Portal:Aviation
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The Aviation Portal
Aviation is 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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Did you know
...that on October 5, 1914, a French Voisin III pilot scored the first air-to-air kill of World War I? ...that Frenchman Jean-Marie Le Bris accomplished the world's first powered flight in 1856, with a glider that was pulled behind a running horse? ... that while flying accidents were commonplace at RAAF training establishments during World War II, No. 8 Service Flying Training School's first fatality was from drowning?
General images -
Three widebodies: KLM's Airbus A330 twinjet, McDonnell Douglas MD-11 trijet and Boeing 747-400 quadjet (from Wide-body aircraft)
The Wright Military Flyer aboard a wagon in 1908. (from History of aviation)
A U.S. Space Shuttle mounted on a modified Boeing 747 (from Wide-body aircraft)
Félix du Temple's 1874 Monoplane. (from History of aviation)
German Taube monoplane, illustration from 1917 (from History of aviation)
Paul Cornu's helicopter, built in 1907, was the first manned flying machine to have risen from the ground using rotating wings instead of fixed wings. (from History of aviation)
Otto Lilienthal, 29 May 1895. (from History of aviation)
Leonardo da Vinci's ornithopter design (from History of aviation)
The 14-bis, or Oiseau de proie. (from History of aviation)
The Wright Flyer: the first sustained flight with a powered, controlled aircraft. (from History of aviation)
"Governable parachute" design of 1852 (from History of aviation)
First failure of Langley's manned Aerodrome on the Potomac River, 7 October 1903 (from History of aviation)
Daedalus working on Icarus' wings. (from History of aviation)
Cathay Pacific's First Class cabin on board a Boeing 747-400 (from Wide-body aircraft)
A NASA study on wingtip vortices, which illustrates wake turbulence (from Wide-body aircraft)
First female combat pilot, Sabiha Gökçen, reviews her Breguet 19. (from History of aviation)
A narrow-body Boeing 737 of Lufthansa in front of a wide-body Boeing 777 of Emirates (from Wide-body aircraft)
Jean-Marie Le Bris and his flying machine, Albatros II, 1868. (from History of aviation)
Woodcut print of a kite from John Bate's 1635 book The Mysteryes of Nature and Art. (from History of aviation)
D.H. Comet, the world's first jet airliner. As in this picture, it also saw RAF service (from History of aviation)
French reconnaissance balloon L'Intrépide of 1796, the oldest existing flying device, in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna. (from History of aviation)
Flagg biplane from 1933 (from History of aviation)
Aviation timeline (from History of aviation)
Apollo 11 lifts off on its mission to land a man on the Moon (from History of aviation)
One of Leonardo's sketches (from History of aviation)
Maxim's flying machine (from History of aviation)
Qantas De Havilland biplane, c. 1930 (from History of aviation)
Alberto Santos-Dumont flying the Demoiselle over Paris (from History of aviation)
1843 artist's impression of John Stringfellow's plane Ariel flying over the Nile (from History of aviation)
Early Voisin biplane (from History of aviation)
Cessna CitationJet/M2, a part of the Citation family of business jets (from General aviation)
Concorde, 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)
Santos-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)
An Airbus A300's cross-section, showing cargo, passenger, and overhead areas (from Wide-body aircraft)
Planophore model aeroplane by Alphonse Pénaud, 1871 (from History of aviation)
"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)
A cross-section comparison of Airbus A380 (double-deck the full length) and Boeing 747-400 (double-deck only in the front section) (from Wide-body aircraft)
Robinson R22, a light piston-engine helicopter (from General aviation)
The economy class cabin of an Airbus A350 (from Wide-body aircraft)
A Boeing 747, the first wide-body passenger aircraft, operated by Pan Am (from Wide-body aircraft)
The Biot-Massia glider, restored and on display in the Musee de l'Air. (from History of aviation)
The 1884 Krebs & Renard first fully controllable free-flights with the LA FRANCE electric dirigible near Paris (Krebs arch.) (from History of aviation)
Nieuport 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)
Map of record breaking flights of the 1920s (from History of aviation)
The General Electric GE90 is the most powerful turbofan engine. (from Wide-body aircraft)
Me 262, world first operational jet fighter (from History of aviation)
General aviation aircraft at Cheb Airport, Czech Republic (from General aviation)
The Aeroplane of Victor Tatin, 1879. (from History of aviation)
Clément Ader Avion III (1897 photograph). (from History of aviation)
The business class cabin on an A350. (from Wide-body aircraft)
Opel RAK.1 - World's first public flight of a manned rocket-powered plane on 30 September 1929 (from History of aviation)
1928 issue of Popular Aviation (now Flying magazine), which became the largest aviation magazine with a circulation of 100,000. (from History of aviation)
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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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The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is a two-seat, twin-engined, all-weather, long-range supersonic fighter-bomber originally developed for the U.S. Navy by McDonnell Aircraft. Proving highly adaptable, it became a major part of the air wings of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Air Force. It was used extensively by all three of these services during the Vietnam War, serving as the principal air superiority fighter for both the Navy and Air Force, as well as being important in the ground-attack and reconnaissance roles by the close of U.S. involvement in the war.
