Portal:Aviation

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The Aviation Portal

A Boeing 747

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 craft 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. 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

Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive sport where pilots fly un-powered aircraft known as gliders or sailplanes. Properly, the term gliding refers to descending flight of a heavier-than-air craft, whereas soaring is the correct term to use when the craft gains altitude or speed from rising air. After launching glider pilots search for rising air to gain height. If conditions are good enough, experienced pilots can fly many hundreds, or even thousands, of kilometers before returning to their home airfields. However if the weather deteriorates, they must often land elsewhere, but some can avoid this by using engines. While many glider pilots merely enjoy the sense of achievement, some competitive pilots fly in races round pre-defined courses. These competitions test the pilots' abilities to make best use of local weather conditions as well as their flying skills. Local and national competitions are organized in many countries and there are also biennial World Gliding Championships. Powered aircraft or winches are the most common methods of launching gliders. These and other methods (apart from self-launching motor-gliders) require assistance from other participants. Gliding clubs have thus been established to share airfields and equipment, train new pilots and maintain high safety standards. (Full article...)

Selected image

Convair B-36 with experimental tracked landing gear, to reduce ground pressure for soft-field use.

Did you know

Fokker Spin
Fokker Spin

...that the Fokker Spin (pictured) was the first aircraft built by Anthony Fokker, in which he taught himself to fly and earned his pilot license? ...that Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Bris accomplished the world's first powered flight in 1856, with a glider that was pulled behind a running horse? ... that teenage aviatrix Elinor Smith, the "Flying Flapper of Freeport", had her pilot's license suspended for 15 days for flying under New York City's four East River bridges in 1928?

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

Selected biography

Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (born June 17, 1943 in Estacada, Oregon) is an American aerospace engineer noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, energy-efficient aircraft. He is most famous for his design of the record-breaking Voyager, which was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the suborbital rocket plane SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004.

Selected Aircraft

Douglas Dakota DC-3 (G-ANAF) of the Air Atlantique Historic Flight.
Douglas Dakota DC-3 (G-ANAF) of the Air Atlantique Historic Flight.

The Douglas DC-3 is a fixed-wing, propeller-driven aircraft which revolutionized air transport in the 1930s and 1940s, and is generally regarded as one of the most significant transport aircraft ever made.

The DC-3 was engineered by a team led by chief engineer Arthur E. Raymond and first flew on December 17, 1935 (the 32nd. anniversary of the Wright Brothers flight at Kitty Hawk). The plane was the result of a marathon phone call from American Airlines CEO C.R. Smith demanding improvements in the design of the DC-2. The amenities of the DC-3 (including sleeping berths on early models and an in-flight kitchen) popularized air travel in the United States. With just one refuelling stop, transcontinental flights across America became possible. Before the DC-3, such a trip would entail short hops in commuter aircraft during the day coupled with train travel overnight.

During World War II, many civilian DC-3s were drafted for the war effort and thousands of military versions of the DC-3 were built under the designations C-47, C-53, R4D, and Dakota. The armed forces of many countries used the DC-3 and its military variants for the transport of troops, cargo and wounded. Over 10,000 aircraft were produced (some as licensed copies in Japan as Showa L2D, and in the USSR as the Lisunov Li-2).

  • Span: 95 ft (28.96 m)
  • Length: 64 ft 5 in (19.65 m)
  • Height: 16 ft 11 in (5.16 m)
  • Engines: 2× Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp S1C3G 14-cylinder radial engines, 1,200 hp (895 kW) or Wright Cyclone
  • Cruising Speed: 170 mph (274 km/h)
  • First Flight:December 17, 1935
  • Number built: 13,140 (including license built types)

