Portal:Aviation

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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 was 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 Wright Flyer, 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

Flight 11 flightpath

American Airlines Flight 11 was a scheduled U.S. domestic passenger flight from Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles International Airport. It was hijacked by five men and deliberately crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City as part of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Fifteen minutes into the flight, the hijackers injured at least three people, forcefully breached the cockpit, and overpowered the pilot and first officer. Mohamed Atta, who was a known member of al-Qaeda, and trained as a pilot, took over the controls. Air traffic controllers noticed the flight was in distress when the crew stopped responding to them. They realized the flight had been hijacked when Atta mistakenly transmitted announcements to air traffic control. On board, two flight attendants contacted American Airlines, and provided information about the hijackers and injuries to passengers and crew.

The aircraft crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 08:46 local time; the impact killed all 92 people aboard, including the hijackers. Many people in the streets witnessed the collision, and Jules Naudet captured the impact on video. News agencies began to report on the incident soon after and speculated that the crash had been an accident. The impact and subsequent fire caused the North Tower to collapse, which resulted in thousands of additional casualties. During the recovery effort at the World Trade Center site, workers recovered and identified dozens of remains from Flight 11 victims, but many other body fragments could not be identified. (Full article...)

More selected articles

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Did you know

...that George H. W. Bush flew a TBF Avenger while he was in the U.S. Navy? ...that the Aerocar Coot was a two-seat amphibious aircraft designed for home-building by Moulton Taylor? ... that in the middle of building Fagernes Airport, Leirin, the authorities changed their minds and gave the airport more than twice the runway length?

General images -

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

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  Qantas De Havilland biplane, c. 1930 (from History of aviation)
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  First failure of Langley's manned Aerodrome on the Potomac River, 7 October 1903 (from History of aviation)
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  Clément Ader Avion III (1897 photograph) (from History of aviation)
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  Planophore model aeroplane by Alphonse Pénaud, 1871 (from History of aviation)
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  Sailplane, a Rolladen-Schneider LS4 (from General aviation)
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  D.H. Comet, the world's first jet airliner. As in this picture, it also saw RAF service (from History of aviation)
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  Daedalus working on Icarus' wings (from History of aviation)
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  First female combat pilot, Sabiha Gökçen, reviews her Breguet 19 (from History of aviation)
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  Woodcut print of a kite from John Bate's 1635 book The Mysteryes of Nature and Art (from History of aviation)
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  The Wright Military Flyer aboard a wagon in 1908 (from History of aviation)
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  The Wright Flyer: the first sustained flight with a powered, controlled aircraft (from History of aviation)
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  1843 artist's impression of John Stringfellow's plane Ariel flying over the Nile (from History of aviation)
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  The Aeroplane of Victor Tatin, 1879. (from History of aviation)
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  The Biot-Massia glider, restored and on display in the Musee de l'Air (from History of aviation)
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  Early Voisin biplane (from History of aviation)
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  Robinson R22, a light piston-engine helicopter (from General aviation)
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  "Map of Air Routes and Landing Places in Great Britain, as temporarily arranged by the Air Ministry for civilian flying", published in 1919, showing Hounslow, near London, as the hub (from History of aviation)
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  Experimental helicopter by Enrico Forlanini (1877), exposed at the Museo nazionale della scienza e della tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci of Milan, Italy (from History of aviation)
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  The business class cabin on an A350 (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  1928 issue of Popular Aviation (now Flying magazine), which became the largest aviation magazine with a circulation of 100,000. (from History of aviation)
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  Alberto Santos-Dumont flying the Demoiselle over Paris (from History of aviation)
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  Map of record breaking flights of the 1920s (from History of aviation)
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  "Governable parachute" design of 1852 (from History of aviation)
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  Santos-Dumont's "Number 6" rounding the Eiffel Tower in the process of winning the Deutsch de la Meurthe Prize, October 1901 (from History of aviation)
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  German Taube monoplane, illustration from 1917 (from History of aviation)
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  Concorde, G-BOAB, in storage at London Heathrow Airport following the end of all Concorde flying. This aircraft flew for 22,296 hours between its first flight in 1976 and final flight in 2000 (from History of aviation)
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  Apollo 11 lifts off on its mission to land a man on the Moon (from History of aviation)
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  Otto Lilienthal, 29 May 1895 (from History of aviation)
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  One of Leonardo's sketches (from History of aviation)
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  French reconnaissance balloon L'Intrépide of 1796, the oldest existing flying device, in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna (from History of aviation)
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  Jean-Marie Le Bris and his flying machine, Albatros II, 1868 (from History of aviation)
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  Nieuport IV, operated by most of the world's air forces before WW1 for reconnaissance and bombing, including during the Italian-Turkish war (from History of aviation)
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  Cathay Pacific's first class cabin on board a Boeing 747-400 (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  Me 262, world first operational jet fighter (from History of aviation)
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  Leonardo da Vinci's ornithopter design (from History of aviation)
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  Félix du Temple's 1874 Monoplane (from History of aviation)
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  The economy class cabin of an Airbus A350 (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  The 14-bis, or Oiseau de proie (from History of aviation)
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  A Boeing 787 Dreamliner of United Airlines landing at Beijing Capital International Airport on 28 December 2018. (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  Flagg biplane from 1933 (from History of aviation)
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  Cessna CitationJet/M2, part of the Citation family of business jets (from General aviation)
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  General aviation aircraft at Cheb Airfield in Czech Republic (from General aviation)
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  Maxim's flying machine (from History of aviation)
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  La France flying in 1885 (from History of aviation)

