Jump to content

Portal:Aviation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Portal topics - (Random portal)

Activities
Culture
Geography
Health
History
Mathematics
Nature
People
Philosophy
Religion
Society
Technology
Main page   Categories & Main topics  


Tasks and Projects

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 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

A U.S. Air Force F-35A off the coast of Florida
A U.S. Air Force F-35A off the coast of Florida
The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole combat aircraft that is intended to perform both air superiority and strike missions. It is also able to provide electronic warfare and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. Lockheed Martin is the prime F-35 contractor, with principal partners Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems. The aircraft has three main variants: the conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) F-35A, the short take-off and vertical-landing (STOVL) F-35B, and the carrier-based (CV/CATOBAR) F-35C. (Full article...)

Selected image

Credit: Master Sgt. Michael Ammons, USAF
The F-15 Eagle is an American-built all-weather tactical fighter designed to gain and maintain air superiority in aerial combat. As of 2005, the F-15 in all air forces has a combined kill record of 104 confirmed kills to zero losses in air combat, although some F-15s have been claimed by surface-to-air missiles.

Did you know

...that George H. W. Bush flew a TBF Avenger while he was in the U.S. Navy? ...that the Alexander Aircraft Company, which produced Eaglerock biplanes in Colorado, was the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world for a brief period between 1928 and 1929? ... that Flying Officer (later Air Commodore) Frank Lukis was one of the original twenty-one officers in the RAAF when it was formed in 1921?

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

Amy Johnson (1 July 1903 – 5 January 1941) C.B.E. was a pioneering British aviatrix.

Born in Kingston upon Hull, Johnson graduated from University of Sheffield with a Bachelor of Arts in economics. She was introduced to flying as a hobby, gaining a pilot's A Licence No. 1979 on 6 July 1929 at the London Aeroplane Club. In that same year, she became the first British woman to gain a ground engineer's C License.

Johnson achieved worldwide recognition when, in 1930, she became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. She left Croydon on 5 May of that year and landed in Darwin, Australia on 24 May after flying 11,000 miles. Her aircraft for this flight, a De Havilland Gipsy Moth (registration G-AAAH) named Jason, can still be seen in the Science Museum in London. She received the Harmon Trophy as well as a CBE in homage to this achievement, and was also honoured with the No. 1 civil pilot's licence under Australia's 1921 Air Navigation Regulations.

In July 1931, Johnson and her co-pilot Jack Humphreys became the first pilots to fly from London to Moscow in one day, completing the 1,760-mile journey in approximately 21 hours. From there, they continued across Siberia and on to Tokyo, setting a record time for flying from England to Japan. The flight was completed in a De Havilland Puss Moth.

Selected Aircraft

[[File:|right|250px|The two YC-130 prototypes; the blunt nose was replaced with radar on later production models.]] The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is a four-engine turboprop cargo aircraft and the main tactical airlifter for many military forces worldwide. Over 40 models and variants of the Hercules serve with more than 50 nations. On December 2006 the C-130 was the third aircraft (after the English Electric Canberra in May 2001 and the B-52 Stratofortress in January 2005) to mark 50 years of continuous use with its original primary customer (in this case the United States Air Force).

Capable of short takeoffs and landings from unprepared runways, the C-130 was originally designed as a troop, medical evacuation and cargo transport aircraft. The versatile airframe has found uses in a variety of other roles, including as a gunship, and for airborne assault, search and rescue, scientific research support, weather reconnaissance, aerial refuelling and aerial firefighting. The Hercules family has the longest continuous production run of any military aircraft in history. During more than 50 years of service the family has participated in military, civilian and humanitarian aid operations.

More selected aircraft Read more...