Today in Aviation

May 1

  • 2013 – A Boeing X-51A WaveRider unmanned scramjet demonstration aircraft detaches from a Boeing B-52H Stratofortress and reaches Mach 4.8 (3,200 mph; 5,100 km/h) powered by a booster rocket. It then separates cleanly from the booster, ignites its own engine, accelerates to Mach 5.1 (3,400 mph; 5,400 km/h), and flies for 240 seconds – setting the record for the longest air-breathing hypersonic flight in history – before running out of fuel and plunging into the Pacific Ocean off Point Mugu, California, after transmitting 370 seconds of telemetry. The flight – the fourth and last planned X-51A test flight and the first successful one – completes the X-51 program.[1][2][3]
  • 2007 – A Dassault Mirage III of the Fuerza Aérea Argentina (Argentine Air Force) crashes at 1110 hrs. at Morón Air Base after making a low pass during a "baptism of fire" day celebration, observing the opening of combat in the 1982 Falklands/Malvinas War. The pilot, Lt. Marcos Peretti, apparently encountered a fogbank after making the pass. He did not eject after steering the aircraft away from populated areas and was killed. Defence Minister Nilda Garré who presided over the main celebration ordered all Mirage aircraft grounded until a full investigation into the accident is completed "The causes of the accident are under investigation", said minister Garré adding that "Mirages are grounded until we determine how the accident happened; the pilot was in contact until a minute before the accident".
  • 2006 – Death of Bruce A. Peterson, American engineer and NASA test pilot. He flew a wide variety of airplanes including the F5D-1, F-100, F-104, F-111 A, B-52, NT-33 A Variable Stability Trainer, the wingless lifting bodies and numerous general aviation aircraft as well as several types of helicopters and sailplanes.
  • 2003 – US President George W. Bush rode in the co-pilot seat of a Viking that landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), where he delivered his "Mission Accomplished" speech announcing the end of major combat in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. That Navy flight is the only one to use the callsign "Navy One".
  • 1989 – A Tyndall Air Force Base McDonnell-Douglas F-15 Eagle crashed in the Gulf of Mexico about 65 miles southeast of Tyndall, killing the student pilot who was identified as 2nd Lt. Sean P. Murphy, 23, of Warsaw, Indiana. At the time of the crash the pilot was engaged in a mock dogfight with his instructor who was flying a second F-15. The pilot was assigned to Tyndall's 95th Tactical Fighter Training Squadron.
  • 1983 – 1983 Israeli Air Force F-15 crash: During air-to-air combat training over the Negev Desert, an Israeli Air Force McDonnell-Douglas F-15D Baz, 957, "Markia Schakim" (Hebrew: מרקיע שחקים, "Sky Blazer"), of 106 Squadron, collides with an Douglas A-4 Ayit at between 13 and 14 thousand feet altitude, causing the attack jet to explode (the pilot reportedly successfully ejected), and tearing off the starboard wing of the fighter ~2 feet outboard of the engine nacelle. Pilot Zivi Nedivi goes to afterburner to try to stop spinning aircraft, and unaware of the condition of the jet due to fuel leaks obscuring the extent of the damage, makes a blistering 250-260 knot landing at nearest air base at Ramon, tearing off the arrestor hook and coming to a stop just 20 feet from the runway threshold. Pilot later comments that had he known the true state of the aircraft, he and his weapons operator would have ejected. F-15 is reportedly repaired and returned to service in ~two months.
  • 1982 – BAE Sea Harriers attack Falklands targets for the first time and shoot down two Argentine Mirage III fighters. They are the first air-to-air kills of the Falklands War.[5]
  • 1980 – Spectacular crash of USMC AV-8A Harrier at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina. During a vertical takeoff the aircraft rolled, dropped to the runway, bounced into a ditch, burst into flames, flipped, slid through a hangar and into a parking lot, where it damaged more than twenty vehicles.
  • 1970 – B-52 Stratofortress strikes and helicopter assaults against North Vietnamese forces are part of the first day of the American and South Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia. The last U. S. Army helicopter will not leave Cambodia until June 29.
  • 1965 – A Lockheed YF-12 sets a new international airspeed record of 2,070 mpg (3,331 km/h).
