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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

Airbus A380, the largest passenger jet in the world, entered commercial service in 2007.
Airbus A380, the largest passenger jet in the world, entered commercial service in 2007.
Airbus SAS is an aircraft manufacturing subsidiary of EADS, a European aerospace consortium. Based in Toulouse, France and with significant activity across Europe, the company produces around half of the world's jet airliners. Airbus began as a consortium of aerospace manufacturers. Consolidation of European defence and aerospace companies around the turn of the century allowed the establishment of a simplified joint stock company in 2001, owned by EADS (80%) and BAE Systems (20%). After a protracted sale process BAE sold its shareholding to EADS on 13 October 2006. Airbus employs around 57,000 people at sixteen sites in four European Union countries: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Spain. Final assembly production is at Toulouse (France) and Hamburg (Germany). Airbus has subsidiaries in the United States, Japan and China. (Full article...)

Selected image

An overlay diagram showing four of the largest wide-body aircraft ever built, the Hughes H-4 Hercules (the "Spruce Goose", aircraft with the greatest wingspan), the Antonov An-225 Mriya (the largest freight aircraft), the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental (soon to be the largest version of the Jumbojet), and the Airbus A380-800 (the largest passenger aircraft).

Did you know

...that British Airways unveiled a new corporate identity in 1997 which involved repainting its fleet with around 20 daring tailfin designs by world artists? ...that Garuda Indonesia flight 152 was the deadliest air disaster of 1997, claiming the lives of over 230 people? ... that Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, the captain of US Airways Flight 1549, also runs an aviation safety consultant company and has worked as an accident investigator for the USAF, NTSB, and FAA?

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
Read and edit Wikinews

Associated Wikimedia

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

Selected biography

Neil Armstrong
Neil Armstrong (born August 5, 1930) is a former American astronaut, test pilot, university professor, and United States Naval Aviator. He was the first person to set foot on the Moon. His first spaceflight was aboard Gemini 8 in 1966, for which he was the command pilot. On this mission, he performed the first manned docking of two spacecraft together with pilot David Scott. Armstrong's second and last spaceflight was as mission commander of the Apollo 11 moon landing mission on July 20, 1969. On this mission, Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface and spent 2.5 hours exploring while Michael Collins orbited. Armstrong is a recipient of the Congressional Space Medal of Honor.

Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was in the United States Navy and saw action in the Korean War. After the war, he served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) High-Speed Flight Station, now known as the Dryden Flight Research Center, where he flew over 900 flights in a variety of aircraft. As a research pilot, Armstrong served as project pilot on the F-100 Super Sabre A and C aircraft, F-101 Voodoo, and the Lockheed F-104A Starfighter. He also flew the Bell X-1B, Bell X-5, North American X-15, F-105 Thunderchief, F-106 Delta Dart, B-47 Stratojet, KC-135 Stratotanker and Paresev. He graduated from Purdue University.

Selected Aircraft

The Airbus A340 is a long-range four-engined widebody commercial passenger airplane manufactured by Airbus. The latest variants (-600 & A340E) competed with Boeing's 777 series of aircraft on long-haul and ultra long-haul routes, but it has since been succeeded by the Airbus A350.

The A340-600 flies 380 passengers in a three-class cabin layout (419 in 2 class) over 7,500 nautical miles (13,900 km). It provides similar passenger capacity to a 747 but with twice the cargo volume, and at lower trip and seat costs.

The A340-600 is more than 10 m longer than a basic -300, making it the second longest airliner in the world, more than four meters longer than a Boeing 747-400.

  • Span: 63.45 m (208 ft 2 in)
  • Length: 75.30 m n(246 ft 11 in)
  • Height: 17.30 m (56 ft 9 in)
  • Engines: four 56,000 lbf (249 kN) thrust Rolls-Royce Trent 556 turbofans
  • Cruising Speed: Mach 0.83 (885 km/h, 550 mph)
  • First Flight: October 25, 1991
More selected aircraft Read more...