Today in Aviation

April 17

  • 2010 – UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter goes down about 12 miles (19 km) north of Tikrit. One U.S. service member is killed and 3 others are injured .[3][4][5]
  • 2009 – Línea Turística Aereotuy Cessna 208 B Grand Caravan YV-1811 crashes shortly after take-off from Canaima Airport, Venezuela, killing one of the eleven people on board.
  • 2009 – Mimika Air Flight 514, operated by Pilatus PC-6 PK-LTJ crashes into Mount Gergaji, Indonesia, killing all ten people on board.
  • 2005- AH-64D Apache 03-5370 from 4th Squadron, 3d ACR makes hard landing near Baghdad.[6]
  • 1998 – Launch: Space Shuttle Columbia STS-90 at 2:19 pm EDT. Mission highlights: Spacelab mission.
  • 1997 – A Delta II 7925 rocket carrying the first GPS Block IIR satellite, GPS IIR-1, exploded only 13 seconds after liftoff, raining flaming debris all over Launch Complex 17 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
  • 1996 – A Grumman F-14B Tomcat converted from Grumman F-14A-120-GR Tomcat, BuNo 161444, 'AD 201', of VF-101, based at NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia, crashes near Norfolk, Virginia, the fourth accident for the type this year. The two crew survive.
  • 1995 – A LearJet C-21, the U.S. military version of the LearJet 35A, crashed in a wooded area four miles south of Alexander City, Alabama, while trying to make an unplanned landing at the airport. The plane was en route to Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, from Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. An Air Force spokesman said that the plane carried a crew of two and six passengers. Killed in the crash were Clark G. Fiester, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force; Maj. Gen. Glenn A. Profitt II, director of plans and operations for the Air Education and Training Command at Randolph; Col. Jack Clark II; Maj. Hubert B. Fisher, who was assigned to the Pentagon; the aircraft commander, 1st Lt. Paul Bowers; an instructor pilot, Capt. Paul Carley; and two passengers who had joined the flight on a "space available" basis, Air Force Maj. James K. Horne and Army Sgt. Padro Mercado.
  • 1986 – Hindawi affair: Israeli security guards at London Heathrow Airport discover explosives in the luggage of an Irish woman attempting to board an El Al airliner. Her Jordanian fiancé, Nezar Hindawi, is arrested for planting the bomb without her knowledge in an effort to destroy the airliner.
  • 1985 – CP Air began first Boeing 737 Series A 300 service when C-FCPG flew from Vancouver to Winnipeg and Toronto.
  • 1982 – CAAC Flight 3303, a Hawker Siddeley Trident, crashes into a mountain near Yangsuo while on approach to Guilin Liangjiang International Airport in heavy weather; all 112 on board die.
  • 1972 – The Soviet Union claims that American airstrikes have damaged four of its merchant ships in Haiphong Harbor.
  • 1970 – The crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft and its three astronauts returns to earth safely after suffering an explosion en route to the moon.
  • 1970 – A Sikorsky CH-53D helicopter flies between London and Paris to demonstrate that modern helicopters can provide reliable inter-city services.
  • 1966 – First flight of the Chengdu J-7, People's Republic of China-built version of the Soviet Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21.
  • 1966 – First total transition flight of the Canadair CL-84 "Dynavert", Canadian V/STOL turbine tilt-wing monoplane prototype.
  • 1963 – Joseph A. Walker flies the North American X15 A to a height of 82,600 m (271,000 feet) and, having flown higher than 50 miles, he qualifies for astronaut wings.
  • 1949 – Avro Tudor Mark IVB 'Star Ariel' passenger aircraft (British piston-engined airliner based on the four-engine Lincoln bomber) owned and operated by British South American Airways (BSAA) disappeared without trace over the Atlantic Ocean while on a flight between Bermuda and Kingston, Jamaica, part of the Bermuda Triangle legend.
  • 1944 – F/O TC Cooke and crew in a Consolidted Canso of No. 162 Sq­ron sank the German submarine U-311, southwest of Iceland.