In the news

Wikinews Aviation portal

• May 29: Austrian Airlines cancels Moscow-bound flight after Russia refuses a reroute outside Belarusian airspace
• August 8: Passenger flight crashes upon landing at Calicut airport in India
• June 4: Power firm helicopter strikes cables, crashes near Fairfield, California
• January 29: Former basketball player Kobe Bryant dies in helicopter crash, aged 41
• January 13: Iran admits downing Ukrainian jet, cites 'human error'
• January 10: Fire erupts in parking structure at Sola Airport, Norway
• October 27: US announces restrictions on flying to Cuba
• October 3: World War II era plane crashes in Connecticut, US, killing at least seven
• September 10: Nevada prop plane crash near Las Vegas leaves two dead, three injured
• August 6: French inventor Franky Zapata successfully crosses English Channel on jet-powered hoverboard

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Selected biography

Wiley Hardeman Post (November 22, 1898 – August 15, 1935) was the first pilot to fly solo around the world. Also known for his work in high altitude flying, Post helped develop one of the first pressure suits. His plywood aircraft, the Winnie Mae is on display at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA, and his pressure suit is being prepared for display at the same location. On August 15, 1935, Post and American humorist Will Rogers were killed when Post's plane crashed on takeoff from a lagoon near Point Barrow, Alaska.

Selected Aircraft

The Convair B-36 was a strategic bomber built by Convair for the United States Air Force, the first to have truly intercontinental range. Unofficially nicknamed the "Peacemaker", the B-36 was the first thermonuclear weapon delivery vehicle, the largest piston aircraft ever to be mass-produced, and the largest warplane of any kind.

The B-36 was the only American aircraft with the range and payload to carry such bombs from airfields on American soil to targets in the USSR, as storing nuclear weapons in foreign countries was diplomatically delicate. The nuclear deterrent the B-36 afforded may have kept the Soviet Army from fighting alongside the North Korean and Chinese armies during the Korean War. Convair touted the B-36 as an "aluminum overcast," a "long rifle" to give SAC a global reach. When General Curtis LeMay headed SAC (1949-57) and turned it into an effective nuclear delivery force, the B-36 formed the heart of his command. Its maximum payload was more than four times that of the B-29, even exceeding that of the B-52.