  • 1960 – 1960 U-2 incident: A CIA Lockheed U-2A, 56-6693, Article 360, flown by Francis Gary Powers is shot down by a SA-2 (Guideline) missile near Degtyarsk in the Soviet Union during an overflight codenamed Operation GRAND SLAM, the twenty-fourth and most ambitious deep-penetration flight of the U-2 program. Powers parachutes down and is captured. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev announces on 7 May to the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union, and thus the world, that a "spyplane" has been shot down but intentionally makes no reference to the pilot. Powers is later produced in a 'show trial'. On 10 February 1962, twenty-one months after his capture, Powers is exchanged along with American student Frederic Pryor in a spy swap for Soviet KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher (aka Rudolf Abel) at the Glienicke Bridge in Berlin, Germany.
  • 1959 – North Vietnam organizes No. 919 Transport Regiment as the first unit of the Vietnam People’s Air Force.
  • 1957 – In the 1957 Blackbushe Viking accident, an Eagle Aviation Vickers VC.1 Viking crashes after engine failure at Blackbushe Airport; of the 35 on board, only a passenger survives.
  • 1954 – The Myasishchev M-4, the first Soviet bomber designed to reach the United States and return to the Soviet Union, is displayed to the public for the first time. In reality, it lacks the range to reach the United States and return.
  • 1952 – The IATA agrees on new "tourist class" fares, which are adopted by Pan Am on its NewYork-London "Rainbow service"
  • 1950 – Third and final de Havilland DH 108, TG283, crashes near Hartley Wintney, Hants, during stall tests, kills replacement RAE OC, Squadron Leader George E. C. "Jumbo" Genders. Aircraft entered uncontrollable spin, pilot bails out, parachute fails.
  • 1949 – The Air Arm, Hong Kong Defence Force is established with Royal Air Force (RAF) assistance.
  • 1947 – United Airlines begins daily scheduled service between San Francisco and Honolulu.
  • 1945 – The U. S. Navy’s mixed-propulsion Ryan FR Fireball becomes the first aircraft incorporating jet propulsion to qualify for use aboard aircraft carriers.
  • 1945 – Hamburg radio of Germany announces to the world the death of Adolf Hitler.
  • 1943 – No. 432 (Bomber) Squadron was formed in England.
  • 1943 – (1-7 ) The U. S. Army Air Forces‘ Eleventh Air Force drops 200,000 pounds (90,719 kg) of bombs on Japanese forces on Attu in the Aleutian Islands in support of the upcoming American invasion of the island.
  • 1942 – No. 130 (Fighter) Squadron was formed at Bagotville, Quebec.
  • 1942 – Squadron No. 588 of the Soviet Air Force, an all-woman night-bombing unit equipped with Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes, is formed in the USSR.
  • 1936 – RAF Training command is formed.
  • 1934 – Fank Akers made a hooded landing in an OJ-2 at College Park, Maryland, in the first demonstration of the blind landing system intended for carrier use and under development by the Washington Institute of Technology.
  • 1930 – Entered Service: Curtiss F8C Helldiver, the first United States Navy dive bomber designed as such, with Fighter Squadron 1 (VF-1 B) aboard USS Saratoga (CV-3)
  • 1923 – HMS Hermes enters service with the Royal Navy. She is the first ship designed from the waterline up as an aircraft carrier and the first aircraft carrier with an island superstructure to enter service.
  • 1922 – Deruluft (Deutsche-Russische Luftverkehrs, "German-Russian Airlines") commences operations.
  • 1916 – German Airship Schütte-Lanz SL3 is stranded near Riga as structure of the ship degraded because of atmospheric exposure.
  • 1915 – Air Mechanic William Thomas James McCudden of the Royal Flying Corps the elder brother of James McCudden VC died when his Bleriot had engine trouble and crashed at Fort Grange, Gosport.
  • 1912 – First flight of the Avro Type F, single seat British aircraft from Avro and the first aircraft in the world to feature a completely enclosed cabin.
  • 1897 – Birth of Eugen Bönsch, Austro-Hungarian WWI fighter ace who also served in WWII
  • 1875 – Birth of Harriet Quimby, early American aviator and movie screenwriter, first woman to gain a pilot's license in the United States

References

  1. ^ "Hypersonic X-51 programme ends in success", Flight International, 3 May 2013.
  2. ^ "X-51A Waverider Achieves Hypersonic Goal On Final Flight," Aviation Week & Space Technology, 2 May 2013.
  3. ^ Anonymous, "WaveRider Goes Hypersonic," Aviation History, September 2013, p. 12.
  4. ^ Wikipedia Operation Black Buck article.
  5. ^ Hastings, Max, and Simon Jenkins, The Battle for the Falklands, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1983, no ISBN, pp. 145-147.
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