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The Aviation Portal

A Boeing 747 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...)

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United Airlines Flight 93 was a scheduled U.S. domestic passenger flight from Newark International Airport, in Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco International Airport. It was hijacked by four men as part of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Over 40 minutes into the flight the hijackers breached the cockpit, overpowered the pilots and took over control of the aircraft, diverting it toward Washington, D.C. Several passengers and crew members made telephone calls aboard the flight and learned about the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As a result, the passengers decided to mount an assault against the hijackers and wrest control of the aircraft.

The plane crashed in a field just outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, about 150 miles (240 km) northwest of Washington, D.C., killing all 44 people aboard, including the hijackers. Many witnessed the impact from the ground and news agencies began reporting on the event within an hour. The plane fragmented upon impact, leaving a crater, and some debris was blown miles from the crash site. The remains of everyone on board the aircraft were later identified. Subsequent analysis of the flight recorders revealed how the actions taken by the passengers prevented the aircraft from reaching either the White House or United States Capitol. A permanent memorial is planned for construction on the crash site. The chosen design has been the source of criticism and is scheduled to be dedicated in 2011. (Full article...)

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Did you know

...that in 1943 British Overseas Airways Corporation Flight 777 was shot down by German Junkers Ju 88s, killing actor Leslie Howard and leading to speculation that it was an attempt to assassinate Winston Churchill?

Bede BD-4

... that in the middle of building Fagernes Airport, Leirin, the authorities changed their minds and gave the airport more than twice the runway length?

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The following are images from various aviation-related articles on Wikipedia.

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Wikinews Aviation portal
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Selected biography

Portrait of Flynn taken in 1929.

The Reverend John Flynn (25 November 1880 – 5 May 1951) was an Australian Presbyterian minister and aviator who founded the Royal Flying Doctor Service, the world's first air ambulance.

Throughout his ministerial training, Flynn had worked in various then-remote areas through Victoria and South Australia. As well as tending to matters spiritual, Flynn quickly established the need for medical care for residents of the vast Australian outback, and established a number of bush hospitals. By 1917, Flynn was already considering the possibility of new technology, such as radio and the aeroplane, to assist in providing a more useful acute medical service, and then received a letter from an Australian pilot serving in World War I, Clifford Peel, who had heard of Flynn's speculations and outlined the capabilities and costs of then-available planes. Flynn turned his considerable fund-raising talents to the task of establishing a flying medical service.

The first flight of the Aerial Medical Service was in 1928 from Cloncurry. In 1934 the Australian Aerial Medical Service was formed, and gradually established a network of bases nationwide. Flynn remained the public face of the organisation (through name changes to its present form) and helped raise the funds that kept the service operating.

Selected Aircraft

British Airways Boeing 747-400
British Airways Boeing 747-400

The Boeing 747 is a widebody commercial airliner, often referred to by the nickname Jumbo Jet. It is among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and was the first widebody ever produced. Manufactured by Boeing's Commercial Airplane unit in the United States, the original version of the 747 was two and a half times the size of the Boeing 707, one of the common large commercial aircraft of the 1960s. First flown commercially in 1970, the 747 held the passenger capacity record for 37 years.

The four-engine 747 uses a double deck configuration for part of its length. It is available in passenger, freighter and other versions. Boeing designed the 747's hump-like upper deck to serve as a first class lounge or (as is the general rule today) extra seating, and to allow the aircraft to be easily converted to a cargo carrier by removing seats and installing a front cargo door. Boeing did so because the company expected supersonic airliners (whose development was announced in the early 1960s) to render the 747 and other subsonic airliners obsolete; while believing that the demand for subsonic cargo aircraft would be robust into the future. The 747 in particular was expected to become obsolete after 400 were sold but it exceeded its critics' expectations with production passing the 1,000 mark in 1993. As of September 2023, 1,574 aircraft have been built, with the final delivery in January 2023.

The 747-8, the latest version in service, is among the fastest airliners in service with a high-subsonic cruise speed of Mach 0.855 (564 mph or 908 km/h). It has an intercontinental range of 7,730 nautical miles (14,320 km; 8,900 mi). The 747-8I (passenger version) can accommodate 467 passengers in a typical three-class layout. The 747-8 completed production on 6 December 2022 and the final 747 was delivered to Atlas Air on 31 January 2023.

