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 include 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. A major leap followed 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 engine which enabled aviation to become a major form of transport throughout the world. In 2024, there were 9.5 billion passengers worldwide according to the ICAO. As of 2018, estimates suggest that 11% of the world's population traveled by air, with up to 4% taking international flights. (Full article...)

Selected article

Color Autochrome Lumière of a Nieuport Fighter in Aisne, France 1917
Color Autochrome Lumière of a Nieuport Fighter in Aisne, France 1917
One of the many innovations of World War I, aircraft were first used for reconnaissance purposes and later as fighters and bombers. Consequently, this was the first war which involved a struggle for control of the air, which turned it into another battlefield, alongside the battlefields of land and sea. (Full article...)

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Did you know

... that Paul Haenlein was the first to create a dirigible airship powered by an internal combustion engine? ...that Theo Osterkamp was the first German reconnaissance pilot to fly a land-based aircraft to England during World War I? ... that Coast Aero Center and Norving were the first airlines with scheduled services at Geilo Airport, Dagali located in Hol, Norway?

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

Charles Yeager
Charles Elwood "Chuck" Yeager (born February 13, 1923) is a retired Brigadier-General in the United States Air Force and a noted test pilot. In 1947, he, at age 24, became the first pilot to travel faster than sound in level flight and ascent.

His career began in World War II as a private in the U.S. Army Air Forces. After serving as an aircraft mechanic, in September 1942 he entered enlisted pilot training and upon graduation was promoted to the rank of Flight Officer (WW 2 U.S. Army Air Forces rank equivalent to Warrant Officer) and became a P-51 Mustang fighter pilot. After the war he became a test pilot of many kinds of aircraft and rocket planes. Yeager was the first man to break the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the experimental Bell X-1 at Mach 1 at an altitude of 45,000 ft (13,700 m). Although Scott Crossfield was the first man to fly faster than Mach 2 in 1953, Yeager shortly thereafter exceeded Mach 2.4.[1] He later commanded fighter squadrons and wings in Germany and in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War, and in recognition of the outstanding performance ratings of those units he then was promoted to Brigadier-General. Yeager's flying career spans more than sixty years and has taken him to every corner of the globe, even into the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War.

Selected Aircraft

Dash 8 300 landing at Bristol (UK)
Dash 8 300 landing at Bristol (UK)

The de Havilland Canada DHC-8, popularly the Dash 8, is a series of twin-turboprop airliners designed by de Havilland Canada in the early 1980s. They are now made by Bombardier Aerospace which purchased DHC from Boeing in 1992. Since 1996 the aircraft have been known as the Q Series, for "quiet", due to installation of the Active Noise and Vibration Suppression (ANVS) system designed to reduce cabin noise and vibration levels to near those of jet airliners.

Notable features of the Dash 8 design are the large T-tail intended to keep the tail free of propwash during takeoff, a very high aspect ratio wing, the elongated engine nacelles also holding the rearward-folding landing gear, and the pointed nose profile. First flight was in 1983, and the plane entered service in 1984 with NorOntair. Piedmont Airlines (formerly Henson Airlines) was the US launch customer for the Dash 8 in 1984.

The Dash 8 design had better cruise performance than the earlier Dash 7, was less expensive to operate, and more notably, much less expensive to maintain. The Dash 8 had the lowest costs per passenger mile of any feederliner of the era. The only disadvantage compared to the earlier Dash 7 was somewhat higher noise levels, but only in comparison as the Dash 7 was notable in the industry for extremely low noise due to its four very large and slow-turning propellers.

  • Length: 107 ft 9 in (32.84 m)
  • Wingspan: 93 ft 3 in (32.84 m)
  • Height: 27 ft 5 in (8.34 m)
  • Powerplant: 2× Pratt & Whitney Canada PW150A turboprops, 5,071 shp (3,781 kW) each
  • Cruise speed: 360 knots (414 mph, 667 km/h)
  • Maiden Flight: June 20, 1983

