Portal:Aviation
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The Aviation Portal
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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A hot air balloon consists of a bag called the envelope that is capable of containing heated air. Suspended beneath is the gondola or wicker basket (in some long-distance or high-altitude balloons, a capsule) which carries the passengers and a source of heat. The heated air inside the envelope makes it buoyant since it has a lower density than the relatively cold air outside the envelope. Unlike gas balloons, the envelope does not have to be sealed at the bottom since the air near the bottom of the envelope is at the same pressure as the surrounding air. In today's sport balloons the envelope is generally made from nylon fabric and the mouth of the balloon (closest to the burner flame) is made from fire resistant material such as Nomex.
Recently, balloon envelopes have been made in all kinds of shapes, such as hot dogs, rocket ships, and the shapes of commercial products. Hot air balloons that can be propelled through the air rather than just being pushed along by the wind are known as airships or, more specifically, thermal airships. (Full article...)
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Did you know
...that the Vickers machine gun was the standard weapon on all British and French military aircraft after 1916? ...that No. 112 Squadron RAF was the first unit from any air force to use the "Shark Mouth" logo on P-40 fighter planes? ...that the Pterodactyl Ascender (pictured) has been one of the most influential designs in ultralight aviation?
General images - load new batch
- Image 2The Biot-Massia glider, restored and on display in the Musee de l'Air (from History of aviation)
- Image 3Experimental helicopter by Enrico Forlanini (1877), exposed at the Museo nazionale della scienza e della tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci of Milan, Italy (from History of aviation)
- Image 4Woodcut print of a kite from John Bate's 1635 book The Mysteryes of Nature and Art (from History of aviation)
- Image 5La France flying in 1885 (from History of aviation)
- Image 61843 artist's impression of John Stringfellow's plane Ariel flying over the Nile (from History of aviation)
- Image 7Alberto Santos-Dumont flying the Demoiselle over Paris (from History of aviation)
- Image 10Concorde, G-BOAB, in storage at London Heathrow Airport following the end of all Concorde flying. This aircraft flew for 22,296 hours between its first flight in 1976 and final flight in 2000 (from History of aviation)
- Image 12D.H. Comet, the world's first jet airliner. As in this picture, it also saw RAF service (from History of aviation)
- Image 14Planophore model aeroplane by Alphonse Pénaud, 1871 (from History of aviation)
- Image 15One of Leonardo's sketches (from History of aviation)
- Image 16First failure of Langley's manned Aerodrome on the Potomac River, 7 October 1903 (from History of aviation)
- Image 20Nieuport IV, operated by most of the world's air forces before WW1 for reconnaissance and bombing, including during the Italian-Turkish war (from History of aviation)
- Image 22Clément Ader Avion III (1897 photograph) (from History of aviation)
- Image 24French reconnaissance balloon L'Intrépide of 1796, the oldest existing flying device, in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna (from History of aviation)
- Image 27Santos-Dumont's "Number 6" rounding the Eiffel Tower in the process of winning the Deutsch de la Meurthe Prize, October 1901 (from History of aviation)
- Image 29Maxim's flying machine (from History of aviation)
- Image 30Flagg biplane from 1933 (from History of aviation)
- Image 33"Governable parachute" design of 1852 (from History of aviation)
- Image 34The Wright Flyer: the first sustained flight with a powered, controlled aircraft (from History of aviation)
- Image 36Map of record breaking flights of the 1920s (from History of aviation)
- Image 381928 issue of Popular Aviation (now Flying magazine), which became the largest aviation magazine with a circulation of 100,000. (from History of aviation)
- Image 42"Map of Air Routes and Landing Places in Great Britain, as temporarily arranged by the Air Ministry for civilian flying", published in 1919, showing Hounslow, near London, as the hub (from History of aviation)
- Image 43Early Voisin biplane (from History of aviation)
In the news
- May 29: Austrian Airlines cancels Moscow-bound flight after Russia refuses a reroute outside Belarusian airspace
