Jump to content

Portal:Aviation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portal topics
Activities
Culture
Geography
Health
History
Mathematics
Nature
People
Philosophy
Religion
Society
Technology
Random portal
Main page   Categories & Main topics  


Tasks and Projects

The Aviation Portal

A Boeing 747 in 1978 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

Arkia Boeing 757-300
Arkia Boeing 757-300
Arkia Israeli Airlines (Hebrew: ארקיע, I will soar), usually referred to as Arkia, is an airline based in Tel Aviv, Israel. It is Israel's second largest airline operating scheduled domestic and international services as well as charter flights to Western Europe and the Mediterranean. Its main base is Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, whilst it also operates significant numbers of flights out of Sde Dov Airport in Tel Aviv, Eilat Airport, and Ovda International Airport.

Arkia was founded in 1949 as Israel Inland Airlines when it became clear that there was demand for a local airline to connect the north of Israel (especially Tel Aviv) with the southern region of the Negev, as a subsidiary of El Al, Israel's national airline. Flights starting the following year with the airline unsing De Havilland DH.89 aircraft, followed by Douglas DC-3s, to connect Rosh Pina in the north to the port of Eilat in the south. El Al held a 50% stake in the airline at this time with Histadrut, Israel's labour federation, being the other shareholder. The airline later evolved to become Eilata Airlines, Aviron, and then to Arkia Israel Airlines. In its first year of service, Israel Inland carried 13,485 passengers on their twice weekly flight, operated by a Curtis Commando. (Full article...)

Selected image

Su-27 from Russian Knights aerobatic team on landing, Kubinka

Did you know

...that Guy Menzies flew the first solo trans-Tasman flight (from Sydney to New Zealand) in 1931, but landed upside-down in a swamp? ...that the BAE Systems HERTI is the first and only fully autonomous UAV to have been certificated by the United Kingdom? ...that Royal Brunei Catering, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Royal Brunei Airlines, was named as Best Regional Caterer 1995/1996 by Singapore Airlines?

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

Benjamin Delahauf Foulois (1879-1967) was an early aviation pioneer who rose to become a chief of the U.S. Army Air Corps. The son of a French immigrant, he was born and raised in Connecticut. He enlisted in the Army at age 18 to serve in the Spanish–American War. After just a few month he was separated because of disease he had picked up in Puerto Rico. He re-enlisted in 1899 and was sent to the Philippines where he received a commission as a Second Lieutenant. Foulois believed that the new airplane would replace the cavalry for reconnaissance and in 1908 transferred into the Signal Corps.

Foulois conducted the acceptance test for the Army's first aircraft, a Wright Model A, in 1909. He participated in the Mexican Expedition from 1916–17 and was part of the American Expeditionary Force in France during World War I where he was responsible for the logistics and maintenance of the U.S. air fleet. During World War I he and Billy Mitchell began a long and hostile relationship over the direction of military aviation and the best method to get there. After the war he served as a military attaché to Germany where he gathered a great deal of intelligence on German aviation. He later went on to command the 1st Aero Squadron and ultimately commanded the Air Corps.

He retired in 1935 as part of the fallout from the Air Mail scandal. Foulois continued to advocate for a strong air service in retirement. In 1959, at the invitation of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Foulois began touring Air Force bases advocating national security. He died of a heart attack on 25 April 1967 and is buried in his home town of Washington, Connecticut.

Selected Aircraft

Airbus A380
Airbus A380

The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, four-engined airliner manufactured by Airbus S.A.S. It first flew on 27 April 2005 from Toulouse–Blagnac Airport. Commercial flights began in late 2007 after months of testing, with the delivery of the first aircraft to launch customer Singapore Airlines. During much of its development phase, the aircraft was known as the Airbus A3XX, and the nickname Superjumbo has also become associated with the A380.

The A380 is double decked, with the upper deck extending along the entire length of the fuselage. This allows for a spacious cabin, with the A380 in standard three-class configuration to seat 555 people, up to maximum of 853 in full economy class configuration. Only one model of the A380 was available: The A380-800, the passenger model. It is the largest passenger airliner in the world superseding the Boeing 747. The other launch model, the A380-800F freighter, was canceled and did not join the ranks of the largest freight aircraft such as the Antonov An-225, An-124, and the C-5 Galaxy.

