Portal:Aviation
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The Aviation Portal
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Pan_Am_Boeing_747-121_N732PA_Bidini.jpg/220px-Pan_Am_Boeing_747-121_N732PA_Bidini.jpg)
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 aircraft 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. Clément Ader built the "Ader Éole" in France and made an uncontrolled, powered hop in 1890. This is the first powered aircraft, although it did not achieve controlled flight. 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 Heinkel He 46, designed for the Luftwaffe in 1931, was still being used to fight the Soviets in 1943? ...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 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?
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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
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
![Concorde at Heathrow](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/Concorde_g-boab_heathrow.jpg/200px-Concorde_g-boab_heathrow.jpg)
Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde supersonic transport (SST), along with the Tupolev Tu-144, was one of only two models of supersonic passenger airliners to have seen commercial service.
Concorde had a cruise speed of Mach 2.02 (around 2170 km/h or 1,350 mph) and a maximum cruise altitude of 60,000 feet (18 300 metres) with a delta wing configuration and a reheat-equipped evolution of the engines originally developed for the Avro Vulcan strategic bomber. The engines were built by Rolls-Royce. Concorde was the first civil airliner to be equipped with an analogue fly-by-wire flight control system. Commercial flights, operated by British Airways and Air France, began on January 21, 1976 and ended on October 24, 2003, with the last "retirement" flight on November 26 that year.
Construction of the first two prototypes began in February 1965. Concorde 001 was built by Aerospatiale at Toulouse and Concorde 002 by BAC at Filton, Bristol. Concorde 001 took off for the first test flight from Toulouse on March 2, 1969 and the first supersonic flight followed on October 1. As the flight programme of the first development aircraft progressed, 001 started off on a sales and demonstration tour beginning on September 4, 1971. Concorde 002 followed suit on June 2, 1972 with a sales tour of the Middle and Far East. Concorde 002 made the first visit to the United States in 1973, landing at the new Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to commemorate its opening.
- Span: 84 ft 0 in (25.6 m).
- Length: 202 ft 4 in[2] (61.66 m)
- Height: 40 ft 0 in (12.2 m )
- Engines: 4× Rolls-Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593 Mk 610 afterburning turbojets 170 kN each.
- Cruising Speed: Mach 2.04 (1,350 mph, 2,170 km/h)
- First Flight: March 2, 1969
- Number built: 20 (including prototypes)
Today in Aviation
- 2013 – South Airlines Flight 8971, an Antonov An-24 with 52 people on board, overshoots the runway and crash-lands while attempting to make an emergency landing in fog at Donetsk International Airport in Donetsk, Ukraine, killing five people.
- 2009 – BA CityFlyer Flight 8456, an Avro RJ100, registration G-BXAR, is substantially damaged when the nosewheel collapses on landing at London City Airport. All 71 people on board are successfully evacuated via emergency chutes.
- 2007 – Death of Air Marshal Sir Richard (Dickie) Gordon Wakeford KCB OBE LVO AFC, officer in the Royal Air Force for 36 years, from 1941 to 1977. Beginning as a pilot of flying boats with Coastal Command, he became a flying instructor, and commanded the Queen’s Flight.
- 2006 – The 5,000th 737 comes off the production line. The 737 is the most-produced large commercial jet airplane in aviation history.
- 2003 – Continental and US Airways launch interline e-Ticketing.
- 2002 – The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) takes over responsibilities for airport security from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
- 1995 – $US 5 million in damage is caused when a violent thunderstorm hits Miami International Airport. Four airliners and nine airbridges are seriously damaged.
- 1991 – First flight of the Emivest SJ30, an American business jet.
- 1991 – Two U. S. Air Force F-117 A Nighthawk stealth fighters bomb a low structure in Baghdad which the Coalition believes houses an Iraqi military command-and-control facility. The attack destroys an air raid shelter, with Iraq claiming that over 400 civilians in it were killed, although the Coalition stands firm on its claim that the target was a military facility within which Iraq had illegally sheltered civilians to gain a propaganda advantage if they were killed. Iraqi antiaircraft artillery downs a Royal Saudi Air Force F-5E Tiger II fighter over southwestern Iraq.
- 1972 – The Soviet Union has started to use Cuba as a base from which to spy on the US. The first mission is flown by two Soviet Tu-95, which surveys part of the east coast.
- 1969 – Death of Florence Mary Taylor CBE (born Parsons), first qualified female architect, first woman to train as an engineer in Australia and first woman in Australia to fly in a heavier-than-air craft
- 1967 – President Lyndon B. Johnson orders a six-day halt of American bombing raids over Vietnam during the visit of Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin to London.
- 1965 – President Lyndon B. Johnson authorizes Operation Rolling Thunder, a campaign of air strikes against North Vietnam.