- August 8: Passenger flight crashes upon landing at Calicut airport in India
- June 4: Power firm helicopter strikes cables, crashes near Fairfield, California
- January 29: Former basketball player Kobe Bryant dies in helicopter crash, aged 41
- January 13: Iran admits downing Ukrainian jet, cites 'human error'
- January 10: Fire erupts in parking structure at Sola Airport, Norway
- October 27: US announces restrictions on flying to Cuba
- October 3: World War II era plane crashes in Connecticut, US, killing at least seven
- September 10: Nevada prop plane crash near Las Vegas leaves two dead, three injured
- August 6: French inventor Franky Zapata successfully crosses English Channel on jet-powered hoverboard
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Selected biography
Erich Alfred "Bubi" Hartmann (19 April 1922 – 20 September 1993), also nicknamed "The Blond Knight of Germany" by friends and "The Black Devil" by his enemies, was a German fighter pilot and still is the highest scoring fighter ace in the history of aerial combat. He scored 352 aerial victories (of which 345 were won against the Soviet Air Force, and 260 of which were fighters) in 1,404 combat missions and engaging in aerial combat 825 times while serving with the Luftwaffe in World War II. During the course of his career Hartmann was forced to crash land his damaged fighter 14 times. This was due to damage received from parts of enemy aircraft he had just shot down, or mechanical failure. Hartmann was never shot down or forced to land due to enemy fire.[1]
Hartmann, a pre-war glider pilot, joined the Luftwaffe in 1940 and completed his fighter pilot training in 1942. He was posted to Jagdgeschwader 52 (JG 52) on the Eastern front and was fortunate to be placed under the supervision of some of the Luftwaffe's most experienced fighter pilots. Under their guidance Hartmann steadily developed his tactics which would earn him the coveted Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds on 25 August 1944 for claiming 301 aerial victories.
He scored his 352nd and last aerial victory on 8 May 1945. He and the remainder of JG 52 surrendered to United States Army forces and were turned over to the Red Army. Convicted of false "War Crimes" and sentenced to 25 years of hard labour, Hartmann would spend 10 years in various Soviet prison camps and gulags until he was released in 1955. In 1956, Hartmann joined the newly established West German Luftwaffe and became the first Geschwaderkommodore of Jagdgeschwader 71 "Richthofen". Hartmann resigned early from the Bundeswehr in 1970, largely due to his opposition of the F-104 Starfighter deployment in the Bundesluftwaffe and the resulting clashes with his superiors over this issue. Erich Hartmann died in 1993.
Selected Aircraft
The B-36 was the only American aircraft with the range and payload to carry such bombs from airfields on American soil to targets in the USSR, as storing nuclear weapons in foreign countries was diplomatically delicate. The nuclear deterrent the B-36 afforded may have kept the Soviet Army from fighting alongside the North Korean and Chinese armies during the Korean War. Convair touted the B-36 as an "aluminum overcast," a "long rifle" to give SAC a global reach. When General Curtis LeMay headed SAC (1949-57) and turned it into an effective nuclear delivery force, the B-36 formed the heart of his command. Its maximum payload was more than four times that of the B-29, even exceeding that of the B-52.
- Span: 230 ft 0 in (70.10 m)
- Length: 162 ft 1 in (49.40 m)
- Height: 46 ft 9 in (14.25 m)
- Engines: 6× Pratt & Whitney R-4360-53 "Wasp Major" radials, 3,800 hp (2,500 kW) each
- Cruising Speed: 230 mph (200 kn, 380 km/h) with jets off
- Range: 6,795 mi (5,905 nmi, 10,945 km) with 10,000 lb (4,535 kg) payload
- First Flight: 8 August 1946
Today in Aviation
- 2012 – A United States Navy T-45C of TW-2 crashes 40 miles southwest of Kingville, Texas; both occupants eject safely.
- 2009 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight 668, an ATR 42-500, registration AP-BHO, departs the runway on landing at Allama Iqbal International Airport, Pakistan, resulting in a collapsed nosewheel and damaged main wheel.
- 2008 – A chartered 12-seater Pilatus PC-6 crashes in central Spain after shedding a wing, killing the pilot and a passenger. Other skydivers escaped.
- 2008 – British all-business class airline Silverjet ceases operations. It was the last business class airline in service.