• Span: 230 ft 0 in (70.10 m)
• Length: 162 ft 1 in (49.40 m)
• Height: 46 ft 9 in (14.25 m)
• Engines: 6× Pratt & Whitney R-4360-53 "Wasp Major" radials, 3,800 hp (2,500 kW) each
• Cruising Speed: 230 mph (200 kn, 380 km/h) with jets off
• Range: 6,795 mi (5,905 nmi, 10,945 km) with 10,000 lb (4,535 kg) payload
• First Flight: 8 August 1946

Today in Aviation

May 9

• 2012 – A Sukhoi Superjet 100 airliner crashes on Mount Salak on Java in Indonesia during a demonstration flight for airline representatives and journalists, killing all 45 people on board. Its wreckage is discovered on 10 May.

• 2008 – Death of Ronald Anthony Parise, Italian American scientist who flew aboard two NASA Space Shuttle missions as a payload specialist.

• 2004 – Southwest Airlines begins service to Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

• 2004 – American Eagle Flight 5401 is damaged by high winds during landing in San Juan, Puerto Rico, injuring 13 people.

• 2003 – Launch of Hayabusa, Japanese uncrewed spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis.

• 2003 – UH-60A Black Hawk 86-24507 of 571st Medical Company (AA) crashes into Tigris River, the vicinity of Samarrah, Iraq killing two pilots and crew chief. One more soldier was injured.

• 1991 – Death of Aviard Gavrilovich Fastovets, Soviet test pilot.

• 1987 – LOT Flight 5055, an Ilyushin Il-62M, crashes near Warsaw during landing because of engine failure. All 183 passengers and crew members perish in the worst ever accident involving the Ilyushin Il-62.

• 1983 – The first all-woman flight crew to fly a round trip across the Atlantic is the Air Force C-141 crew from the 18th Military Airlift Squadron, McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey.

• 1981 – Second prototype of Dornier 228 200 (E-2 extended version, twin-turboprop STOL utility aircraft), makes its first flight.

• 1981 – After modifications, the British aircraft carrier HMS Hermes reenters service with the Royal Navy as the world’s first carrier with a ski-jump ramp. Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander D. R. Taylor had developed the ramp.

• 1981 – Thunderbird 6 a United States Air Force Northrop T-38A Talon of the Thunderbirds demonstration team crashed during a display at Hill AFB, Utah, United States, pilot killed.

• 1978 – David Cook makes the first crossing of the English Channel in a powered hang-glider.

• 1977 – Death of Ian Patrick Robert "Old Naps" Napier, Scottish WWI flying ace.

• 1976 – Imperial Iranian Air Force, flight ULF48, a 747 freighter crashed near Madrid, due to the structural failure of its left wing in flight, killing the 17 people on board. The accident investigation determined that a lightning strike had caused an explosion in a fuel tank in the wing, leading to flutter and the separation of the wing.

• 1972 – In Operation Pocket Money, U.S. Navy A-6 Intruder and A-7 Corsair II bombers from three aircraft carriers lay naval mines in the harbors at Haiphong and six other North Vietnamese ports.

• 1970 – U.S. Navy attack helicopters are the first American aircraft to reach Phnom Penh during the American and South Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia.

• 1967 – First flight of the Fokker F28 Fellowship, Dutch short range jet airliner.

• 1965 – Launch of Luna 5 (E-6 series), uncrewed space mission of the Luna program, also called Lunik 5.

• 1964 – de Havilland’s Chief Test Pilot Bob Fowler took the first flight of the Cariboo.

• 1964 – A Republic F-105B-15-RE Thunderchief, 57-5801, Thunderbird 2, one of nine delivered to the Thunderbirds demonstration team in mid-April 1964, suffers structural failure and disintegrates during 6G tactical pitch up for landing at airshow at Hamilton AFB, California, killing pilot Capt. Eugene J. Devlin. The failure of the fuselage's upper spine causes the USAF to ground all F-105s and retrofit the fleet with a structural brace, but the air demonstration team reverts to the North American F-100 Super Sabre and never flies another show in F-105s.

• 1962 – First flight of the Sikorsky CH-54 Tarhe, twin-engine heavy-lift helicopter designed by Sikorsky Aircraft for the US Army. It is named after Tarhe (whose nickname was "The Crane"), an eighteenth-century chief of the Wyandot Native American tribe.The civil version is the S-64 Skycrane.

