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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...)

Selected article

Air Force One
Air Force One
Air Force One (the ATC callsign of any U.S. Air Force aircraft carrying the President) has, since 1990, consisted of two specifically-configured, highly customized Boeing 747-200B series aircraft, known as the VC-25. The planes' three floors (4,000 square feet – 372 m²) include multiple modifications including the president's executive suite which includes a private dressing room, workout room, lavatory, shower, and private office. (Full article...)

Selected image

Boeing-Stearman NS-1 Bi-plane
Boeing-Stearman NS-1 Bi-plane
Credit: U.S. Navy
Boeing-Stearman Model 75's. Taken in 1936 at NAS Pensacola during training of the first class of the Naval Aviation Cadet program. Photo includes Boone Guyton (plane in rear) who later became a test pilot for Chance-Vought (Vought Sikorsky) in 1939.

Did you know

...that British Airways unveiled a new corporate identity in 1997 which involved repainting its fleet with around 20 daring tailfin designs by world artists? ...that Indra Lal Roy of the Royal Air Force became India's first flying ace after he achieved 10 victories in thirteen days during World War I? ... that on 28 May 1931, a Bellanca CH-300 fitted with a Packard DR-980 diesel engine set a 55-year record for staying aloft for 84 hours and 32 minutes without being refueled?

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

Elizabeth 'Bessie' Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926), popularly known as "Queen Bess", was the first African American (male or female) to become an airplane pilot, and the first American of any race or gender to hold an international pilot license. Growing up in Chicago, she heard tales of the world from pilots who were returning home from World War I. They told stories about flying in the war, and Coleman started to fantasize about being a pilot. She could not gain admission to American flight schools because she was black and a woman. No black U.S. aviator would train her either. Coleman took French language class at the Berlitz school in Chicago, and then traveled to Paris on November 20, 1920. Coleman learned to fly in a Nieuport Type 82 biplane.

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

September 13

  • 2009 – D-ALCO, a McDonnell-Douglas MD-11 operated by Lufthansa Cargo is severely damaged in a heavy landing at Mexico City International Airport. Post landing inspection revealed that there were wrinkles in the fuselage skin and the nose gear was bent. It is reported that the aircraft may be written off.
  • 2009 – An Israeli Air Force Lockheed Martin F-16A Block 10A Fighting Falcon 140, ex-78-0337, from the Nevatim Israeli Air Force Base, Beersheba, Israel crashes near the P'nei Chever settlement in the Southern Hebron Hills at 1345 hrs. killing the pilot. The incident occurred during military training including a simulated dogfight with another aircraft. During a sharp turn, the pilot Captain Assaf Ramon the only son Colonel Ilan Ramon who died in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster in 2003, suffered either loss of consciousness or mechanical failure leading to the crash.
  • 2001 – Civilian aircraft traffic resumes in the U. S. after the September 11, 2001 attacks.
  • 1997 – Luftwaffe Tupolev Tu-154M, 11+02, c/n 813, call sign GAF 074, of 1 Staffel/FBS (Flugbereitschaft), used for Open Skies treaty verification, collided with a USAF Lockheed C-141B Starlifter, 65-9405, call sign REACH 4201, of the 305th AMW, about 120 km (75 mi) W of the coast of Namibia over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 24 aboard the Tu-154 and all nine on the C-141. Accident investigations by both countries, released 31 March 1998, found that the Tu-154 was flying at the wrong altitude, 35,000 feet (11,600 m.) instead of 39,000 feet (12,900 m.), and was thus primarily at fault. Contributory factor was chronically poor ATC in the area.
  • 1982 – Spantax Flight 995, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30CF, is destroyed by fire after an aborted take-off at Málaga, Spain; fifty of the 294 on board die.
  • 1974 – The U. S. Air Force SR-71 Blackbird 61-17972, flown by Captain Harold B. “Buck” Adams (pilot) and Major William C. Machorek (reconnaissance systems officer), flies 5,447 miles (8,771 km) from London to Los Angeles in a world record 3 hours 47 min 39 seconds at an average speed of 1,435.59 mph (2,311.74 km/h).
  • 1971 – Lin Biao, second-in-charge of the People’s Republic of China, is killed in the crash of a Hawker Siddeley Trident near Öndörkhaan, Mongolia.
  • 1955 – Six people were killed when a North American B-25 suffered engine failure on takeoff from Mitchel Field, NY, and crashed into Greenfield Cemetery, Hempstead, NY.
  • 1946 – Major General Paul Bernard Wurtsmith (9 August 1906 – 13 September 1946), of Strategic Air Command, is killed when his North American TB-25J-27-NC Mitchell, 44-30227, of the 326th Base Unit, MacDill Field, Florida, crashes at ~1130 hrs. into Cold Mountain near Asheville, North Carolina. In February 1953, the United States Air Force named Wurtsmith Air Force Base in Oscoda Township, Michigan, in his honor.
  • 1944 – The first Supermarine Spiteful prototype, NN660, a converted Spitfire XIV, first flown 30 June 1944, returning from flight from the A&AEE, Boscombe Down, crashes this date while in unplanned mock combat with a Spitfire at low altitude, killing test pilot Frank Furlong. No reason for the loss is officially established, although after an incident that happened to him, Jeffrey Quill suggests it may have been due to the Spiteful's aileron control rods sticking - previous Sptifires had used cables. Control rods are checked for binding in all future Spitefuls and the problem does not re-occur. Quill had chosen Furlong for his test team after they had flown together during the Battle of Britain.
  • 1943 – Off Salerno, the American light cruiser USS Philadelphia (CL-41) avoids two German guided bombs, but a guided bomb badly damages the British light cruiser HMS Uganda and another fatally damages a British hospital ship During the evening, 82 C-47 Skytrains and C-53 Skytroopers flying from Sicily drop 600 paratroopers of the United States Army’s 82nd Airborne Division behind Allied lines in the Salerno beachhead.
  • 1942 – U. S. Army Air Forces bombers fly a 1,200-mile (1,900 km) round-trip raid against Japanese forces at Kiska in the Aleutian Islands from Umnak for the last time. They will begin flying raids from Adak, 400 miles (640 km) closer to Kiska, the following day.
  • 1940 – The Imperial Japanese Navy’s Mitsubishi A6 M Zero fighter scores its first aerial victories, when a flight of Zeroes attacks 27 Nationalist Chinese fighters over Chungking and claims to have destroyed all of them; actual Chinese losses probably are 13 to 24 aircraft. No Zeroes are lost.
  • 1935 – Millionaire film producer and amateur air racer Howard Hughes shattered the world land plane speed record in his home built Hughes Racer airplane.
  • 1928 – In an effort to speed up the time it takes for mail to reach the United States via Europe, a single-engined Liore et Oliver LeO 198 airplane is catapulted off the Ile de France ocean liner, reducing the time it takes mail to reach the United States by one whole day.
  • 1913 – Aurel Vlaicu, Romanian engineer and inventor, dies near Câmpina, Romania, while attempting to fly across the Carpathian Mountains in his Vlaicu II airplane.
  • 1906 – Traian Vuia flies a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft becoming the first fixed wing aircraft to fly in Europe.
  • 1906 – Alberto Santos-Dumont successfully flies his Santos-Dumont 14-bis aircraft at Château de Bagatelle, for the first time.

References

  1. ^ "Four killed in Aleppo as Syria fighting rages". Times of India. 13 September 2012. Retrieved 15 September 2012.
  2. ^ "Plane crashes in eastern Venezuela". BBC News. 14 September 2010. Archived from the original on 14 September 2010. Retrieved 13 September 2010.
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