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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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Mirabel Satellite photo
Mirabel Satellite photo
Montréal-Mirabel International Airport is a large airport located in Mirabel, Quebec, near Montreal and was opened 4 October 1975. The airport serves mainly cargo flights, and is a manufacturing base of Bombardier Aerospace, where final assembly of regional jets (CRJ700 and CRJ900) aircraft is conducted. It is part of the National Airports System. It is the second largest airport in the world in terms of area, covering more land area than the five New York City boroughs.

The airport's location and lack of transport links, as well as Montreal's economic decline relative to Toronto, made it unpopular with airlines. Eventually relegated to the simple role of a cargo airport, Mirabel became an embarrassment widely regarded in Canada as being a boondoggle, or a "white elephant," and one of the best examples of a failed megaproject. (Full article...)

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Credit: U.S. Air Force photo by TSgt Ben Bloker
Lt. Col. James Hecker (front) and Lt. Col. Evan Dertein line up their F/A-22 Raptor aircraft behind a KC-10 Extender to refuel while en route to Hill Air Force Base, Utah. Colonel Hecker commands the first operational Raptor squadron -- the 27th Fighter Squadron at Langley Air Force Base, Va. The unit went to Hill for operation Combat Hammer, the squadron's first deployment, Oct. 15. The deployment has a twofold goal: complete a deployment and to generate a combat-effective sortie rate away from home.

Did you know

...the study of airmail is known as aerophilately? ...that Berlin Airlift "Candy Bomber" Gail Halvorsen would wiggle the wings of his plane to identify himself to children below? ... that when Lilian Bland built an aircraft in 1910, she used her aunt's ear-trumpet and a whisky bottle to feed petrol to the engine?

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

Billy Mitchell (1879–1936) was an early aviation pioneer who rose to become a chief of the U.S. Army Air Service. Mitchell was born in Nice, France and raised on his family estate near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He attended George Washington University before enlisting in the Army at age 18 during the Spanish–American War. Due to his family connection he quickly received a commission Signal Corps where he had the opportunity to witness a flight demonstration by the Wright brothers in 1908. In 1916 he took private flight lessons and was transferred to the Aeronautical Division.

Mitchell deployed to France in 1917 when the United States entered World War I. While there he was promoted to brigadier general and placed in command American combat air units in France. After the war Mitchell was appointed the deputy director of the Air Service became a passionate advocate of air power. In 1921 he set up a demonstration to show the capability of airpower against naval vessels. During the course of the demonstrations aircraft successfully sank a captured German destroyer, the light crusier Frankfurt, and the battleship Ostfriesland.

Mitchell regularly sparred with his superiors over the role of airpower in the military. In 1925 he was reverted to his permanent rank of colonel and was transferred to San Antonio, Texas. Later that year, after a series of aviation accidents he accused Army and Navy leadership of incompetence and "almost treasonable administration of the national defense." In response he was court-martialed for insubordination, found guilty, and sentenced to a five-year suspension from active duty. Mitchell resigned on 1 February 1926 in lieu of serving the sentence. He continued to advocate airpower as a civilian until his death in 1936. In 1942 President Franklin Roosevelt posthumously promoted Mitchell to major general in recognition of his contributions to air power.

Selected Aircraft

The Beechcraft King Air is a line of twin-turboprop aircraft produced by the Beech Aircraft Corporation (now the Beechcraft Division of Hawker Beechcraft). The King Air has been in continuous production since 1964, the longest production run of any civilian turboprop aircraft. It has outlasted all of its previous competitors and as of 2006 is one of only two twin-turboprop business airplanes in production (the other is the Piaggio Avanti).

Historically, the King Air family comprises a number of models that fall into four families, the Model 90 series, Model 100 series, Model 200 series, and Model 300 series. The last two types were originally marketed as the Super King Air, but the "Super" moniker was dropped in 1996. As of 2006, the only small King Air in production is the conventional-tail C90GT.

