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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

CG render of McDonnell Douglas MD-11 HB-IWF
CG render of McDonnell Douglas MD-11 HB-IWF
Swissair Flight 111 was a Swissair McDonnell Douglas MD-11 on a scheduled airline flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, United States to Cointrin International Airport in Geneva, Switzerland. This flight was also a codeshare flight with Delta Air Lines. On Wednesday, 2 September 1998, the aircraft used for the flight, registered HB-IWF, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean southwest of Halifax International Airport at the entrance to St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia. The crash site was 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) from shore, roughly equidistant from the tiny fishing and tourist communities of Peggys Cove and Bayswater. All 229 people on board died—the highest death toll of any aviation accident involving a McDonnell Douglas MD-11 and the second-highest of any air disaster in the history of Canada, after Arrow Air Flight 1285. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada's (TSB) official report of their investigation stated that flammable material used in the aircraft's structure allowed a fire to spread beyond the control of the crew, resulting in a loss of control and the crash of the aircraft. Swissair Flight 111 was known as the "U.N. shuttle" due to its popularity with United Nations officials; the flight often carried business executives, scientists, and researchers. (Full article...)

Selected image

Hélène Dutrieu
Photo credit: Bain News Service
Hélène Dutrieu, shown here in her aeroplane ca. 1911, was the fourth woman in the world (the first from Belgium) to earn a pilot's license and reputedly the first woman to carry passengers and to fly a seaplane. Besides being a pilot, she was a cycling world champion, stunt cyclist, stunt motorcyclist, automobile racer, wartime ambulance driver, and director of a military hospital.
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Did you know

...that George H. W. Bush flew a TBF Avenger while he was in the U.S. Navy?

...that the Spartan Cruiser (pictured) was originally designed as mail plane and even flew a test flight to Karachi as such, but was then transformed into a passenger airplane in 1932?

... that to open the swing door on the General Aircraft Hamilcar glider and allow vehicles to emerge, pilots had to climb out of the glider's cockpit and slide down 15 feet of fuselage?

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
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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

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

August 11

  • 2009 – Airlines PNG Flight 4684, a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter carrying 11 passengers and 2 crew crashes into a mountain at Isurava, Papua New Guinea whilst attempting a go around at Kokoda Airport, Papua New Guinea; all passengers and crew perished in the accident.
  • 2004 –CH-53E Super Stallion 164782 from HMM-166 (Reinforced) crashes in the Al-Anbar province, killing two Marines and wounding three others.
  • 2002 – U. S. Airways filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
  • 1993 – 11-14 – Two B-1 Lancers complete a round-the-world trip in 47 hours.
  • 1991 – Space Shuttle Atlantis lands after completing mission STS-43.
  • 1986 – A modified Westland Lynx sets a new helicopter world speed record of 249 mph (401 km/h)
  • 1985 – Space Shuttle Challenger is flown to Kennedy Space Center via Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz.
  • 1984 – President Ronald Reagan jokes during a radio sound check that he had “signed legislation that would outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in 5 min. ” The joke is not broadcast live (contrary to some accounts) but when word of it spreads, the Soviet Army is put on high alert for about 30 min.
  • 1982 – A bomb explodes in a seat cushion aboard Pan Am Flight 830, killing 16-year-old Toru Ozawa and injuring 15 others. The plane, a 747-100 (Clipper Ocean Rover, N754 PA), makes an emergency landing in Honolulu and is repaired. The perpetrator, Mohammed Rashed, is arrested in Greece seven years later and convicted of murder, but freed eight years later. Rashed has also been indicted in the US, and is currently on the FBI’s most wanted list.
  • 1972 – NATO signs a development contract for the MRCA (Multi-Role Combat Aircraft) programme, which will eventually result in the Panavia Tornado
  • 1962 – The Soviet Union launched cosmonaut Andrian Nikolayev on a 94-hour flight.
  • 1955 – First flight of the Bell XV-3 (Bell 200), American tilt rotor aircraft (the three-bladed rotors replaced by two-bladed rotors)
  • 1955 – Two United States Air Force C-119 Flying Boxcars collide near Stuttgart, Germany, killing 66.
  • 1952 – British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) inaugurates its new weekly service between London and Colombo, the capital of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).
  • 1945 – First of only two Nakajima Kikka twin-jet fighters, completed on 25 June, first flown 7 August for eleven minutes by Lt. Cdr. Sasumu Tanaoka out of Kisarazu Naval Air Base, crashes on second flight this date. Second unflown Kikka is shipped to the U.S. after the Japanese capitulation.
  • 1943 – Eight German Focke Wulf Fw 190 s attack USS Philadelphia and two American destroyers off Brolo, Sicily; they score no hits. Philadelphia shoots down five of them and destroyer USS Ludlow (DD-438) and a U. S. Army Air Forces fighter shoot down one each. Allied aircraft break up a German counterattack against U. S. Army forces at Brolo, but seven U. S. Army Air Forces A-36 bombers mistakenly attack the American positions, destroying the command post and four artillery pieces.
  • 1943 – Nine U. S. Army Air Forces B-24 Liberators of the Eleventh Air Force make the second raid of World War II against the Kurile Islands, again attacking the Japanese base at Paramushiro, causing noteworthy damage. Japanese fighters shoot down one B-24 and damage the other eight; the B-24 s shoot down 13 Japanese fighters. The Eleventh Air Force decides not to raid the Kuriles again without fighter escort of its bombers.
  • 1942 – Axis opposition to Operation Pedestal – An Allied resupply convoy to Malta escorted by the British aircraft carriers HMS Victorious, HMS Indomitable, and HMS Eagle, against which 1,000 Axis aircraft have gathered in Sicily and Sardinia – begins when the German submarine U-73 hits Eagle with four torpedoes in the Mediterranean Sea about 141 kilometres (88 mi) north of Algiers. Eagle sinks in eight minutes, with the loss of 131 of her crew and 16 Sea Hurricane fighters. German torpedo planes launch ineffectuve attacks on the convoys, and a strike by Royal Air Force Beaufighters destroys five and damages 14 of the German aircraft on the ground after they return to base
  • 1941 – (11-12) The Soviet Air Force makes its first raid on Berlin, as 11 Petlyakov Pe-8 s arrack the city. German defenses shoot down five Pe-8 s, and Soviet antiaircraft artillery mistakenly shoots down another as it returns to base.
  • 1921 – The 1921 Schneider Trophy race is flown at Venice, Italy. In an all-Italian field, Giovanni De Briganti wins the race in a Macchi M.7 with an average speed of 189.7 kilometres per hour (117.9 mph).
  • 1918 – Royal Air Force Flight Sub-Lieutenant Stuart Culley shoots down Zeppelin L 53 after taking off from a barge towed behind the destroyer HMS Redoubt.
  • 1918 – The first use of a parachute from a combat aircraft occurs when a German pilot escapes his burning Pfalz D.III after being attacked by a pilot from No. 19 Squadron RAF.
  • 1915 – The U. S. Naval Observatory asks Eastman Kodak to develop a special aerial reconnaissance camera that could be used from an airplane flying at heights of 3,000 feet (910 m) to 6,000 feet (1,800 m).
  • 1909 – The first flight of the Baddeck No. 1, a Canadian-built aircraft, by the Canadian Aeroplane Company, took place at Petawawa, Ontario.
  • 1906 – Mrs. C. J. S. Miller becomes the first woman passenger in an airship. The 40-hp craft is owned and operated by her husband, Major Miller.

References

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