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Today in Aviation

July 13

  • 2009 – Southwest Airlines Flight 2294, a Boeing 737-300 from Nashville to Baltimore makes an emergency landing in Charleston, West Virginia after a 14x17 inch hole opens in the skin of the fuselage at 34,000 feet (10,000 m), causing a loss of cabin pressure; the plane lands safely with no injuries.
  • 2008 – (13-19) 18th FAI World Precision Flying Championship
  • 2006 – A Royal Air Force BAE Harrier II GR.9 crashes after the pilot ejects near Kidlington in Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom.
  • 2006 – AH-64D Apache from 4–4th Aviation Regiment shot down south of Baghdad. The two pilots survive.[2]
  • 1995 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-70 at 9:41:55.078 a.m. EDT. Mission highlights: TDRS-G/IUS deployed.
  • 1992 – First flight of the 3I Sky Arrow, Italian 2 tandem seat, pusher configuration, high wing and carbon fibre light aircraft.
  • 1992 – McDonnell-Douglas F-15C-40-MC Eagle. 85-0116, c/n 0972/C358, of the 60th Fighter Squadron, 33rd Fighter Wing, based at Eglin AFB, Florida, crashes at 0900 hrs. in the Gulf of Mexico, 90 miles S of Eglin. Capt. Darren S. Ruhnau, 27, of Niceville, Florida, assigned to the 60th Fighter Squadron, ejects safely. He and another F-15 had departed Eglin at 0835 hrs. for a training mission. "I'm just glad the ACES II ejection system worked as advertised", Ruhnau said in a statement, "and that the search-and-rescue guys were there to do the job." "He was picked up by an oil freighter", said Capt. Susan Brown, a spokeswoman for the 33rd, but the helicopter crew "couldn't get him off there. So they transferred him to a Coast Guard cutter, but they couldn't get him off there either. He was in such good shape, they dropped him back in the water, and picked him up from there." A U.S. Navy helicopter of HC-16 from the USS Forrestal, which is based in Pensacola, plucked him from the Gulf at ~1000 hrs. and transported him to Eglin Regional Hospital where he was checked out and released at ~1330 hrs. Ruhnau has been flying F-15s since May 1989 and assigned at Eglin since September of that year. In an unrelated incident, another 33rd Fighter Wing F-15 makes a rough landing, overshoots the runway at Eglin and comes to a stop in the grass. The pilot, assigned to the 59th Fighter Squadron, does not eject and is uninjured, the fighter sustains less than $10,000 damage, said Brown.
  • 1988 – Death of Edward Rochfort Grange, Canadian WWI flying ace credited with five aerial victories. His postwar career included success as a businessman, and a return to aviation as a civilian inspector and auditor for the Royal Canadian Air Force during WWII
  • 1988 – US Marine Corps McDonnell-Douglas AV-8B-3 Harrier II, BuNo 161582, c/n 512014/14, of VMAT-203, crashes at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina.
  • 1986 – First flight of the PZL-130 T Turbo Orlik, Polish turboprop, single engine, two seat trainer, export version with a Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 A-25 A turboprop.
  • 1985 – Blue Angels Aircraft 5, BuNo 155029, and 6, BuNo 154992, (Douglas A-4F Skyhawk) collide at the top of a loop at 1532 hrs., Niagara Falls International Airport, New York, during the Western New York Air Show '85, killing Lt. Cmdr. Michael Gershon. Second pilot, Lt. Andy Caputi, ejects safely with only minor injuries. One Skyhawk crashed on airport grounds while the second fighter impacted in a nearby auto junkyard. The demonstration team resumes show duties 20 July at Dayton, Ohio but omits maneuver that resulted in crash, and flies with five planes rather than six.
  • 1982 – United States Navy Reserve Lieutenant Commander Barbara Allen Rainey dies in the crash of a T-34 C Mentor trainer aircraft at Middleton Field near Evergreen, Alabama, during a training flight. In February 1974, as Barbara Ann Allen, she had become the first female aviator in the United States Armed Forces.
  • 1982 – A United States Marine Corps F-4J flew into the ground close to Yuma MCAS, Arizona, both crew killed.
  • 1982 – A United States Navy F-4S of VMFA-251 crashed into the Atlantic.
  • 1977 – Death of Count Carl Gustaf Ericsson von Rosen, Swedish pioneer aviator, killed during a sudden Somali guerrilla attack near Gode. He flew relief missions in a number of conflicts as well as combat missions for Finland and Biafran rebels.
  • 1969 – Launch of Luna 15 (Ye-8-5 series), Soviet unmanned space mission to the moon also called Lunik 15.
  • 1956 – USAF Douglas C-118A Liftmaster, 53-3301, c/n 44671, encountered windshear after takeoff, lost altitude and crashed in forest near Fort Dix, 46 killed, 20 survivors.
  • 1950 – The first flight of the Orenda engine on a Lancaster test bed at Malton.