  • Span: 79.8 m (261 ft 10 in)
  • Length: 73 m (239 ft 6 in)
  • Height: 24.1 m (79 ft 1 in)
  • Engines: 4 * Rolls-Royce Trent 900 or Engine Alliance GP7200 (311 kN or 69,916 lbf)
  • Cruising Speed: 0.85 Mach (approx 1,050 km/h or 652 mph or 567 kn)
  • First Flight: 27 April 2005
  • Number built: 254 (including 3 prototypes)
More selected aircraft Read more...

Today in Aviation

October 1

  • 1994 – United Airlines creates a new airline named United Shuttle.
  • 1990 – Curtis LeMay, American Air Force general, dies (b. 1906).
  • 1986 – The B-1 B achieved Initial Operational Capability.
  • 1984 – Aeroflot Flight 3352, a Tupolev Tu-154B-1, crashes on landing at Tsentralny Airport, Omsk Russia. One hundred and seventy-four passengers and four people on the ground perish in the crash.
  • 1969 – The Concorde supersonic transport plane exceeds the speed of sound - more than MACH 1 for the first time.
  • 1959 – English Electric test pilot Johnny W.C. Squier, flying prototype two-seat English Electric Lightning T.4, XL628, suffers structural failure, ejects at Mach 1.7, becoming first UK pilot to eject above the speed of sound. Radar tracks the descending fighter, but not the pilot as he landed in the Irish Sea, and despite an extensive search, Squier has to make his way ashore by himself after 28 hours in a dinghy. Squier passes away 30 January 2006, aged 85.
  • 1958 – NASA was created to replace NACA.
  • 1957 – Aborted takeoff at Homestead AFB, Florida, causes write-off of Boeing B-47B-50-BW Stratojet, 51-2317, of the 379th Bomb Wing. Gear collapses, aircraft burns, but base fire department is able to quench flames such that crew escapes - pilots blow canopy to get out, navigator egresses through his escape hatch.
  • 1956 – Chapter Two of the Experimental Aircraft Association is chartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
  • 1956 – The RAF's first Avro Vulcan B.1, XA897, which completed a fly-the-flag mission to New Zealand in September, approaches Heathrow in bad weather on GCA approach, crashing short of the runway. Two pilots eject, but four crew do not have ejection seats and are killed. Aircraft Captain Squadron Leader "Podge" Howard and co-pilot Air Marshal Sir Harry Broadhurst survive. Signal delays in the primitive Ground-Controlled Approach system of the time may have let the aircraft descend too low without being warned. Undercarriage damaged in contact short of runway with control lost during attempted go-around.
  • 1954 – Nos. 425 and 432 Squadrons were formed at St. Hubert and Bagotville, Quebec, and equipped with Avro Canada CF-100 fighters.
  • 1953 – No. 440 Squadron was reformed at Bagotville, Quebec, and equipped with Avro Canada CF-100 fighters.
  • 1953 – A USAF North American B-25 Mitchell attached to Andrews AFB, Maryland, crashes in fog and heavy overcast into the forested pinnacle of historic Pine Mountain, striking Dowdell's Knob at ~2130 hrs., near Warm Springs in western Georgia, killing five of six on board, said spokesmen at Lawson AFB. The bomber had departed from Eglin AFB. Florida, at 1930 hrs. for Andrews AFB. Two Eglin airmen were among those KWF. The sole survivor, Richard K. Schmidt, 19, of Rumson, New Jersey, a Navy airman assigned at NAS Whiting Field, Florida, who had hitch-hiked a ride on the aircraft, was found by two farmers who heard the crash and hiked to the spot from their mountainside homes "and found the sailor shouting for help as he lay in the midst of scattered wreckage and mutilated bodies. They said [that] they found a second man alive but base officials said [that] he died before he could be given medical attention." Tom Baxley, one of the farmers, said that the bodies of the dead, most of them torn by the collision, were flung about among the pine trees, and bits of the plane were hurled over a wide area. Schmidt was hospitalized with a possible hip fracture and cuts. Among the fatalities were two airmen assigned to Eglin AFB who had also hitch-hiked a ride and were on their way home on leave. The impact location is on the site of the proposed $40,000,000 Hall of History to mark a scenic point frequented by the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
  • 1952 – The RCAF No. 1 Air Division formed as part of 4th Allied Tactical Air Force.
