastleigh Aerodrome (later Southampton Airport). Testing continued until May 26, 1936, when Mutt Summers (Chief Test Pilot for Vickers (Aviation) Ltd.) flew K5054 to Martlesham and handed the aircraft over to Squadron Leader Anderson of the Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE).

  • Length: 29 ft 11 in (9.12 m)
  • Wingspan: 36 ft 10 in (11.23 m)
  • Height: 12 ft 8 in (3.86 m)
  • Number Built: 20,351 (excluding Seafires)
  • Maximum speed: 330 knots (378 mph, 605 km/h)
  • Maiden flight: March 5, 1936
  • Powerplant: 1× Rolls-Royce Merlin 45 supercharged V12 engine, 1470 hp at 9250 ft (1096 kW at 2820 m)

Today in Aviation

February 11

  • 2010 – An Italian Air Force General Dynamics F-16A Fighting Falcon from 5th Fighter Wing crashed into the Adriatic Sea 3 nautical miles (5.6 km) from the coast near Ravenna at 1530 hrs. when he was training with another aircraft of the same unit. Pilot survived.
  • 2009 – Two Grob G 115 Tutor aircraft collided above Porthcawl, South Wales killing four people. The aircraft took off from RAF St Athan shortly before. Among the dead were two female teenage cousins and two instructor pilots. See Porthcawl Mid-Air Collision.
  • 2008 – Adam Aircraft Industries (AAI), American aircraft manufacturer ceased operations.
  • 2008 – Death of Frank Piasecki, American engineer and helicopter aviation pioneer. Piasecki pioneered tandem rotor helicopter designs and created the compound helicopter concept of vectored thrust using a ducted propeller.
  • 2007 – A British C-130 Hercules is destroyed by coalition forces after being heavily damaged in a night landing in southern Iraq; two are injured. The aircraft was struck by two improvised explosive devices placed by insurgents, upon landing at a temporary runway in Maysan Province.[2][3]
  • 2006 – Steve Fossett set the absolute world record for “distance without landing” by flying his GlobalFlyer from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, around the world eastbound, then upon returning to Florida continuing across the Atlantic a second time to land in Bournemouth, England. The official distance was 25,766 statute miles (41,467 km) and the duration was 76 hours 45 min.
  • 2002 – First flight of the Airbus A340-500, European long-range wide-body four engine jet airliner.
  • 2000 – Jacqueline Auriol, French aviatrix, dies (b. 1917). Auriol earned a military pilot license 1950 then qualified as one of the first female test pilots. She was among the first women to break the sound barrier and set five world speed records. Her exploits earned her the Harmon Trophy 1951 and aga1952.
  • 2000 – JetBlue commences operations out of New York’s JFK Airport.
  • 2000 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-99 at 12:43 EST (17:43 UTC). Mission highlights: Shuttle Radar Topography Mission.
  • 1997 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-82 at 3:55:17 am EST. Mission highlights: Tethered satellite reflight, lost due to broken tether.
  • 1995 – STS-63, NASA Space Shuttle Discovery, second mission of the US/Russian Shuttle-Mir Program, which carried out the first rendezvous of the American Space Shuttle with Russia’s space station Mir, is back on earth.
  • 1993 – An Ethiopian man, Nebiu Demeke, hijacks Lufthansa Flight 592, an Airbus A310-300 with 103 other people on board, during a flight from Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He forces the aircraft to fly to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, where he surrenders to authorities without further incident. It is the first transatlantic hijacking since 1976.
  • 1992 – An F-16 jet crashes in residential district in the Netherlands. There are no fatalities.
  • 1991 – U. S. Air Force F-15 C Eagles of the 36th Tactical Fighter Wing use AIM-7 Sparrow missiles to shoot down two Iraqi helicopters.
  • 1988 – USMC McDonnell-Douglas AV-8B-4 Harrier II, BuNo 162071, c/n 512020/20, of VMA-331, crashes at Nellis AFB, Nevada, following engine flame-out.
  • 1987 – Following its privatization, British Airways shares begin trading on the London Stock Exchange.
  • 1986 – United completes its purchase of Pan Am’s Pacific division for $715 million and begins service to an additional 11 cities for a total of 13 cities in 10 Pacific Rim countries.
  • 1985 – Death of Benjamin L. Abruzzo, American hot air balloonist and businessman, Killed in the crash of his Cessna 421 near Albuquerque.
  • 1984 – Landed: Space shuttle Challenger STS-41-B at 12:15:55 UTC Kennedy Space Center. Mission highlights: Comsat deployments, first untethered spacewalk by Bruce McCandless II with Manned Maneuvering Unit; first landing at KSC; dry run of equipment for Solar Max rescue.