- 1964 – Birth of Stephen Gerard Bowen, US Navy submariner and a NASA astronaut.
- 1963 – Pacific Southwest Airlines becomes a public corporation.
- 1960 – France detonates its first nuclear weapon.
- 1958 – A British Ministry of Defence White Paper makes Britain’s nuclear weapons program public knowledge.
- 1957 – Death of Richard “Ricardo” Wenzl, German WWI flying ace.
- 1955 – A Sabena DC-6 crashes on Mount Terminillo, near Rieti, Italy, killing 29, including actress and model Marcella Mariani.
- 1950 – 1950 British Columbia B-36 crash: AA U.S. Air Force Convair B-36B-15-CF Peacemaker, 44-92075, of the 436th Bomb Squadron, 7th Bomb Wing, in transit from Eielson AFB, Alaska to Carswell AFB, Texas, loses three of six engines, suffers icing. To lighten aircraft, crew jettisons Mark 4 nuclear bomb casing over the Pacific Ocean from 8,000 feet (2,400 m). High explosives detonate on contact, large shockwave seen, 17 crew later bails out safely over Princess Royal Island, but five (the first to depart the bomber) are not recovered and are assumed to have come down in water and drowned. Aircraft flies 210 miles (340 km) with no crew, impacting in the Skeena Mountains at 6,000 feet (1,800 m), east of Stewart, British Columbia. Wreckage found in September 1953.
- 1945 – 13-15 – Allied bombers attack Dresden with incendiary weapons, destroying most of the city and killing some 50,000 people.
- 1945 – A Douglas R4D-6 (Bu. No. 50765) of Air Transport Squadron 3 of the US Navy crashes into the sea near Alameda, California, killing all twenty-one passengers and three crew.
- 1944 – Carrier aircraft of U. S. Navy Task Force 58 strike Eniwetok.
- 1943 – First combat mission of the Vought F4U Corsair, when Guadalcanal-based Marine Fighter Squadron 124 (VMF-124) Corsairs escort U. S. Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator bombers on a raid against Kahili Airfield on Bougainville. They encounter no enemy aircraft.
- 1942 – One hundred Japanese aircraft drop 700 Japanese paratroopers onto Palembang on Sumatra.
- 1942 – Birth of Captain Donald Edward Williams, NASA astronaut and test pilot.
- 1939 – Birth of Valery Ilyich Rozhdestvensky, Soviet cosmonaut.
- 1937 – Birth of Sigmund Werner Paul Jähn, German pilot and first German to fly in space as part of the Soviet Union’s Intercosmos program.
- 1936 – Imperial Airways commences airmail services to West Africa
- 1935 – Bruno Hauptmann is convicted of murder for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s 20-month-old son Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. He would be executed in the New Jersey’s infamous “Old Smokey” electric chair a year later.
- 1930 – Death of Karl Odebrett, German WWI fighter ace.
- 1928 – Sole prototype Blackburn F.1 Turcock, the firm's first fighter project in some eight years, an attempt to produce an aircraft equally suited as a land-based interceptor and as a ship-borne fighter, found no interest from the Air Ministry, but Blackburn built one as a private venture. It first flew (without guns) on 14 November 1927, piloted by Flt. Lt. Arthur George Loton, AFC, and having been purchased by the Turkish government was named the Turcock. Allocated the British registration G-EBVP for test and delivery purposes, it was destroyed in a flying accident this date. No other models of the type were built.
- 1928 – Prospecting Airways Ltd. was formed for aerial prospecting.
- 1923 – Chuck Yeager, American fighter & test pilot, and the first person to break the “sound barrier”. in level flight, is born (1947).
- 1919 – The first post-war French commercial service is established on a route from Paris to Lille for the carriage of food and clothing to France’s northern departments.
- 1918 – Birth of Junichi Sasai, Japanese Navy WWII fighter ace.
- 1913 – At the second British Aero Show in London, the world’s first airplane specifically designed to carry a gun, 37-mm cannon on biplane, is displayed for the first time. Called Destroyer and built by Vickers, Sons & Maxim, it is officially called the Experimental Fighting Biplane No.1 (E. F. B.1).
- 1912 – Birth of Giovanni Battista Boscutti, WWII Italian pilot.
- 1903 – Birth of Charles William Anderson Scott, AFC, British aviator.
- 1903 – Birth of Georgy Mikhailovich Beriev, founder of Soviet Union’s Beriev Design Bureau which concentrated on amphibious aircraft.
- 1895 – Birth of Arturo Ferrarin, Italian raid pilot.
- 1893 – Birth of Stearne Tighe Edwards, Canadian WWI fighter ace.
- 1893 – Birth of Campbell Alexander Hoy, British WWI flying ace, And RAF officer until end of WWII.
- 1893 – Birth of Franz Brandt, German WWI flying ace.
References
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