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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

Hot air balloon
Hot air balloon
The hot air balloon is the oldest successful human-carrying flight technology. On November 21, 1783, in Paris, France, the first manned flight was made by Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes in a hot air balloon created by the Montgolfier brothers.

A hot air balloon consists of a bag called the envelope that is capable of containing heated air. Suspended beneath is the gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule) which carries the passengers and a source of heat. The heated air inside the envelope makes it buoyant since it has a lower density than the relatively cold air outside the envelope. Unlike gas balloons, the envelope does not have to be sealed at the bottom since the air near the bottom of the envelope is at the same pressure as the surrounding air. In today's sport balloons the envelope is generally made from nylon fabric and the mouth of the balloon (closest to the burner flame) is made from fire resistant material such as Nomex.

Recently, balloon envelopes have been made in all kinds of shapes, such as hot dogs, rocket ships, and the shapes of commercial products. Hot air balloons that can be propelled through the air rather than just being pushed along by the wind are known as airships or, more specifically, thermal airships. (Full article...)

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Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Bell 206 Jetranger helicopter

Did you know

...that the Brimstone missile, an anti-tank guided missile, is carried by three Royal Air Force aeroplane types? ...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 five UH-1 Iroquois helicopters of the Experimental Military Unit were shot down by a single Viet Cong soldier armed with an AK-47 rifle?

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
Read and edit Wikinews

Associated Wikimedia

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

Selected biography

Amelia Earhart, c. 1928
Amelia Mary Earhart (July 24, 1897 – missing as of July 2, 1937), daughter of Edwin and Amy Earhart, was an American aviator and noted early female pilot who mysteriously disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during a circumnavigational flight in 1937.

By 1919 Earhart had enrolled at Columbia University to study pre-med but quit a year later to be with her parents in California. Later in Long Beach she and her father went to a stunt-flying exhibition and the next day she went on a ten minute flight.

Earhart had her first flying lesson at Kinner Field near Long Beach. Her teacher was Anita Snook, a pioneer female aviator. Six months later Earhart purchased a yellow Kinner Airster biplane which she named "Canary". On October 22, 1922, she flew it to an altitude of 14,000 feet, setting a women's world record.

After Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, Amy Guest, a wealthy American living in London, England expressed interest in being the first woman to fly (or be flown) across the Atlantic Ocean, but after deciding the trip was too dangerous to make herself, she offered to sponsor the project, suggesting they find "another girl with the right image." While at work one afternoon in April 1928 Earhart got a phone call from a man who asked her, "Would you like to fly the Atlantic?"

Selected Aircraft

An ERJ-145 of BA CitiExpress (now BA Connect) takes off from Bristol Airport (UK)
An ERJ-145 of BA CitiExpress (now BA Connect) takes off from Bristol Airport (UK)

The Embraer ERJ-145 is a regional jet produced by Embraer, a Brazilian aerospace company. The ERJ 145 is the largest of a family of airliners, which also includes the ERJ 135, ERJ 140, and Legacy. All aircraft in the series are powered by two turbofan engines. It is one of the most popular regional jet families in the world with primary competition coming from the Canadair Regional Jet.

The first flight of the ERJ 145 was on August 11, 1995, with the first delivery in December 1996 to ExpressJet Airlines (then the regional division of Continental Airlines). ExpressJet is the largest operator of the ERJ 145, with 270 of the nearly 1000 ERJ 145s in service. The second largest operator is American Eagle, with 206 ERJ 145 aircraft. Chautauqua Airlines also operates 95 ERJ 145s through its alliances with American Connection, Delta Connection, US Airways Express and United Express. By some accounts, the ERJ 145 has a cost of ownership of about $2,500,000 per year.