• 1960 – First flight of the Auster D.6 G-25-10.

• 1958 – A USAF North American F-100F-10-NA Super Sabre, serial number 56-3810, crashed 8 miles (13 km) NNE of Kadena AB, Japan. Instructor/test Pilot:Capt Theodore Christos and rear seat pilot Capt James Looney ejected but were killed. Crash Investigation Board report indicated cause of crash was undetermined.

• 1957 – Boeing KC-97F-55-BO Stratotanker, 51-0258, c/n 16325, en route from Sidi Slimane Air Base, Morocco, to Terceira-Lajes AFB, Azores, ditches at 0616 hrs. in the Atlantic 550 km (343.8 mls) SE of the Azores Islands following a double engine failure, no fatalities amongst the seven crew. The airplane floated for ten days and was sunk by USS Wisconsin.

• 1957 – 1st Lt. David Steeves departs Hamilton AFB, California, for Craig AFB, Alabama, in T-33A-1-LO Shooting Star, 52-9232, and disappears without a trace. Declared dead by the Air Force, he emerges from the Kings Canyon National Park in the Sierra Nevada mountains 54 days later, having ejected from the jet after an in-flight emergency. He stumbled on a ranger cabin during his ordeal where he found fish hooks, a canned ham and a can of beans. Unable to locate the downed trainer, officials eye him with suspicion and rumors that he traded to jet to the Russians, or flew it to Mexico, dog the pilot and ruin his military career. He returns to civilian life and eventually dies in an aircraft accident in 1965. Finally, in 1977, Boy Scouts hiking in the national park discover the canopy of his T-33, too late to vindicate the pilot's story and reputation.

• 1954 – First flight of the Goodyear GA-400R Gizmo, an American one-man helicopter for liaison and observation.

• 1952 – Death of Elia Antonio Liut, Italian aviation pioneer.

• 1952 – French Leduc 0.16 research ramjet again suffers landing gear collapse on touchdown and is damaged. After several more flights in 1954, it will be retired to the Musée de l'Air.

• 1952 – Maj. Neil H. Lathrop attempts low-level aileron roll in second prototype Martin XB-51-MA, 46-686, crashes at end of runway at Edwards AFB, California, with fatal result.

• 1949 – Birth of Oleg Atkov, Soviet Medical Doctor and Cosmonaut.

• 1949 – First flight of the Republic XF-91 Thunderceptor, an American mixed-propulsion interceptor using a jet engine for most flight, and a cluster of four small rocket engines for added thrust during climb and interception.

• 1948 – First flight of the Aeronova A. E. R.1, Italian road-able monoplane.

• 1947 – First flight of the Percival Merganser, British light civil transport twin-engine, high-wing monoplane of all-metal, stressed skin construction with retractable tricycle undercarriage.

• 1945 – British Pacific Fleet carrier aircraft strike the Sakishima Gunto. Kamikazes hit the aircraft carriers HMS Formidable and HMS Victorious.

• 1943 – A German night fighter crew defects to the United Kingdom, flying a Junkers Ju 88R-1 there. The defection gives British scientists and tacticians access to a Lichtenstein airborne interception radar for the first time.

• 1942 – Operation Bowery, 64 Supermarine Spitfires are flown to Malta from the US aircraft carrier USS Wasp and the Royal Navy carrier HMS Eagle.

• 1942 – Chief of Staff of the United States Army General George C. Marshall proposes the creation of an organization within the United States Army Air Forces similar to the Royal Air Force's Coastal Command. His proposal eventually will lead to the establishment of the Army Air Forces Antisubmarine Command.

• 1941 – Death of Sydney "Timbertoes" Carlin, British WWI flying ace and air gunner during WWII, dying from wounds after an enemy bombing raid at RAF Wittering.

• 1940 – First flight of the second prototype of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-1, Soviet fighter aircraft.

• 1937 – First flight of the Lockheed XC-35, American twin-engine, experimental pressurized airplane, first American aircraft to feature cabin pressurization. It was initially described as a 'supercharged cabin' by the Army, development of the Lockheed Model 10 Electra.