Today in Aviation

January 8

  • 2020 - Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, Boeing 737 800 shot down by Iran missiles near Imam Khomejni International Airport, Tehran.
  • 2016 - West Air Sweden Flight 294, a Bombardier CRJ200 was operating a cargo flight from Oslo to Tromsø. Soon after reaching cruise altitude (33.000 feet) the CRJ200 suddenly started nosediving towards the ground at an immensely high speed and rate of descent. A few seconds after the event began the plane impacted with the ground, instantly killing the two pilots on board. The main cause of the crash was the failure of the IRU on the captain's side which provided false pitch information, as well as the absence of effective communication between the two pilots during a situation of an emergency.
  • 2004 – A UH-60 Black Hawk (86-24488) from 571st Medical Company (Air Ambulance) shot down near Fallujah, killing 9 crew and passengers.[1][2][3]
  • 2003 – Turkish Airlines Flight 634, an Avro RJ100, crashes during its final approach to land at Diyarbakır Airport, Turkey in extensive fog. All of the 5 crew and 70 of the 75 passengers are killed, 5 passengers survive with heavy injuries.
  • 2003 – Air Midwest Flight 5481, a Beechcraft 1900, crashes on takeoff from Charlotte, North Carolina in the United States; all 19 passengers and 2 pilots are killed.
  • 2002 – A Belgian Air Force F-16A crashes during approach at Kleine Brogel Air Base. Pilot ejects safely.
  • 1998 – Boeing changes the name of the MD-95 jetliner to the 717 – 200.
  • 1996 – 1996 Air Africa crash, an overloaded Antonov An-32 aborts takeoff and overruns into a market in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 297.
  • 1994 – The Russian Soyuz TM-18 is launched, bringing cosmonaut Valery Polyakov to Mir for a record time of 437 days in space
  • 1989 – British Midland Flight 92, a Boeing 737, crashes near Kegworth, Leicestershire, United Kingdom after one of its engines loses a fan blade and fails. Of the 118 passengers and 8 crew, 79 survive. The incident became known as the Kegworth air disaster and is the first loss of a Boeing 737-400.
  • 1987 – Death of Christian Frank Schilt, one of the first Marine Corps aviators who served in WWI, WWII and Korean War.
  • 1983 – Death of Lieutenant-General Gerhard "Gerd" Barkhorn, 2nd most successful fighter ace of all time after fellow Luftwaffe pilot Erich Hartmann
  • 1982 – A Gulfstream III, owned by the United States National Distillers and Chemical Corporation, takes off from Teterboro for new round-the-world records.
  • 1982 – The Airbus A300 FFCC is certified, becoming the first wide body airliner with cockpit accommodations for only two to be certified.
  • 1981 – A local farmer reports a UFO sighting in Trans-en-Provence, France, "perhaps the most completely and carefully documented sighting of all time".
  • 1980 – Death of Jens Tryggve Herman Gran DSC, MC, Norwegian aviator, explorer and author, first pilot to cross the North Sea.
  • 1980 – A Mooney 231 lands in San Francisco, after flying coast to coast non-stop, setting a record by completing the flight in 8 hours and 4 minutes.
  • 1973 – Launch of Luna 21 (Ye-8 series, also called Lunik 21), Soviet uncrewed space mission to explore the moon.
  • 1968 – Death of Jacques Victor Sabattier de Vignolle, French WWI flying ace.
  • 1966 – Death of Alessandro Resch, Italian WWI flying ace and airliner pilot.
  • 1966 – A USAF Fairchild C-119C-25-FA Flying Boxcar, 51-2611, c/n 10600, en route from Windsor Locks-Bradley International Airport, Connecticut to Binghamton Airport, New York, suffers an uncontained engine failure. The crew decides to bail out. The first crew member gets out at an altitude of ~2000 feet. The captain and co-pilot were not able to exit in time. The airplane descends and crashes into a lakefront house near Scranton, Pennsylvania, also killing a boy on the ground.