  • Span: 20.04 m (65 ft 9 in)
  • Length: 29.9 m (98 ft 0 in)
  • Height: 6.76 m (22 ft 2 in)
  • Engines: 2× Rolls-Royce AE 3007A turbofans, 33.0 kN (7,420 lbf) thrust each
  • Cruising Speed: 834 km/h (518 mph, Mach 0.78)
  • First Flight: August 11, 1995
  • Number built: ≈1000

Today in Aviation

February 8

  • 2011 – A Royal Jordanian Air Force General Dynamics F-16AM Fighting Falcon crashed in central Jordan, killing the pilot.
  • 2010 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-130 at 09:14 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 20A: Node 3 and Cupola.
  • 2008 – Eagle Airways Flight 2279, a BAe Jetstream 32, is hijacked ten minutes after taking off from Blenheim, New Zealand by a passenger who attacked both pilots. The hijacker is eventually restrained by the co-pilot and the flight lands safely at Christchurch. All nine on board survive the incident.
  • 2006 – Steve Fossett takes off The Scaled Composites Model 311 Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer for a world endurance record.
  • 1999 – First flight of the Tupolev Tu-334, a Russian short to medium range airliner project that was developed to replace the aging Tu-134 s and Yak-42 s
  • 1993 – Iran Air Tours Tupolev Tu-154 departing on a non-scheduled flight from Mehrabad International Airport, Tehran, to Khoram Dareh is involved in a midair collision with an Iranian Air Force Sukhoi Su-24 that was on approach to the same airport.
  • 1988 – The Federal Aviation Administration retires an aircraft registration number for the first time – That of Amelia Earhart’s airplane, which disappeared over the Pacific in July 1937.
  • 1982 – Death of Vladimir Yevgeniyevich Turovets, Russian test pilot in the crash of a Mi-8 Helicopter.
  • 1974 – The crew of Skylab 4 leaves the American space station for the last time.
  • 1974 – A USAF Boeing B-52G Stratofortress, 58-0174, of the 744th BS, 456th BW, veered off the runway during night take-off from Beale AFB, California, skidded 1,500 feet through a muddy field before overturning, destroyed by four massive explosions and fire. One crew member, the first pilot, was thrown free with severe burns, but seven others perished.
  • 1967 – First flight of the Saab 37 Viggen, a Swedish single-seat, single-engine, short-medium range fighter and attack aircraft.
  • 1965 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 663, a Douglas DC-7B on takeoff, overreacts in avoiding Pan Am Flight 212 (a Boeing 707) on approach, loses control, and crashes into the ocean several miles off Jones Beach State Park, New York, killing all 84 on board.
  • 1958 – A nuclear weapon was inadvertently dropped from a Boeing B-52D Stratofortress bomber parked at a pad and ready to be unloaded at Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota. Preliminary reports indicated that an airman erred and pulled the manual release handle which released the weapon from the bomb bay and through the unopened bomb bay doors. Damage to the weapon included a dented afterbody, two smashed fins, and a displaced secondary. There was no capsule aboard the aircraft. The bomb was loaded aboard a trailer and removed to the Q Area weapons maintenance depot (Site F) at Rushmore Air Force Station, South Dakota, adjacent to Ellsworth AFB. The damaged weapon was later exchanged for an operational weapon from stockpile.
  • 1956 – A flight of eight Royal Air Force Hawker Hunter F1s was redirected to another airfield due to inclement weather. With low visibility over the alternate airfield and little fuel left, six aircraft ran out of fuel and crashed, with one pilot killed.
  • 1951 – First flight of the Leduc 0.16, a French research aircraft powered solely by a ramjet, evolution of the 0.10 featuring a Turbomeca Marbore I turbojet on each wingtip, to provide better control during landings
  • 1950 – A Lockheed P-2 Neptune of the US Navy establishes a distance record for carrier-launched aircraft flying 5,156 miles in 25 hours 59 min, non-stop from the Atlantic to San Francisco.
  • 1943 – The second Bell XP-39E Airacobra (of three), 41-19502, is damaged during a forced landing when a Wright Field test pilot runs out of fuel short of Niagara Falls Airport, New York, where the Bell Aircraft plant is located.
