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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 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

Arkia Boeing 757-300
Arkia Boeing 757-300
Arkia Israeli Airlines (Hebrew: ארקיע, I will soar), usually referred to as Arkia, is an airline based in Tel Aviv, Israel. It is Israel's second largest airline operating scheduled domestic and international services as well as charter flights to Western Europe and the Mediterranean. Its main base is Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, whilst it also operates significant numbers of flights out of Sde Dov Airport in Tel Aviv, Eilat Airport, and Ovda International Airport.

Arkia was founded in 1949 as Israel Inland Airlines when it became clear that there was demand for a local airline to connect the north of Israel (especially Tel Aviv) with the southern region of the Negev, as a subsidiary of El Al, Israel's national airline. Flights starting the following year with the airline unsing De Havilland DH.89 aircraft, followed by Douglas DC-3s, to connect Rosh Pina in the north to the port of Eilat in the south. El Al held a 50% stake in the airline at this time with Histadrut, Israel's labour federation, being the other shareholder. The airline later evolved to become Eilata Airlines, Aviron, and then to Arkia Israel Airlines. In its first year of service, Israel Inland carried 13,485 passengers on their twice weekly flight, operated by a Curtis Commando. (Full article...)

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Did you know

...that the Heinkel He 46, designed for the Luftwaffe in 1931, was still being used to fight the Soviets in 1943?

Aichi D1A

...that the Pterodactyl Ascender (pictured) has been one of the most influential designs in ultralight aviation?

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

Amelia Earhart, c. 1928
Amelia Mary Earhart (July 24, 1897 – missing as of July 2, 1937), daughter of Edwin and Amy Earhart, was an American aviator and noted early female pilot who mysteriously disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during a circumnavigational flight in 1937.

By 1919 Earhart had enrolled at Columbia University to study pre-med but quit a year later to be with her parents in California. Later in Long Beach she and her father went to a stunt-flying exhibition and the next day she went on a ten minute flight.

Earhart had her first flying lesson at Kinner Field near Long Beach. Her teacher was Anita Snook, a pioneer female aviator. Six months later Earhart purchased a yellow Kinner Airster biplane which she named "Canary". On October 22, 1922, she flew it to an altitude of 14,000 feet, setting a women's world record.

After Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, Amy Guest, a wealthy American living in London, England expressed interest in being the first woman to fly (or be flown) across the Atlantic Ocean, but after deciding the trip was too dangerous to make herself, she offered to sponsor the project, suggesting they find "another girl with the right image." While at work one afternoon in April 1928 Earhart got a phone call from a man who asked her, "Would you like to fly the Atlantic?"

Selected Aircraft

A spitfire in flight
A spitfire in flight

The Supermarine Spitfire was a single-seat fighter used by the RAF and many Allied countries in World War II.

Produced by Supermarine, the Spitfire was designed by R.J. Mitchell, who continued to refine it until his death from cancer in 1937. The elliptical wing had a thin cross-section, allowing a faster top speed than the Hurricane and other contemporary designs; it also resulted in a distinctive appearance. Much loved by its pilots, the Spitfire saw service during the whole of World War II, in all theatres of war, and in many different variants.

More than 20,300 examples of all variants were built, including two-seat trainers, with some Spitfires remaining in service well into the 1950s. It was the only fighter aircraft to be in continual production before, during and after the war.

The aircraft was dubbed Spitfire by Sir Robert MacLean, director of Vickers (the parent company of Supermarine) at the time, and on hearing this, Mitchell is reported to have said, "...sort of bloody silly name they would give it." The word dates from Elizabethan times and refers to a particularly fiery, ferocious type of person, usually a woman. The name had previously been used unofficially for Mitchell's earlier F.7/30 Type 224 design.

The prototype (K5054) first flew on March 5, 1936, from Eastleigh Aerodrome (later Southampton Airport). Testing continued until May 26, 1936, when Mutt Summers (Chief Test Pilot for Vickers (Aviation) Ltd.) flew K5054 to Martlesham and handed the aircraft over to Squadron Leader Anderson of the Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE).

  • Length: 29 ft 11 in (9.12 m)
  • Wingspan: 36 ft 10 in (11.23 m)
  • Height: 12 ft 8 in (3.86 m)
  • Number Built: 20,351 (excluding Seafires)
  • Maximum speed: 330 knots (378 mph, 605 km/h)
  • Maiden flight: March 5, 1936
  • Powerplant: 1× Rolls-Royce Merlin 45 supercharged V12 engine, 1470 hp at 9250 ft (1096 kW at 2820 m)

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.
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