  • 1952 – The United States Navy reclassifies all of its “aircraft carriers” (CV) and “large aircraft carriers” (CVB) as “attack aircraft carriers” (CVA).
  • 1952 – U.S. Navy Grumman TBM-3S2 Avenger, BuNo 53439, of Air Anti Submarine Squadron-23, NAS San Diego, California, on night radar bombing training flight strikes Pacific Ocean surface at 110 knots (200 km/h) ~2 1/2 miles W of Point Loma. Both crew survive the accidental ditching, with pilot Lt. Ross C. Genz, USNR, rescued after four hours in a life raft by a civilian ship, but radarman AN Harold B. Tenney, USN, apparently drowns after evacuating the bomber and is never seen again. Wreckage discovered in 1992 during underwater survey.
  • 1950 – No. 411 Squadron (Auxiliary) was formed at Toronto, Ontario.
  • 1946 – RAF Bristol Brigand TF.1, RH744, failed to develop sufficient power on takeoff from RAE Farnborough, overran into soft ground and flipped over, without injuries to crew. This was the first Brigand written off.
  • 1946 – RCAF returned to a peacetime footing and many Regular Force personnel were reduced in rank.
  • 1945 – The first annual general meeting of the International Air Transport Association begins in Montreal, Canada.
  • 1942 – No. 149 (TB) Squadron was formed at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.
  • 1941 – Inter-Island Airways is renamed Hawaiian Airlines.
  • 1940 – A British bomber is shot down over the Netherlands by German antiaircraft artillery after being illuminated by a searchlight coupled to a Freya radar. It is the first time an aircraft is destroyed after being detected and illuminated by a radar-guided searchlight.
  • 1938 – The newly-formed Trans-Canada Air Lines began regular air mail service between Winnipeg and Vancouver.
  • 1936 – C. W. A. Scott and Giles Guthrie win the Schlesinger Race from England to Johannesburg, South Africa, flying Vega Gull G-AEKE landing at Rand Airport on 1 October 1936. The aircraft had left Portsmouth 52 hours 56 min 48 seconds earlier. Out of the original 14 entries to the race Scott and Guthrie were the only ones to finish, winning the 10,000 pounds prize money.
  • 1931 – KLM begins a regular service between Amsterdam and Batavia by Fokker F.XII. At 13,744 km (8,540 miles) this is the longest regular air route in the world at the time.
  • 1926 in aviation|1926 – An oil field accident cost aviator Wiley Post his left eye, but he used the settlement money to buy his first aircraft.
  • 1924 – Pilot E. A. Alton set out on the first recorded aerial mail flight from Estevan, Saskatchewan to Winnipeg, but unfortunately was aborted by a crash.
  • 1920 – Refresher training began at Camp Borden, Ontario.
  • 1917 – The Royal Navy tests an aircraft catapult for the first time, using a compressed-air catapult aboard the catapult trials ship Slinger to launch an unmanned Short 184 with its fuselage fabric removed and engine replaced by ballast. On the same day, the Royal Navy conducts the first launch of an aircraft from a battleship or battlecruiser, when Royal Naval Air Service Flight Commander F. J. Rutland takes off in a Sopwith Pup from a platform mounted on a 15-inch (381-mm) gun turret of the battlecruiser HMS Repulse.
  • 1912 – The Military Aviation Service is founded in Germany. [3]
  • 1906 – United States Army Lieutenant Frank Lahm wins the first Gordon Bennett international balloon race. [4]
  • 1881 – William E. Boeing is born in Detroit, Mich. (d. 1956).
  • 1861 – The United States Army Balloon Corps, consisting of five balloons and fifty men, is formed. [5]

References

  1. ^ Foster, Malcolm (October 1, 2012). "Ospreys Fly to U.S. Base on Okinawa Despite Protests". (Associated Press) Bigstory.ap.org. Retrieved December 2, 2012.
  2. ^ Editor-in-Chief: Bill Gunston, Aviation: Year by Year, Amber Books Limited, London, UK, 2001.
  3. ^ Editor-in-Chief: Bill Gunston, Aviation: Year by Year, Amber Books Limited, London, UK, 2001.
  4. ^ Editor-in-Chief: Bill Gunston, Aviation: Year by Year, Amber Books Limited, London, UK, 2001.
  5. ^ Editor-in-Chief: Bill Gunston, Aviation: Year by Year, Amber Books Limited, London, UK, 2001.
Edit today's anniversaries – October Archive – All anniversaries...


Purge server cache

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Aviation&oldid=1230432074"