  • 1966 – (8-14) In Operation Crimp, a U. S. Army 173rd Airborne Brigade helicopter and ground assault destroys a Viet Cong headquarters in the Ho Bo Woods in South Vietnam.
  • 1959 – Southeast Airlines Flight 308, a Douglas DC-3, crashes into the Holston Mountain in the United States on approach to the Tri-Cities Regional Airport killing all ten people on board.
  • 1953 – A Royal Air Force Boeing Washington B.1, WF502, of 90 Squadron, RAF Marham, crashes at Llanarmon, North Wales whilst on a simulated night radar bombing exercise. Dives into ground at high speed, all ten crew killed.
  • 1950 – Last flight of the Sud-Ouest SO 8000 Narval, French prototype Carried born Fighter, twin-boom configuration with sweptback wing, pusher engine driving contra-rotating propellers.
  • 1945 – The China Clipper, a Martin M-130 flying boat operating as Pan American World Airways Flight 161, crashes in Port of Spain, Trinidad, killing all 25 on board.
  • 1945 – A kamikaze again damages the heavy cruiser HMAS Australia in Lingayen Gulf. Out in the South China Sea, kamikazes damage the escort carriers USS Kadashan Bay (CVE-76) and USS Kitkun Bay (CVE-71) and an attack transport.
  • 1944 – 1st Lt. Andrew Biancur, a test pilot of the Medium Bombardment Section of the 1st Proving Ground Group, is killed in crash of Northrop YP-61-NO Black Widow, 41-18883, c/n 711, at Eglin Field this date. Eglin Auxiliary Field 6 is later named in his honor.
  • 1943 – Richard Hillary, Australian Spitfire pilot and author, dies (b. 1919). Flight Lieutenant Richard H. Hillary was a Battle of Britain pilot who died during World War II. He is best known for his book The Last Enemy, based upon his experiences during the Battle of Britain.
  • 1942 – Birth of Vyacheslav Dmitriyevich Zudov, USSR cosmonaut.
  • 1933 – Kawanishi H3K1 flying boat, the largest design in the Pacific at the time, crashes while alighting at night at Tateyama on a training flight, cause given as a slow-reading altimeter. Noted naval aviator Lt. Cmdr. Shinzo Shin killed, as are two more of nine crew.
  • 1927 – A de Havilland DH.66 Hercules, British seven-passenger, three-engined airliner, complete an inaugural (62 hrs 27 min) flight from Croydon UK to Delhi, India.
  • 1927 – Thomas Neville Stack and Bernard More Troughton Shute Leete reach Karachi, India with their de Havilland DH.60 coming from UK.
  • 1919 – Death of Max Näther, German WWI fighter ace, probably the youngest German Ace in WWI, Killed by ground fire when flying over Kolmar during the border war with Poland that followed Germany's defeat.
  • 1898 – Birth of Thomas Sinclair Harrison, South African WWI flying ace.
  • 1897 – Birth of William Frederick James "Jim" Harvey, British WWI fighter ace.
  • 1896 – Birth of Steponas Darius (known as Stephen Darius in the USA; born Steponas Darašius), Lithuanian-American raid pilot.
  • 1894 – Birth of Friedrich Theodor Noltenius, German WWI flying ace.
  • 1893 – Birth of Ernst Hess, German WWI flying ace.
  • 1892 – Birth of Otto Creutzmann, German WWI flying ace.
  • 1886 – Birth of Robert Heibert, German WWI flying ace.
  • 1881 – Birth of William Thomas Piper Sr., American airplane manufacturer, and founder, eponym, and first president of Piper Aircraft Corporation. Piper served in the Spanish-American War and WWI.
  • 1863 – Birth of Léon Levavasseur, French powerplant engineer, aircraft designer and inventor. His innovations included the V8 engine, direct fuel injection, and evaporation engine cooling.

References

  1. ^ Michaels, Jim (2007-01-08). "Helicopters shot down or crashed in Iraq". USA Today. Retrieved 2007-05-31.
  2. ^ Hawkins, Ed (2004-01-08). "Black Hawk crash in Iraq kills nine US soldiers". London: Times OnLine. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
  3. ^ "Nine killed in Black Hawk crash in Iraq". London: Telegraph. 2004-01-08. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
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