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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 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

A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine driven rotors. In contrast with fixed-wing aircraft, this allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards and laterally. These attributes allow helicopters to be used in congested or isolated areas where fixed-wing aircraft would not be able to take off or land. The capability to efficiently hover for extended periods of time allows a helicopter to accomplish tasks that fixed-wing aircraft and other forms of vertical takeoff and landing aircraft cannot perform.

The word 'helicopter' is adapted from the French hélicoptère, coined by Gustave de Ponton d'Amecourt in 1861, which originates from the Greek helix/helik- (ἕλικ-) = 'spiral' or 'turning' and pteron (πτερόν) = 'wing'.

Helicopters were developed and built during the first half-century of flight, with some reaching limited production, but it was not until 1942 that a helicopter designed by Igor Sikorsky reached full-scale production, with 131 aircraft built. Though most earlier designs used more than one main rotor, it was the single main rotor with antitorque tail rotor configuration of this design that would come to be recognized worldwide as the helicopter. (Full article...)

Selected image

Swiss rescue helicopter in action.

Did you know

...that sailplane winglets were first successfully implemented by American inventor Peter Masak? ...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 Jimmy Doolittle commanded a 22 plane demonstration celebrating the opening of Henderson, Kentucky's Audubon Memorial Bridge in 1932?

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

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Hugh Montague Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard GCB OM GCVO DSO (3 February 1873 – 10 February 1956) was a British officer who was instrumental in establishing the Royal Air Force. He has been described as the Father of the Royal Air Force.

During his formative years Trenchard struggled academically, failing many examinations and only just succeeding in meeting the minimum standard for commissioned service in the British Army. As a young infantry officer, Trenchard served in India and in South Africa. During the Boer War, Trenchard was critically wounded and as a result of his injury, he lost a lung, was partially paralysed and returned to Great Britain. While convalescing in Switzerland he took up bobsleighing and after a heavy crash, Trenchard found that his paralysis was gone and that he could walk unaided. Some months later, Trenchard returned to South Africa before volunteering for service in Nigeria. During his time in Nigeria, Trenchard commanded the Southern Nigeria Regiment for several years and was involved in efforts to bring the interior under settled British rule and quell inter-tribal violence.

In 1912, Trenchard learned to fly and was subsequently appointed as second in command of the Central Flying School. He held several senior positions in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I, serving as the commander of Royal Flying Corps in France from 1915 to 1917. In 1918, he briefly served as the first Chief of the Air Staff before taking up command of the Independent Air Force in France. Returning as Chief of the Air Staff under Winston Churchill in 1919, Trenchard spent the following decade securing the future of the Royal Air Force. He was Metropolitan Police Commissioner in the 1930s and a defender of the RAF in his later years.

Selected Aircraft

The Yakovlev Yak-42 is a line of tri-jet aircraft produced by the aircraft company Yakolev. The Yak 42 was produced from 1980-2003.

Historically, the yak-42 was competition for older Russian aircraft companies. The Yak-42 was only made in one passenger variant, but it was used in many tests of equipment.

  • Crew: 3
  • Span: 114 ft 5 in (34.88 m)
  • Length: 119 ft 4 in (36.38 m)
  • Height: 32 ft 3 in (9.83 m)
  • Engines: 3× Lotarev D-36 turbofan
  • Cruise Speed: 740 km/h (399 knots, 460 mph) (economy cruise)
  • Range: 4,000 km (2,158 nmi, 2,458 mi) (with maximum fuel)
More selected aircraft Read more...