  • 1978 – Pacific Western Airlines Flight 314, a Boeing 737-200, from Edmonton crashes at Cranbrook Airport after thrust reversers did not fully stow following a rejected landing, killing 42 of the 48 people on board.
  • 1976 – Death of Alexander Martin Lippisch, German pioneer of aerodynamics. He made important contributions to the understanding of flying wings, delta wings and the ground effect. His most famous design is the Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket-powered interceptor.
  • 1970 – Launch of Osumi (or Ohsumi), first Japanese artificial satellite put into orbit.
  • 1969 – A Lockheed SP-2E Neptune, BuNo 131487, of a Navy Reserve unit based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, crashes in the Cleveland National Forest in the Santa Ana Mountains of Orange County, California, while on night training. Six crew KWF. The crew was serving two weeks of active duty at Naval Air Station Los Alamitos, 20 miles S of Los Angeles. The aircraft departed in the evening and headed for nearby MCAS El Toro for some night landing practice. The weather was somewhat cloudy and the rugged Santa Ana Mountains to the north were obscured. At 2023 hours local, a fighter jet flying over the area reported seeing a large fireball below him. The patrol plane was apparently executing a missed approach when its starboard wingtip struck the southern ridge of Harding Canyon. Aircraft cartwheels and disintegrates. KWF are Lt. Cmdr. Robert Frederick, pilot, 38, from White Bear, Minnesota; Lt. Cmdr. Beal Gordon Dolven Jr., co-pilot, 36, from Minneapolis; Lt. Cmdr. Oliver B. Walley, 34, from Menomonie, Wisconsin; Lt. John E. Surratt; Air Ordnanceman Walter R. Jacobson, 40, of St. Paul, Minnesota; Air Ordnanceman John Edward Hansen, 31, from Rochester, Minnesota; and Aviation Machinists Mate Harris R. Hendrickson, 47 of Minneapolis. Wings and tail of wreckage were removed, but much remains of the bomber in difficult, often near-vertical terrain.
  • 1965 – Operation Flaming Dart II begins as 99 U. S. Navy carrier aircraft attack enemy logistics and communications at Chanh Hoa barracks in southern North Vietnam near the Demilitarized Zone.
  • 1964 – US Navy select the Ling-Temco-Vought A-7 Corsair II for replacing their Douglas A-4 Skyhawk.
  • 1964 – During an evening airpower demonstration, an Douglas B-26 Invader on a strafing pass over Range 52 at Eglin AFB, Florida, loses a wing as it pulls up at ~1945 hrs., with the loss of two crew, both assigned to the 1st Air Commando Wing, Hurlburt Field. KWF are pilot Capt. Herman S. Moore, 34, of 28 Palmetto Drive, Mary Esther, Florida, and navigator Capt. Lawrence L. Lively, 31, of 19 Azalea Drive, Mary Esther, Florida. Moore, originally of Livingston, Montana is survived by his widow, Nancy Lee Moore, and a stepson, John H. Duckworth, 9, and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. William N. Moore, 117 South 10th Street, Livingston. Mrs. Moore is a teacher in the Okaloosa County School system. Lively is survived by his widow, Joan R. Lively. The Invader was participating in a demonstration of the Special Air Warfare Center's counter insurgency capabilities, an activity that had been presented on average of twice each month for the past 21 months. This was the first such accident for SAWC during that period. The USAF subsequently grounds all combat B-26s on 8 April as the stress of operations now exceed the airframes' abilities. On Mark Engineering Company remanufactures 41 old airframes as one YB-26K and forty B-26Ks with new spars, larger engines and rudders, and new 1964 fiscal year serial numbers which see use in Southeast Asia, and which will be redesignated A-26As for political reasons.
  • 1960 – Birth of Richard Alan “Rick” Mastracchio, American engineer and NASA astronaut.
  • 1959 – A US meteorological balloon achieves a record height of 146,000 ft. carrying a special package of detectors sending information by radio signal to the ground.
  • 1958 – Ruth Carol Taylor becomes the first African American flight attendant in the United States after being hired by Mohawk Airlines.
  • 1958 – A USAF Boeing B-52D-70-BO Stratofortress, 56‑0610, c/n 17293, of the 28th Bomb Wing, on a training mission that had originated at Larson AFB near Moses Lake, Washington, crashes at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, during a landing attempt in a snowstorm, killing five aircrewmen and injuring six other persons. This was the first crash of a B-52 at Ellsworth.
  • 1954 – No. 1 Overseas Ferry Unit left St. Hubert Que with the first 14 Sabres for Squadrons in Europe led by S/L R. Middlemiss.