  • 1942 – 12 Lancaster bombers – six each from No. 44 (Rhodesia) Sq­ron and No. 97 Sq­ron – carry out the longest low-level penetration thus far in World War II and the first daylight raid by the Lancaster in an attack on a submarine diesel engine factory at Augsburg, Germany. The two sq­rons fail to rendezvous and four of the No. 44 Sq­ron bombers, led by South African Air Force Sq­ron Leader John Dering Nettleton, are shot down by German fighters shortly after crossing the North Sea, but Nettleton pushes on with the two surviving Lancasters and attacks the target against heavy antiaircraft artillery fire. He is awarded the Victoria Cross for the mission. No. 97 Squadron loses one Lancaster.
  • 1942 – Sixteen North American B-25 Mitchells, led by Col. Jimmy Doolittle, leave for the pivotal raid on Japan.
  • 1941 – During dive tests to determine why wrinkles are appearing on the surface plates of the wings, Lt. Manbeye Shimokawa, squadron leader at Yokosuka Naval Air Corps, is killed in Mitsubishi A6M Model 21, number 135, equipped with balance tabs, when, during pull-out at 1,500 meters from dive from 4,000 meters, parts are seen by ground observers to depart from the port wing, fighter drops nose, plunges into ten fathoms of water off Natsu Island. Pilot found in recovered wreckage with head injuries from striking instrument panel on impact. Aeronautical Technical Establishment investigation reveals that flutter and vibration tests had not simulated the stiffness distribution of actual airframes and that the ailerons and horizontal stabilizers had been torn out. Fighter had previously been assigned to the carrier Akagi.
  • 1939 – The Renard R-36, Belgian all-metal fighter prototype single seat aircraft, crashed near Nivelles, killing pilot Lt. Visconte Eric de Spoelberg.
  • 1931 – The second of two Westland Westbury twin-engine test bed fighter prototypes, J7766, retrofitted with Bristol Jupiter VIII engines with reduction gearing, suffers engine-start accident at Martlesham Heath this date. With Hucks starter turning over engine, with the throttle accidentally wide open, the aircraft suddenly jumps the chocks and collides with the Hucks vehicle, being damaged beyond economical repair :struck off charge.
  • 1926 – Western Air Express starts its service between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City.
  • 1913 – Briton Gustav Hamel lands after a non-stop flight of 4 hours and 18 min from Dover, England, to Cologne, Germany in a Blériot XI.
  • 1902 – Gustave Whitehead reportedly flies his Whitehead Aeroplane No. 22 flying boat on an 11 km (7 mile) flight and lands safely.
  • 1899 – Birth of Nevil Shute, popular British novelist and a successful aeronautical engineer.
  • 1892 – Birth of Amedeo Mecozzi, Italian WWI flying ace, WWII general of the Italian Regia Aeronautica and a military theorist credited as the founding father of the "Attack air force" doctrine
  • 1891 – Birth of Hans Klein, German WWI fighter ace, and WWII luftwaffe high-ranking officer.
  • 1886 – Birth of Glenn L. Martin, American aviation pioneer, Founder of the Glenn L. Martin Company.
  • 1847 – Birth of Nikolay Yegorovich Zhukovsky, Russian scientist, founding father of modern aero- and hydrodynamics. Whereas contemporary scientists scoffed at the idea of human flight, Zhukovsky was the first to undertake the study of airflow.

References

  1. ^ Vastag, Bryan (April 18, 2012.) "Space Shuttle Discovery Makes Final Flight Over Washington, D.C.,". The Washington Post
  2. ^ Zott, Courtney (April 18, 2012) "Discovery Shuttle Thrills D.C. With Long Goodbye. The Washington Examiner, p. 12
  3. ^ Sinan Salaheddin (2010-04-18). "US soldier killed in Iraq helicopter crash". Associated Press. Retrieved 2010-04-18. [dead link‍]
  4. ^ "U.S. soldier dies in helicopter crash in Iraq". Xinhua. 2010-04-18. Retrieved 2012-02-09.
  5. ^ "Πέντε Ιρακινοί στρατιώτες νεκροί μετά από συντριβή ελικοπτέρου λόγω αμμοθύελλας" (in Greek). in.gr. 2010-07-28. Retrieved 2010-07-28.
  6. ^ "2003 USAF Serial Numbers". Retrieved 2010-02-17.
Edit today's anniversaries – April Archive – All anniversaries...


Purge server cache

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Aviation&oldid=1257586536"