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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

PanAm Airbus A310-222
PanAm Airbus A310-222
Pan American World Airways, most commonly known as "Pan Am", was the principal international airline of the United States from the 1930s until its collapse in 1991. Originally founded as a seaplane service out of Key West, Florida, the airline became a major company; it was credited with many innovations that shaped the international airline industry, including the widespread use of jet aircraft, jumbo jets, and computerized reservation systems. Identified by its blue globe logo and the use of "Clipper" in aircraft names and call signs, the airline was a cultural icon of the 20th century, and the unofficial flag carrier of the United States. Pan Am went through two incarnations after 1991. The second Pan Am operated from 1996 to 1998 with a focus on low-cost, long-distance flights between the U.S. and the Caribbean. The current incarnation, based in Portsmouth, New Hampshire and known as the Pan Am "Clipper Connection", is operated by Boston-Maine Airways. The airline currently flies to destinations in the northeastern United States, Florida, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. (Full article...)

Selected image

US Navy Blue Angels Fat Albert (C-130T Hercules)
US Navy Blue Angels Fat Albert (C-130T Hercules)
The Blue Angels use a United States Marine Corps C-130T Hercules, nicknamed "Fat Albert", for their logistics, carrying spare parts, equipment, and to carry support personnel between shows. Beginning in 1975, "Bert" was used for Jet Assisted Take Off (JATO) and short aerial demonstrations just prior to the main event at selected venues, but the JATO demonstration ended in 2009 due to dwindling supplies of rockets.

Did you know

...that the Fairey Seafox was a Second World War reconnaissance floatplane of the Fleet Air Arm? ...that one of the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic was the Italian Savoia-Marchetti S.55 flying boat, which went on to serve in the Luftwaffe in WWII? ...that Washington Senators outfielder Elmer Gedeon, who pulled a crew member from a burning wreck, died while piloting a B-26 bomber over France?

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

AIR VICE-MARSHAL GEORGE JONES
Air Marshal Sir George Jones KBE, CB, DFC (18 October 1896 – 24 August 1992) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). He rose from being a private soldier in World War I to Air Marshal in 1948. He served as Chief of the Air Staff from 1942 to 1952, the longest continuous tenure of any RAAF chief. Jones was a surprise appointee to the Air Force’s top role, and his achievements in the position were coloured by a divisive relationship during World War II with his head of operations and nominal subordinate, Air Vice Marshal William Bostock.

Jones first saw action as an infantryman in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915, before transferring to the Australian Flying Corps the following year. Initially an air mechanic, he undertook flying training in 1917 and was posted to a fighter squadron in France, achieving seven victories to become an ace. After a short spell in civilian life following World War I, he joined the newly-formed RAAF in 1921, rising steadily through training and personnel commands prior to World War II.

He did not actively seek the position of Chief of the Air Staff before being appointed in 1942, and his conflict with Bostock—with whom he had been friends for 20 years—was partly the result of a divided command structure, which neither man had any direct role in shaping. After World War II Jones had overall responsibility for transforming what was then the world's fourth largest air force into a peacetime service that was also able to meet overseas commitments in Malaya and Korea. Following his retirement from the RAAF he continued to serve in the aircraft industry and later ran unsuccessfully for political office.