Today in Aviation

October 11

  • 2012 – The Syrian Revolution General Commission claims that its forces have destroyed 61 Syrian government helicopters and planes, mostly while on the ground during rebel raids, and that the heaviest Syrian government aircraft losses occurred in August.[1]
  • 2011 – In the same modified Yak-3U, William Whiteside sets an unofficial speed record for piston-engined aircraft in the under-3,000 kg (6,615-pound) category of 670 km/hr (416 mph) over the same 3-km (1.863-mile) course at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
  • 2007 – Renowned WWII fighter pilot “Tex” Hill dies (b. 1916). Hill joined the Flying Tigers, an American volunteer group based in China during World War II. He shot down 18 1/4 enemy aircraft during the war.
  • 2000 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-92 at 19:17:00 EDT. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 3A: Z1 truss. It was the 100th Space Shuttle Mission.
  • 1999 – 1999 Air Botswana incident occurred when Chris Phatswe, a Botswana airline pilot, committed suicide by crashing a plane into the tarmac and a group of aircraft at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport in Gaborone. His actions effectively crippled operations for Air Botswana.
  • 1998 – A Congo Airlines Boeing 727 is shot down by rebels in Kindu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing 40.
  • 1991 – The crash of a Beechcraft T-34C Turbo-Mentor in Baldwin County, Alabama, kills Navy Cmdr. Duane S. Cutter, 44, from Newfield, New York, and his student, Marine 2nd Lt. Thomas J. Gaffney, 24, of West Chester, Pennsylvania, while on a routine training mission out of NAS Whiting Field, Florida, said Lt. Cmdr. Diane Hooker, a Navy spokeswoman at Whiting Field. Hooker couldn't immediately say what techniques the two were practicing when the T-34 went down.
  • 1988 – KC-135 refueling tanker crashes on landing at Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan. Plane is destroyed and there are several fatalities.
  • 1984 – Kathryn D. Sullivan becomes the first American woman to perform spacewalk aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger.
  • 1984 – After a ground controller falls alseep on duty, Aeroflot Flight 3352, a Tupolev Tu-154, strikes several maintenance vehicles and crashes while landing at Omsk Tsentralny Airport in Omsk in the Soviet Union, killing 174 of the 179 people on board and four people on the ground.
  • 1983 – Air Illinois Flight 710, a Hawker Siddeley HS 748, crashes near Hillsboro Municipal Airport due to electrical problems. All 10 passengers and crew on board are killed.
  • 1968 – Apollo program – NASA launches Apollo 7, the first successful manned Apollo mission, with astronauts Wally Schirra, Donn F. Eisele and Walter Cunningham aboard.
  • 1968 – Fifth prototype U.S. Navy Grumman F-111B, BuNo 151974, c/n A2-05, crash landed at Point Mugu, California. Scrapped. Navy abandons the F-111B program completely and both houses of Congress refuse to fund production order in May 1968.
  • 1963 – The Vertol CH-113 Voyageur helicopter entered RCAF service.
  • 1962 – First of 200 Canadian-built CF-104 Starfighters left for West Germany; to join strike-reconnaissance squadrons.
  • 1960 – The Hon G. R. Pearkes, VC, DSO, retired as Minister of National Defence and was replaced by the Hon Douglas Harkness.
  • 1957 – On takeoff shortly after 0000 hrs. from Homestead AFB, Florida, a Boeing B-47B-35-BW Stratojet, 51-2139, c/n 450192, of the 379th Bomb Wing, participating in exercise Dark Night, suffers port-rear wheel casing failure at 30 kts. The bomber's tail hits the runway and a fuel tank ruptures, crashing in an unhabited area approximately 3,800 feet from the end of the runway, four crew KWF. The aircraft burns for seven hours after the firecrew evacuates the area, ten minutes after the crash. The aircraft was carrying an unarmed nuclear weapon in the bomb bay and fuel capsule in a carrying case in the cabin. "Two low order detonations occurred during the burning." The nuclear capsule and its carrying case were recovered intact and only slightly damaged by heat. Approximately one-half of the weapon remained. All major components were damaged but were identifiable and accounted for.
  • 1944 – 61 carrier aircraft of Task Force 38 attack Aparri airfield on Luzon against no opposition, destroying about 15 Japanese aircraft on the ground in exchange for the loss of one U. S. plane to enemy ground fire and six to non-combat causes.
  • 1918 – The Imperial German Navy’s air command proposes that merchant ships be converted into Germany’s first aircraft carriers with flight decks.
  • 1910 – Theodore Roosevelt (President of the United States of America 1901 – 09) becomes the first former state leader to fly (four minutes) in an airplane when he flies with exhibition pilot Arch Hoxsey in a plane built by the Wright Brothers at Kinloch Field in St. Louis.
  • 1907 – Robert Esnault-Pelterie makes the first airplane flight with a control stick, using a single, broom handle-like lever.

References

  1. ^ FSA shot down 61 Syrian regime warplanes during uprising Thursday, 11 October 2012
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