  • 1954 – Test pilot John R. Noll began tethered hovering flight tests of the McDonnell XV-1, US experimental compound helicopter, designated as a convertiplane.
  • 1953 – Birth of Stephen Douglas Thorne, American Naval officer and NASA astronaut candidate.
  • 1950 – A Twin-engine Beechcraft D-18 cargo air service aircraft flying from Dayton, Ohio to Albuquerque, New Mexico, crashed four miles (6 km) west of West Mesa Airport with a pilot and two AEC security guards aboard. Plane was making an approach to a landing strip when it encountered a cloud and broke off the approach. While circling around the mesa atop which the airstrip was located, it hit a steep slope in an upright position. Completely demolished by the ensuing impact and fire, killing all three men aboard, the classified cargo of 792 HE detonator units in 22 boxes was destroyed – salvaged from the wreckage. As there was no evidence of sabotage, and since none of the detonators appeared to be missing, the incident was not reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
  • 1949 – First flight of the CASA C-201 Alcotán (“Kestrel”), a Spanish twin-engine low-wing cantilever monoplane military transport aircraft.
  • 1945 – First flight of the Consolidated Vultee XP-81, American single seat, long range escort fighter prototype that combined use of both a turbojet and a turboprop engines.
  • 1944 – Carrier aircraft of U. S. Navy Task Force 58 strike Eniwetok.
  • 1944 – Supporting American operations in the Marshall Islands, carrier aircraft of U. S. Navy Task Force 58 since January 29 have flown 6,232 sorties and dropped 1,156.6 tons (1,049,261 kg) of bombs, losing 22 aircraft in combat and 27 to other causes.
  • 1944 – A Wellington bomber of No.407 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force, sank the German submarine U-283 in the North Atlantic.
  • 1942 – (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 Luftwaffe’s 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 Beauforts attempt torpedo attacks, but score no hits.
  • 1941 – Death of Mario Visintini, first Regia Aeronautica WWII ace, crashing his Fiat CR42 on Mount Nefasit, Eritrea because of Storm. He was the top scoring pilot of all belligerent air forces in Eastern Africa (Africa Orientale) and the top biplane fighter ace of WW2.
  • 1938 – First flight of the Bristol Type 146, a British single-seat, eight-gun fighter monoplane prototype.
  • 1935 – First Flight in the United States with a car slung underneath the fuselage takes place.
  • 1932 – First flight of the Couzinet 70, a French three-engined commercial monoplane.
  • 1920 – Birth of Daniel “Chappie” James Jr., American WWII, Korean and Vietnam War fighter pilot and first black American to reach the rank of four-star general.
  • 1914 – Distance record for balloons over land is set by H. Berliner, who flies 1,890 miles (c. 3,040 km) from Bitterfeldt, Germany to Kirgischano, Russia.
  • 1913 – Escuela de Aviación del Capitán Manuel Ávalos Prado is founded, it will become later Fuerza Aérea de Chile, (Chilean Air Force).
  • 1909 – An important pioneer in developing aviation in New Zealand, Vivian C. Walsh pilots a Howard-Wright biplane on what is generally considered the first flight in New Zealand by a powered airplane.
  • 1905 – Arthur Charles Hubert Latham accompanied his cousin, the balloonist Jacques Faure, on a night crossing of the English Channel (from London to Paris) in a gas balloon.
  • 1897 – Birth of Rudolf Stark, German WWI flying ace.
  • 1893 – Birth of Harold William Medlicott, British WWI flying ace.
  • 1888 – Birth of Lewis Hector “Hec” Ray, Canadian WWI flying ace.

References

  1. ^ Hradecky, Simon. "Accident: Click Mexicana F100 at Monterrey on February 11th 2010, landed without main gear". Aviation Herald. Retrieved 13 February 2010.
  2. ^ "Hercules destroyed to safeguard equipment". thisiswiltshire.co.uk. 2007-02-17. Retrieved 2007-02-17.
  3. ^ "MoD covered up truth about Hercules". 2008-05-19. Retrieved 2010-07-16. The Ministry of Defence covered up the full truth about the destruction of an RAF Hercules aircraft by Iraqi insurgents to stop the enemy claiming a high-profile propaganda victory, a new report discloses. The C-130J transport aircraft was struck by two bombs planted by militants as it landed on a temporary runway in Maysan Province in south-eastern Iraq on February 12 last year. All 64 people on board escaped to safety but the Hercules was so badly damaged it had to be destroyed by coalition explosives experts.
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