  • Span: 50 ft 3 in (15.33 m)
  • Length: 35 ft 6in (10.82 m)
  • Height: 14 ft 3 in (4.35 m)
  • Engines: 2 × Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-21 turboprops , 550 shp (410 kW) each
  • Cruising Speed: 284 mph (247 knots ,457 km/h)
  • First Flight: May 1963
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Today in Aviation

August 8

  • 2011 – IrAero Flight 103, an Antonov An-24, overruns the runway after landing at Ignatyevo Airport, Blagoveshchensk; all 36 on board survive with 12 suffering injuries.
  • 2009 – Hudson River mid-air collision: N71 MC, a Piper PA-32R, and N401LH, a Eurocopter AS350 collide mid-air over New York. Both aircraft crash into the Hudson River, killing all three people on board the aircraft and all six people on board the helicopter.
  • 2007 – Virgin America began operations.
  • 2007 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavou STS-118 at 22:36:42 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 13A.1: S5 Truss & Spacehab-SM & ESP3. First use of SSPTS (Station-to-Shuttle Power Transfer System).
  • 2007 – An RAF Aérospatiale-Westland Puma HC.1, ZA934, 'BZ', of 33 Squadron, crashes in a wooded area of Hudswell Grange, W of Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, UK. Two RAF crew, pilot and aircraft commander Flt. Lt. David Oxer Hanson Sale, and crewman Sgt. Phillip Anthony "Taff" Burfoot died in the crash, while Army Pvt. Sean Tait, Royal Regiment of Scotland, died two days later in hospital. Nine others injured but survive.
  • 2006 – A UH-60 Black Hawk 86-24535 from 82nd AAC (MEDEVAC) attached to 3rd MAW crashes in Anbar, killing two crew members and injuring four.[1][2]
  • 2004 – OH-58D(I) Kiowa 96-0015 made emergency landing north of Baghdad after being hit by RPG. Crew unhurt.[3]
  • 2002 – Rico Linhas Aéreas Flight 4823, an Embraer EMB 120 Brasília, crashes on approach in a rainstorm; the aircraft breaks up into three pieces and catches fire; 23 of 31 on board perish.
  • 1998 – An Grumman F-14A-95-GR Tomcat, BuNo 160407, 'AC 105', of VF-32, based at NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia, crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, while on a routine training mission. Both crewmen eject and are rescued within 15 minutes, Navy officials in Norfolk, Virginia said. The F-14 was operating from the USS Enterprise.
  • 1993 – A Saab JAS 39 Gripen, 39-102, crashed on the central Stockholm island of Långholmen, near the Västerbron bridge, during a slow speed manoeuver during a display over the Stockholm Water Festival. Lars Rådeström, the same pilot as in the 1989 incident, ejected safely. Despite large crowds of onlookers, only one person on the ground was injured.3] This crash was, like the previous one, caused by a PIO.
  • 1989 – Launch: Space Shuttle Columbia STS-28 at 8:37:00 am EDT. Mission highlights: Fourth classified DoD mission; Satellite Data System deployment.
  • 1985 – A USAF General Dynamics F-16A Block 15F Fighting Falcon, 81-0750, of the 421st Tactical Fighter Squadron, crashed during a training mission in northwest Utah, killing the pilot. Crashed onto the Utah Test and Training Range killing pilot, First Lieutenant S. Brad Peale. The aircraft suffered a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT).
  • 1985 – A USAF LTV A-7D Corsair II, 69‑6198, of the 4450th Tactical Group, lost power, caught fire and crashed into Midwest City, a suburb of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, pilot Maj. Dennis D. Nielson staying with aircraft as he attempted to steer it towards less-populous area before ejecting, but fighter impacted house, killing one, injuring one, one missing, said a United Press International report. Second victim found on 9 August. This unit was secretly operating Lockheed F-117 Nighthawks at this time.
  • 1957 – Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-50, a swept-wing, experimental high-altitude interceptor, the Ye-2 airframe modified to fit Dushkin S-155 rocket motor, with design work started in 1954, first flight in 1956. Programme terminated after crash of Ye-50/3 on this date. Test pilot N. A. Korovin, of GK NII VVS, is killed when the engine explodes, escape system fails.