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

January 3

  • 2013 – Press observers report that the Myanmar Air Force has conducted daily strikes against rebel Kachin Independence Army forces in northern Myanmar since 28 December 2012.[1]
  • 2010 – Air Berlin Flight 2450, operated by Boeing 737–800 D-ABKF overran the end of the runway after an aborted take-off at high speed due to an airspeed discrepancy on the two pilots' instruments. The incident happened at Dortmund Airport. There were no injuries among the 171 people on board.[4]
  • 2006 – A United States Army Sikorsky Aircraft UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crashes near Tal Afar, Ninawa Governorate, Iraq. The aircraft, part of a two-Black Hawk helicopter team, was traveling between military bases when the accident occurred, resulting in 12 fatalities.
  • 1999 – Launch of Mars Polar Lander, also referred to as the Mars Surveyor '98 Lander, NASA 290-kilogram robotic spacecraft lander, to study the soil and climate of Planum Australe, a region near the south pole on Mars.
  • 1994 – Baikal Airlines Flight 130, a Tupolev Tu-154M, crashes on take off at Irkutsk, killing 125 on board plus 1 on ground. A fuel-fed fire had erupted in the area of the no. 2 engine, causing damage to hydraulic lines and control surfaces. Control was lost and the aircraft crashed amongst farm buildings.
  • 1989 – Oregon Air National Guard McDonnell-Douglas F-4C Phantom II, 63-7626 (?), of 123rd FIS/Oregon ANG from Portland, Oregon, crashes on a training mission ~30 miles (48 km) off Tillamook Bay, injuring both crew, who were plucked from the Pacific Ocean, authorities said.
  • 1987 – Varig Flight 797, a Boeing 707, crashes near Abidjan because of engine failure. Out of the 52 passengers and crew on board, there was only 1 survivor.
  • 1986 – An Iranian C-130 Army transport crashes into a mountain while attempting to land at Zahedan Airport (ZAH) in southeastern Iran, killing all 103 on board.
  • 1966 – Third (of five) Ling-Temco-Vought XC-142As, 62-5923, suffers major landing gear and fuselage damage during landing on 14th Cat II flight at Edwards AFB, California, having logged only 14:12 hrs. Cat II flight time. Air Force decides to use wing from this airframe to repair XC-142A No. 2, 62-5922, which suffers major damage on 19 October 1965, other useful items are salvaged from airframe no. 3, and the cannibalized fuselage is scrapped in the summer of 1966.
  • 1964 – A United States Air Force B-52D Stratofortress carrying two Mark 53 nuclear bombs loses its vertical stabilizer in turbulence during a winter storm and crashes on Savage Mountain near Barton, Maryland -- this is known as the 1964 Savage Mountain B-52 crash. Only two of the five crewmen survive. The bombs are recovered two days later.
  • 1962 – RCAF Piasecki H-21 helicopter 9611, from 121 (CU) Comox rescue 22 seamen from SS Glafkos.
  • 1959 – Birth of Fyodor Nikolayevich Yurchikhin, Russian cosmonaut and RSC Energia test-pilot.
  • 1957 – Death of Ottorino Pomilio, early Italian aeronautic engineer and WWI scout aircraft designer.
  • 1953 – First flight of the Cessna 310, American six-seat, a low-wing, twin-engined monoplane and first twin-engined aircraft that Cessna put into production after WWII.
  • 1952 – First flight of the Bristol Type 173 G-ALBN – A prototype twin-engine, tandem rotor military helicopter.
  • 1947 – The Kings Flight of the Royal Air Force was re-established at RAF Benson. The first equipment consisted of three Vickers Vikings and an Avro York named Endeavour.
  • 1945 – (3-4) U. S. Navy Task Force 38 begins its support of the U. S. invasion of Lingayen Gulf with carrier air strikes against Japanese forces and facilities on Formosa, the Pescadores, the Sakishima Gunto, and Okinawa, with the loss of 22 U. S. aircraft. Bad weather curtails the strikes and makes bomb damage assessment impossible, although the task force believes it has destroyed about 100 Japanese aircraft.
  • 1944 – Japan launches first Fu-Go bombs, aka fire balloons or balloon bombs. Released from Japan, the balloons were meant to be pushed across the Pacific by the jetstream and then crash into the U. S. mainland and explode. A fascinating idea, but not a very effective weapon: Of the 9,000 balloons launched, only six Americans were killed. 300 of the balloons were ever found in North America, and it is estimated around 600 others likely landed in uninhabited deserts, forests and mountains.
  • 1944 – Top Ace Major Greg "Pappy" Boyington is shot down over Rabaul in his Corsair by Captain Masajiro Kawato flying a Zero. He is picked up by the Japanese.
  • 1943 – Boeing B-17F-27-BO Flying Fortress, 41-24620, "snap! crackle! pop!", of the 360th Bomb Squadron, 303rd Bomb Group, on daylight raid over Saint-Nazaire, France, loses wing due to flak, goes into spiral. Ball turret gunner Alan Magee (13 January 1919-20 December 2003), though suffering 27 shrapnel wounds, bails out (or is thrown from wreckage) without his chute at ~20,000 feet (6,100 m), loses consciousness due to altitude, freefall plunges through glass roof of the Gare de Saint-Nazaire and is found alive but with serious injuries on floor of depot:saved by German medical care, spends rest of war in prison camp.
  • 1925 – First flight of the Fairey Fox, British light bomber and fighter biplane.
  • 1923 – French Lieutenant Thoret makes the first soaring flight of 7 hours in a Hanriot HD-14 biplane as he flies with his engine stopped in a slope lift (using hill-side air currents) in Biskra, Algeria.
  • 1917 – First flight of the Zeppelin LZ88 (L 40), German dirigible.
  • 1902 – Birth of Tommaso (Tomaso) Dal Molin, Italian Military pilot of the Schneider Trophy.
  • 1897 – Birth of John Elmer "Jack" Drummond, Canadian WWI flying ace.
  • 1889 – Birth of Edward Willits 'Eddie' Hubbard, Early American aviator.
  • 1889 – Birth of Charles Philip Oldfield Bartlett, British WWI flying ace.
  • 1889 – Birth of Ross Morrison MacDonald, Canadian WWI flying ace.

References

  1. ^ Olarn, Kocha, and Jethro Mullen, "Myanmar Airstrikes on Kachin Rebels Raise Global Concerns," CNN, January 3, 2013, 13:41 GMT.
  2. ^ "Yemeni Tribesmen Protest Against Drone Strikes," Reuters, 4 January 2013, 3:08 p.m. GMT.
  3. ^ a b Mrouse, Bassem, "Syrian Warplanes Bomb Suburbs of the Capital," Associated Press, 4 January 2013, 8:42 a.m.
  4. ^ "Incident: Air Berlin B738 at Dortmund on January 3rd 2010, rejected takeoff results in runway overrun". Aviation Herald. Retrieved 3 January 2009.
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