Today in Aviation

December 10

  • 2011 – Beechcraft 65-80 Queen Air crash occurred when a Beechcraft 65-80 Queen Air cargo plane crashed into the Felixberto Serrano Elementary School near Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, killing at least 14 people including the three crew members on board the aircraft, and injuring over 20 people. Approximately 50 houses in the residential area were set ablaze by the subsequent fire caused by the plane crash. The cause of the crash, as well as the identities of the victims is still unknown.
  • 2005 – Sosoliso Airlines Flight 1145, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9 with 110 people on board, crashes during landing in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. One hundred and seven people die.
  • 2004 – Two CT-114 Tutors from Canada's Snowbirds aerobatic team collide at the top of a loop during practice while training near Mossbank, Saskatchewan over Mossbank Airfield. Captain Miles Selby, pilot of '8' was killed instantly, but Captain Chuck Mallet was thrown clear of the wreckage of '9', released his lap belt and pulled his chute release, landing with minor injuries.
  • 1999 – A United States Air Force Lockheed C-130E Hercules, 63-7854, of 61st Airlift Squadron, 463d Airlift Group, crashes during landing at Ahmed Al Jaber air base, Kuwait City, Kuwait, killing three of the 94 people on board. Investigation report, released 31 March 2000, blamed crew complacency and failure to follow governing directives during approach to the runway, failing to monitor instruments, a critical function for night flying in reduced visibility.[401]
  • 1976 – Wings release triple album “Wings Across America”. (it’s a slow history day)
  • 1974 – Helios 1 is launched by the US and Germany, later to make the closest flyby of the Sun.
  • 1973 – RAF English Electric Lightning F.3, XP738, 'E', of 111 Squadron, is written off when the undercarriage collapses upon landing at RAF Wattisham, Suffolk. Stripped for spares and consigned to the dump there.
  • 1971 – President Richard M. Nixon warns North Vietnam that American bombing of North Vietnam would resume if North Vietnamese military action against South Vietnam increases as American forces are withdrawn from Vietnam.
  • 1967 – Singer Otis Redding and four members of his back-up band, The Bar-Kays, are among six people killed in the crash of a Beechcraft 18 into Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin.
  • 1963 – The United States Air Force’s X-20 Dyna-Soar spaceplane program is cancelled by Robert McNamara.
  • 1963 – Test pilot Charles Chuck Yeager, out of Edwards AFB, California, zoom climbs Lockheed NF-104A Starfighter, 56-0762, modified with rocket engine in tail unit, to 106,300 feet (32,400 m), but aircraft enters flat spin when directional jets in nose run out of propellant, forcing him to eject. He suffers injuries when his helmet collides with the ejection seat. This mission was very loosely depicted in the film The Right Stuff. Aircraft was originally built as Lockheed F-104A-10-LO. See also flying accident during a test flight.
  • 1958 – National Airlines operates the very first domestic jet service in the United States, flying a Boeing 707 from Miami to New York’s Idlewild (now JFK).
  • 1946 – A Curtiss R5C-1 Commando military transport plane, BuNo 39528, c/n 26715/CU355, (ex-USAAF 42-3582), of VMR-152, crashed into Mount Rainier's South Tahoma Glacier, killing 32 U.S. Marines. Wreckage not found until July 1947
  • 1943 – Triple night kill by RCAF F/O R. D. Schultz flying in the 410 Squadrons Mosquito, against Do 217 s.
  • 1943 – The Allied airstrip at Cape Torokina on Bougainville officially opens.
  • 1941 – An SBD Dauntless dive bomber from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) piloted by Lieutenant Clarence E. Dickinson sinks the Japanese submarine I-70 northeast of Oahu. I-70 is the first Japanese submarine ever sunk by enemy forces and the first enemy warship sunk by the U. S. armed forces during World War II.
  • 1941 – After a courageous attack against Japanese ships off the Philippines, U. S. Army Air Force Captain Colin Kelly, a B-17 C Flying Fortress pilot, becomes one of the earliest American heroes of World War II when he stays at the controls of his stricken bomber long enough for his crew to escape and is killed when his plane explodes. He is mistakenly reported to have deliberately crashed his stricken plane into the Japanese battleship Haruna.
  • 1941 – In the Philippines, 54 Japanese naval bombers systematically destroy Cavite Navy Yard and a significant part of neighboring Cavite with precision bombing from 20,000 feet (6,096 m) during a two-hour attack. The submarine USS Sealion (SS-195) is sunk pierside at the Navy Yard, the first American submarine ever sunk by enemy action.
  • 1941 – French Indochina-based Imperial Japanese Navy Mitsubishi G3 M bombers (Allied reporting name “Nell”) sink the Royal Navy battleship Prince of Wales and battlecruiser Repulse in the South China Sea east of Malaya using torpedoes. They are the first capital ships to be sunk at sea by aircraft alone.
  • 1939 – Second production Sud-Est LeO H-470 flying boat written off when pilot alighted in error in shallow water on Lake Urbino, Corsica, airframe too badly damaged to permit repairs.
  • 1928 – First airmail flight between Edmonton and Winnipeg. A WWI pilot, fittingly named Punch Dickens, flew the Fokker Super Universal aircraft for Western Canada Airways. He landed in what is now the Edmonton City Centre Airport carrying mail from Winnipeg, Regina, Saskatoon and North Battleford. Postage for regular mail on that first flight cost five cents.
  • 1926 – Western Canada Airways was incorporated, with headquarters in Winnipeg.
  • 1919 – First England to Australia flight, by Keith Macpherson Smith and Ross Macpherson Smith, (plus mechanics Sergeant W. H. (Wally) Shiers and J. M. (Jim) Bennett) completed the journey from Hounslow Heath Aerodrome to Darwin in a Vickers Vimy. A distance of 11,340 miles (18,250 km)., after flying 135 hr. 55 min. at an average speed of 83 miles per hour (134 km/h).
  • 1914 – HMS Ark Royal is completed. She is the first ship with an internal hangar enclosed by her hull, and the first with specially designed internal spaces to accommodate aviation fuel, lubricants, ordnance, and spares and machinery required for aircraft maintenance.

References

  1. ^ Yeager, Chuck, and Janos, Leo. Yeager: An Autobiography. p. 252 (paperback). New York: Bantam Books, 1986. ISBN 0-553-25674-2.
  2. ^ "Tripoli airport still under militia control". Independent Online (South Africa). 11 December 2011.
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