  • 1955 – Internal explosion aboard Bell X-1A, 48-1384, while being carried aloft by Boeing B-29 mothership, forces NACA pilot Joseph Albert Walker to exit aircraft back into the Superfortress, which is then jettisoned due to the full fuel load it carries, the rocket-powered testcraft coming down on the Edwards AFB, California bombing range.
  • 1948 – FW ‘Casey’ Baldwin, the first Canadian to pilot an heavier-than-air flying machine, died at Neareagh, Nova Scotia.
  • 1948: Birth: Svetlana Savitskaya, cosmonaut
  • 1945 – 245 B-29 s drop 1,296 tons (1,175,723 kg) of bombs on Yawata, Japan.
  • 1943 – Axis bombers attack the American light cruiser USS Philadelphia (CL-41) off Sant’Agata di Militello, Sicily, scoring no hits.
  • 1943 – (8-17) Allied aircraft of the Northwest African Air Force attack Axis forces evacuating Sicily across the Strait of Messina to mainland Italy in Operation Lehrgang. Wellington strategic bombers average 85 sorties nightly – Attacking evacuation beaches in Sicily until the night of August 13-14, then ports in mainland Italy – And medium bombers and fighter-bombers fly 1,170 sorties. Allied planes face no Axis air opposition but face heavy antiaircraft fire and succeed in sinking only a few vessels, never endangering the success of the Axis evacuation.
  • 1942 – U. S. Marines capture the partially completed Japanese airstrip on Guadalcanal. They will rename it Henderson Field, and it will be the focal point of the six-month Guadalcanal campaign. Offshore, Rabaul-based Japanese aircraft damage a U. S. transport, which becomes a total loss.
  • 1942 – 1st Lt. Edward Joseph Peterson dies in hospital from injuries suffered in the crash this date of Lockheed F-4 Lightning, 41-2202, a reconnaissance variant of the P-38, when it suffers engine failure on take-off from Air Support Command Base, near Colorado Springs, Colorado. Field is renamed Peterson Army Air Field on 3 March 1943, later Peterson Air Force Base on 1 March 1976.
  • 1942 – The sole Republic XP-47B Thunderbolt, 40-3051, operating out of the Republic plant at Farmingdale, New York, is lost when the pilot interrupted wheel retraction, leaving the tailwheel in the superchargers' exhaust gases. This set the tire alight which ignited the magnesium hub. When the burning unit retracted into the fuselage, it severed the tail unit control rods, forcing the pilot, Fillmore "Fil" Gilmer, a former naval aviator, to bail out with the airframe crashing in the waters of Long Island Sound. Loss of prototype went unpublicized at this early stage of the war. Nothing is ever found of the wreckage.
  • 1924 – The U. S. Navy dirigible USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) docks with the airship tender USS Patoka (AO-9) while the latter is underway, showing that airships could operate from support ships far out to sea.
  • 1914 – A French aerial observer is injured by small-arms fire, becoming that nation's first casualty of air war.
  • 1910 – The first aircraft tricycle landing gear is installed on the US Army’s Wright airplane.
  • 1908 – Wilbur Wright makes his first flights at the Hunaudières racetrack at Le Mans, France. The Wright Flyer used for this and later flights had been shipped to Le Havre by Orville the previous year. It had been seriously damaged by custom officials when it arrived in France and uncrated. Wilbur spent the whole summer of 1908 rebuilding the machine and getting it into flying condition. Wilbur’s flights in this machine will have a profound effect on European aviation during the following months.
  • 1901 – Wilbur Wright achieves a flight of 389 feet (118.5 m) at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in the Wright 1901 glider.
  • 1709 – First person in flight: Bartolomeu de Gusmão in a balloon filled with heated air at the hall of the Casa da India in Lisbon. (However, this claim is not generally recognized by aviation historians outside the Portuguese speaking community, in particular the FAI.)

References

  1. ^ "2 U.S. Soldiers Missing After Helicopter Crash In Iraq". newsnet5.com. 2006-08-08. Archived from the original on March 10, 2008. Retrieved 2007-11-29.
  2. ^ "KTRE.com Lufkin and Nacogdoches – Our Apologies". Retrieved 2010-07-16.
  3. ^ "1996 USAF Serial Numbers". Retrieved 2010-02-17.
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