- 2008 – TACA Flight 390, an Airbus A320-233, crashes in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, with five casualiies (two on the ground) and 65 injuries.
- 2007 – One of the last two remaining ATL-98 Carvair (N898AT) crashed at Nixon Fork Mine near McGrath, Alaska.
- 2005 – A Comp Air 7SL aircraft with the Iraqi Air Force crashes in eastern Iraq, killing four Americans and an Iraqi on board.[2]
- 2003 – The final flight of an Air France Concorde takes place.
- 1996 – Retirement: Mirage IV-P Bombers of the Armée de l’Air are retired.
- 1995 – A McDonnell-Douglas F-15C-26-MC Eagle, 79-0068, c/n 0616/C137, of the 53d Fighter Squadron, 52d Fighter Wing, Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, crashes on take-off, killing pilot Maj. Donald Lowry, Jr., 36, who dies en route to hospital. The cause was cross-connected lateral and longitudinal flight control rods off of the mixer assembly. The U.S. Air Force, despite awareness of poorly coordinated color scheme for keeping the rods from being misconnected (identical cases in 1986 and 1991, which, fortunately, were detected before leading to accidents), subjects two mechanics to courts martial for criminally negligent homicide, punishable by four years in prison, a dishonorable discharge and forfeiture of all pay and allowances. The Air Force also engages in dirty tricks, intercepting the defendants' mail and holding it when they were contacted by a safety expert who wanted to assist them. One defendant committed suicide on 3 October 1995, the date the court martial was due to begin. On 13 November, the service, citing "justice and the interests of the Air Force", dropped its case against the other mechanic, in exchange for his decision to leave the military. Motivation for the scape-goating attempt by the service can be traced to criticism the 52d Fighter Wing received for not bringing up on charges pilots who were responsible for downing two U.S. Army helicopters over Iraq in 1994, killing 26. "The 53rd FS 'Tigers' never fully recovered from the dark blemish on their otherwise exemplary record. The only way the USAF could make the issue and the pain go away was by closing the unit. This was done on March 10, 1999, leaving USAFE with only one Eagle squadron for the next war in its theater."
- 1990 – Two USAF LTV A-7 Corsair IIs of the 175th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 114th Tactical Fighter Group, South Dakota Air National Guard, collide in mid-air and crash in a "ball of flame" over northwestern Iowa near Spencer, Iowa, during mock combat, both pilots and a civilian passenger eject safely. The flight consisted on an A-7D single-seater, 70-1050, and A-7K, 80-0292, c/n K-021, two-seater.
- 1988 – The first aircraft carrier to be built in Spain, Principe de Asturias, is commissioned into the Spanish Navy.
- 1982 – The Royal Australian Navy decommissions its last aircraft carrier, HMAS Melbourne (R21). Melbourne never fired a shot in anger during her career, having only peripheral, non-combat roles in relation to the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation and the Vietnam War. She was, however, involved in two major collisions with allied vessels. The first occurred on the evening of 10 February 1964, in which Melbourne rammed and sank the RAN destroyer HMAS Voyager when the latter altered course across her bow. Eighty-two of Voyager's personnel were killed, and two Royal Commissions were held to investigate the incident. The second collision occurred in the early morning of 3 June 1969, when Melbourne also rammed the United States Navy (USN) destroyer USS Frank E. Evans in similar circumstances. Seventy-four American personnel died, and a joint USN–RAN Board of Inquiry was held. These incidents, along with several minor collisions, shipboard accidents, and aircraft losses, led to the reputation that Melbourne was jinxed.
- 1979 – First flight of the Cessna Citation III
- 1975 – A USAF Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star crashes at Tyndall AFB, Florida, killing two pilots, one of whom had just completed a pilot training course the previous day. "Witnesses said the plane dipped into some trees short of the runway and apparently burst into flames. Wreckage was scattered throughout a wooded area adjacent to the base." KWF are 2d Lt. Frank Peffer, 24, of Anaheim, California, and 2d Lt. Michael Wesley, of St. Charles, Missouri, who had graduated from pilot training at the base on Thursday 29 May. This is the first fatal crash at Tyndall since the 19 October 1972 downing of a Convair F-106 Delta Dart which killed its pilot.