  • 1950 – AA USAF Boeing B-50D-110-BO Superfortress, 49-267, of the 97th Bomb Wing out of Biggs AFB, Texas, carrying a nuclear weapon bomb casing (but no fuel capsule), stalls at 7,000 feet (2,100 m) at about 1454 hrs. EST, crashes between Lebanon and Mason, Ohio, killing four officers and twelve airmen. No radio communication was received before the crash, and although all crew wore parachutes, none bailed out. HE in bomb casing explodes on impact leaving crater 200X25 feet, explosion heard for 25 miles (40 km). One account states that the weather was clear, but Joe Baugher reports that bomber was in a storm system.
  • 1945 – A US Army Air Forces Douglas A-26C Invader, 44-35553, on a training flight has mid-air collision with Eastern Airlines Flight 45 from Washington, D.C. to Columbia, South Carolina, a Douglas DC-3, NC25647',' at ~3100 feet, 11.9 miles WNW of Florence, South Carolina at 1436 hrs. A-26 vertical fin strikes port wing of airliner, displaces engine of DC-3 which cuts into fuselage; A-26 tail sheared off, two crew parachute, one KWF. DC-3 pilot belly lands in cornfield, one passenger of 24 total on board killed.
  • 1945 – 517 B-29 s drop 3,640 tons (3,302,186 kg) of bombs on Utsunomiya and other cities in Japan.
  • 1943 – An Axis air attack destroys a Liberty ship off Sicily.
  • 1943 – (Overnight) Allied transport aircraft carrying paratroopers from North Africa to Sicily again fly low in darkness over Allied ships and ground forces, and again come under friendly fire. Several are shot down. In Operation Fustian, the British Army’s First Parachute Brigade land in gliders and capture the Primosole bridge, but a German parachute battalion that previously had landed nearby drives the British off the bridge by the following evening
  • 1943 – (Overnight) – Royal Air Force Bomber Command flies the last raid of its “Battle of the Ruhr” campaign against the Ruhr region of Germany. Since the campaign began in March, Bomber Command has flown 29 major attacks against the Ruhr and the Rheinland, including five against Essen – which alone suffers 1,037 dead, 3,500 severely injured, and 4,830 homes destroyed – Four each against Duisburg and Cologne, three against Bochum, and one or two each against other cities. Bomber Command has lost 672 aircraft during the Ruhr and Rheinland raids, a 4.8 percent loss rate, and 4,400 aviators. Separately, during same period Bomber Command also has flown 18 major attacks against other targets in France, in Italy, and in Germany outside the Ruhr and Rheinland, including two raids on Berlin and strikes against Munich, Stettin, Turin, La Spezia, and the Škoda Works in Pilsen.
  • 1929 – The Polish aviator Ludwik Idzikowski crashes in the Azores and dies in an attempt of a westbound transatlantic flight.
  • 1928 – An Imperial Airways Vickers Vulcan crashes on a test flight from Croydon Airport with a pilot and five passengers near Purley, Surrey, 3 miles (4.8 km) from the airport, with the loss of four passengers. As a result of the crash Imperial Airways stopped the flying of staff (so-called joy rides) on test flights
  • 1919 – The British military airship R.34, operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF), accomplishes the first two-way transatlantic air crossing. The outward journey is also the first air crossing of the Atlantic from east to west.
  • 1915 – Birth of David Lee "Tex" Hill, American WWII fighter ace and Korean War fighter pilot. One of the First pilots of First American Volunteer Group (better known by its later nickname of the Flying Tigers)
  • 1914 – Birth of Franz Xaver von Werra, German WWII fighter ace who was shot down over England and captured. He is generally regarded as the only Axis prisoner of war to succeed in escaping from a Canadian prisoner of war camp and returning to Germany.
  • 1913 – Léon Letort carries out the First non-stop flight between Paris and Berlin when he flies his Morane-Saulnier monoplane fitted with an 80-hp Le Rhône engine the 590 miles between the two capitals.
  • 1909 – If brief hops by Alliott Verdon Roe on June 8, 1908 are discounted, the first flight made by an Englishman in an English airplane takes place when Roe flies his Roe I triplane for the first time at Lea Marsches in Essex. He flies only 100 ft., but on July 23 he extends the distance to some 900 ft. off the ground.
  • 1897: Salomon August Andrée, Nils Strindberg and Knut Frænkel lands their hydrogen balloon 'Eagle' in the Arctic.

References

  1. ^ Reuters, "19 Suspected Militants Killed in Airstrikes," The Washington Post, July 15, 2013, p. A7.
  2. ^ "US Army Soldiers Survive Helicopter Crash in Iraq". 6abc.com. 2006-06-13. Retrieved 2007-11-29.
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