• 1937 – Death of Walter Mittelholzer, Swiss aviation pioneer, pilot, photographer, travel writer, and also as one of the first aviation entrepreneurs.

• 1936 – The German airship Hindenburg lands at Lakehurst, New Jersey after its first scheduled transatlantic flight.

• 1934 – First flight of the de Havilland Hornet Moth, a single-engined cabin biplane designed by the de Havilland Aircraft Company as a potential replacement for its highly successful de Havilland Tiger Moth trainer.

• 1934 – An Air France Wibault 282 T-12 airliner crashes into the English Channel off Dungeness, Kent, England, killing all six people on board.

• 1933 – First flight of the Vought XF3U-1, an American two-seat, all-metal biplane fighter prototype.

• 1932 – Captain Albert Hegenberger makes the first completely blind solo flight entirely on instruments, in a Consolidated NY-2.

• 1931 – Hawker Hart light bomber prototype, J9052, modified as a naval fleet spotter-cum-fighter Hawker Osprey to Specification O.22/26, returned to Hawker after trials, is wrecked this date in take off accident with crossed aileron controls. Orders for 133 are placed, in four Marks, serving in operational units until May 1939, as well as small orders for Portugal, Spain and Sweden.

• 1931 – Birth of Vance DeVoe Brand, American engineer and former test pilot and NASA astronaut.

• 1926 – Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett make the first flight over the North Pole in a Fokker F.VIIa-3 m. Their total distance from Spitzbergen, Norway is 1,600 miles (2,575 km).

• 1923 – First flight of the: Blériot 115, a French 4 engine 8 passengers biplane airliner.

• 1918 – U.S. Army Maj. Harold Melville Clark accomplishes first three-island flight in the Hawaiian Islands when he and mechanic Sgt. Robert Gray depart from Fort Kamehameha in a Curtiss N-9 of the 6th Aero Squadron, make a stop in Maui, and then continue to the island of Hawaii. Clark encounters fog and darkness over the island, causing him to crash in the jungle near Hilo. Two days after the crash, Clark and Gray emerge from the Hawaiian jungle unhurt. According to Harold Richards in "The History of Army Aviation in Hawaii", Clark accomplished another "first" on this flight as he had agreed to deliver two letters from Oahu residents to their relatives on Hawaii. After emerging from the jungle, Clark delivers the letters to their intended recipients. Thus, Clark carried the first letters by airmail in the Hawaiian Islands.

• 1918 – Death of Charles Roger Lupton, British WWI flying ace, killed in a midair collision with a French Aircraft.

• 1917 – William E. Boeing's Pacific Aero Products Company is renamed the "Boeing Airplane Company. "

• 1917 – Death of Victor Carlstrom, early Swedish-American aviation pioneer, killed with a student when the wing of the aircraft he was piloting failed in flight.

• 1917 – French WWI fighter ace René Fonck shoots down 6 German aircraft that day.

• 1917 – Death of Wilhelm Cymera, German WWI flying ace, killed in action.

• 1917 – French ace René Fonck shoots down six German aircraft in a day.

• 1916 – Using a bombsight developed by Bourdillon and Tizard, a British Short 184 seaplane hits a target in with a 500 pound bomb from a height of 4,000 feet.

• 1916 – Birth of Franco Cappa, WWII Italian pilot.

• 1914 – First parachute descent from an aircraft in Great Britain is made by William Newell from a Grahame-White Type X Charabanc (or Aerobus) at Hendon.

• 1912 – Lieutenant Commander Charles Samson becomes the first person to fly an aircraft off the deck of a moving ship. He takes off in a Short S.38 from the deck of HMS Hibernia in Weymouth Bay.

• 1904 – 9 – 11 – The Imperial Russian Navy armored cruiser Rossia carries a balloon on a raiding cruise against Japanese ships into the Sea of Japan in the first use by a warship of a balloon on the high seas in wartime. The balloon makes 13 successful ascents before it breaks its mooring lines and is damaged after landing on the sea.

• 1888 – Birth of Francesco Baracca, Italy's top fighter ace of WWI, credited with 34 aerial victories.

References

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