- 1974 – Entered service: Airbus A300 with Air France
- 1972 – Delta Air Lines Flight 9570 crashes at the Greater Southwest International Airport in Fort Worth, Texas, while conducting a training flight. The aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas DC-9-14, began to oscillate about the roll axis after crossing the runway threshold during a landing approach, then rolled rapidly to the right and struck the runway with the right wing low. This flight’s crash has been attributed to wake turbulence behind a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 that made a touch-and-go landing ahead of it. The plane’s occupants consisted of three pilots and an FAA inspector, all of whom were killed in the crash and subsequent fire. The resulting investigation prompted changes to the minimum distance that aircraft must keep when following “heavy” aircraft.
- 1972 – First flight of the Northrop YA-9
- 1972 – Lod Airport massacre: three Japanese terrorists attack passengers at Tel Aviv Airport
- 1971 – The American space probe Mariner 9 blasts off from Cape Kennedy, Fla., on a journey to Mars.
- 1966 – 300 US airplanes bomb North Vietnam.
- 1961 – Viasa Flight 897, a Douglas DC-8, crashes shortly after taking off from Lisbon Portela Airport. All 61 passengers and crew on board are killed.
- 1958 – First flight of the Douglas DC-8
- 1949 – Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft test pilot Jo O. Lancaster becomes first British pilot to save his life with an ejection seat when he bails out of experimental twin-jet flying wing Armstrong Whitworth A.W.52, TS363, out of Bitteswell, using "primitive" Martin-Baker Mk.1 seat, when an oscillation in pitch set in during a shallow dive from ~5,000 feet.
- 1948 – First flight of the Martin P5M Marlin
- 1947 – Eastern Air Lines Flight 605 dived into the ground near Bainbridge, Maryland, during a flight from Newark, New Jersey to Miami. All 53 passengers and crew on board were killed. At the time this was the deadliest airliner crash in United States history.
- 1947 – First flight of the Boulton Paul Balliol
- 1944 – First flight of the Pilatus SB-2.
- 1943 – A B-17F-45-BO Flying Fortress, 42-5318, of the 464th Bombardment Squadron, 331st Bombardment Group, out of Casper Army Air Field, Wyoming, piloted by James O. Westbury, crashes into a mountainside NE of Covelo, California, while on a training flight to Eugene, Oregon, killing all six people on board.
- 1942 – The first 1000-bomber raid on Germany (Cologne), with four RCAF squadrons participating. One RCAF aircraft was lost in battle.
- 1942 – (Overnight) Royal Air Force Bomber Command carries out Operation Millenium, its first “thousand-bomber raid", in which 1,047 British bombers attack Cologne, Germany, killing 480 people and injuring 5,000 and destroying 13,000 homes and damaging 30,000. Forty-one bombers are lost. Fifty-seven more British aircraft operate as night intruders in support of the attack.
- 1942 – Since May 1, the Germans and Italians have lost 40 aircraft over Malta in exchange for 25 British planes lost in combat. The British have lost only six aircraft on the ground, 24 fewer than the previous month.
- 1941 – German bombers damage the Australian light cruiser HMAS Perth as she retires after evacuating troops from Crete. Two more British destroyers also will be damaged before the evacuation is complete.
- 1940 – RCAF F/O A. B. Angus was posthumously awarded the DFC for becoming the first Canadian “ace” of WWII (RAF 85 Squadron).
- 1929 – Logan Field is opened at Baltimore, Maryland.
- 1924 – First flight of the Marinens Flyvebaatfabrikk M.F.8
- 1912 – Wilbur Wright dies of typhoid fever at the early age of 45. His death marks the end of his extraordinary partnership with his brother Orville, which culminated in 1903 with the first true powered flight in history.
- 1908 – The first European flight of over 15 minutes takes place. Leon Delagrange flies his Voisin-Delagrange in France.
References
- Toliver & Constable 1986, p. 12.
- "DefenseLink News Article: Four U.S. Airmen and One Iraqi Killed in Crash". Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved 2010-07-15.
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