  • 1941 – Prototype Curtiss XSB2C Helldiver, BuNo 1758, suffers engine failure just prior to landing and fuselage is heavily damaged. Repaired.
  • 1933 – Squadron Leader O Gayford (officer in charge of the RAF Long Range Development Unit) and his navigator Flight Lieutenant G. E. Nicholetts lands their Fairey Long-Range Monoplane at Walvis Bay, South West Africa. Coming from Cranwell they set a 5,309 mile (8,544 km) flight, new distance record. They took 57 hours 25 min.
  • 1933 – First flight of the Boeing 247, an early US airliner, considered the first such aircraft to fully incorporate advances such as all-metal (anodized aluminum) semi-monocoque construction, a fully cantilevered wing and retractable landing gear.
  • 1928 – Charles Lindbergh with the Spirit of St Louis completes the 7,800-mile (12,600 km) “Good Will Tour” of Latin America and the Caribbean after having spent 125 hours in the air.
  • 1919 – Henry Farman carries 11 paying passengers in his F.60 Goliath plane from Paris to London on first commercial flight between the two cities.
  • 1918 – Lafayette Escadrille, the US volunteer squadron serving in the French Army is transferred to the US Army and re-designated the 103rd Aero Squadron.
  • 1917 – First allied pilot to shoot down a German heavy bomber is French Georges Guynemer, bringing down a Gotha G.III with his Spad VII.
  • 1914 – 8-10 – Berliner, Haase and Nikolai fly 3053 km in their free balloon from Bitterfeld to Perm. This record lasted until 1950.
  • 1913 – Russian pilot N. de Sackoff becomes the first pilot shot down in combat when his biplane, possibly a Maurice Farman MF.7, is hit by ground fire following bomb run on the walls of Fort Bizani during the First Balkan War. Flying for the Greeks, he comes down near small town of Preveza, on the coast N of the Aegean island of Levkas, secures local Greek assistance, repairs plane and resumes flight back to base.
  • 1912 – Robert Grant Fowler lands his Wright biplane in Jacksonville, Florida, after a 4 months west to east coast-to-coast journey. coming from San Francisco. He becomes the first person to traverse the US from the West Coast to the East Coast.
  • 1912 – Birth of Horst Ademeit, German WWII fighter ace.
  • 1909 – Birth of Wassili Iwanowitsch Rakow, Soviet WWII Pilot and high-ranking officer.
  • 1908 – First flight of the Gastambide-Mengin monoplane, (later Gastambide-Mengin I, Gastambide-Mengin II and Antoinette II), early French experimental aircraft designed by Leon Levavasseur and first aircraft built by the Antoinette company.
  • 1902 – Birth of Gori Castellani, Italian raid aviator.
  • 1899 – Birth of Lester James Maitland, American aviation pioneer and a veteran pilot of WWI and WWII.
  • 1896 – Birth of Bruce Digby-Worsley, British WWI fighter ace.
  • 1894 – Birth of Air Marshal William Avery “Billy” Bishop VC, CB, DSO & Bar, MC, DFC, ED, Canadian WWI flying ace, officially credited with 72 victories, making him the top Canadian ace, and according to some sources, the top ace of the British Empire.
  • 1894 – Birth of Erich Bönisch, German WWI flying ace.
  • 1892 – Birth of William Spurrett Fielding-Johnson, British WWI flying ace.
  • 1892 – Birth of Wilhelm Fahlbusch, German WWI flying ace.
  • 1886 – Birth of Gunther Plüschow, German aviator, aerial explorer and author, Only German Prisoner of war (in either WW) to escape from Britain back to Germany.
  • 1884 – Birth of John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon, first Baron Brabazon of Tara, GBE, MC, PC, English aviation pioneer and politician, first Englishman to pilot a heavier-than-air machine under power in England, who he served as Minister of Transport and Minister of Aircraft Production during WWII.
  • 1882 – Birth of Thomas Etholen Selfridge, first person to die in a crash of a powered airplane. He was a passenger while Orville Wright was piloting the Wright Flyer.
  • 1862 – Birth of Ferdinand Ferber, French Army artillery captain who played an important role in the development of aviation.
  • 1825 – Birth of Henri Giffard, French engineer, who invented the steam injector and the powered airship.

References

  1. ^ "PICTURES & VIDEO: Boeing's 747-8F lifts off on maiden flight". Flight International. Archived from the original on 12 February 2010. Retrieved 8 February 2010.
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