First entering service in 1960, the Phantom continued to form a major part of U.S. military air power throughout the 1970s and 1980s, being gradually replaced by more modern aircraft such as the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon in the U.S. Air Force; the F-14 Tomcat and F/A-18 Hornet in the U.S. Navy; and the F/A-18 in the U.S. Marine Corps. It remained in use by the U.S. in the reconnaissance and Wild Weasel roles in the 1991 Gulf War, finally leaving service in 1996. The Phantom was also operated by the armed forces of 11 other nations. Israeli Phantoms saw extensive combat in several Arab–Israeli conflicts, while Iran used its large fleet of Phantoms in the Iran–Iraq War. Phantoms remain in front line service with seven countries, and in use as an unmanned target in the U.S. Air Force.
Phantom production ran from 1958 to 1981, with a total of 5,195 built. This extensive run makes it the second most-produced Western jet fighter, behind the F-86 Sabre at just under 10,000 examples.
- Span: 38 ft 4.5 in (11.7 m)
- Length: 63 ft 0 in (19.2 m)
- Height: 16 ft 6 in (5.0 m)
- Engines: 2× General Electric J79-GE-17A axial compressor turbojets, 17,845 lbf (79.6 kN) each
- Cruising Speed: 506 kn (585 mph, 940 km/h)
- First Flight: 27 May 1958
- Number built: 5,195
Today in Aviation
- 2011 – Following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake off the coast of Japan, Sendai Airport in Natori, Japan, is engulfed by a tsunami and put out of action. Flights are suspended from a number of airports in Japan, including Narita International Airport and Haneda Airport, Tokyo. In Hawaii, Hilo International, Honolulu International, Kahului and Lihue airports are all temporarily closed.[1]
- 2010 – A Mil Mi-8 helicopter Kazakhstan The Ministry of Emergency Situations crashed for unknown reasons during rescue flight in blizzard.
- 2008 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-123 at 06:28:14 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 1J/A: JEM ELM PS & SPDM, crew rotation.
- 2007 – Hukou F-5 F crash: A Republic of China Air Force F-5 F fighter jet crashed into a military base in Hukou, Taiwan on 11 May 2007. The accident killed the two Taiwanese crewmen and three Singaporean soldiers who were part of an unrelated unilateral training stint on the ground. Another eight Singaporeans were injured, with one sustaining serious burn injuries.
- 2005 – China's first private airline, Okay Airlines has its maiden revenue flight.
- 2004 – CH-46E Sea Knight 153389 from HMM-161 makes hard landing in brownout conditions in Al Anbar province; took additional damage during transportation and later was written off.
- 1998 – The first two of four Boeing E-767 airborne warning and control system (AWACS) aircraft are officially handed over to the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force. The Boeing E-767 AWACS developed as a natural progression from the E-3 Sentry following the closure of Boeing’s 707 production line. The E-767 combines a Boeing 767-200ER airframe with the APY-2 development of the Sentry’s APY-1 radar and mission system. The first flight of the completed E-767 occurred on August 9, 1996 at Everett, Washington. Other military variants of the 767 are now under consideration, including tanker and strategic transport aircraft to replace the aging fleet of KC-135 s and B707 s in worldwide military service.
- 1993 – First flight of the Airbus A321
- 1990 – Philippine Airlines Flight 143 (PR143) was the route designator of a domestic flight from the Manila Ninoy Aquino Airport, Metro Manila, Philippines to Mandurriao Airport, Iloilo City. On May 11, 1990, the Boeing 737-300 (C/N 24466, MSN 1771) assigned to that route exploded and burned on the ground at Manila Ninoy Aquino International Airport. There were 8 fatalities among the 120 on-board passengers and crew from the violent explosion on the ground.
- 1985 – First flight of the ARV Super 2
- 1983 – An Avensa Douglas DC-9 crashes at Barquisimeto Airport, Venezuela, 22 passengers and one crew killed.
- 1982 – Widerøe Flight 933, a de Havilland Canada Twin Otter, crashes into the Barents Sea near Mehamn, killing all 15 on board; this accident remains highly controversial in Norway.
- 1974 – The YF-16 attained Mach 2 for the first time in test flights at Edwards AFB, Calif.
- 1968 – No. 6 Strike Reconnaissance OTU redesignated 417 Squadron.
- 1964 – British European Airways, introduces the Hawker Siddeley Trident on its route between London and Copenhagen.
- 1959 – First flight of the Sikorsky S-61 / Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King
- 1958 – A United States Air Force Boeing B-47E-60-LM Stratojet, 53-1876, c/n 290, from Hunter AFB, Georgia, jettisons nuclear weapons casing from 15,000 feet (4,600 m) over rural section of Florence, South Carolina, high-explosives detonate on impact causing property damage, several civilian injuries. No fuel capsule installed on bomb.
- 1957 – The prototype Boeing 707 jet lands after a press demonstration flight from Seattle, Washington to Baltimore, Maryland during which it covers 2,350 miles in a record time of 3 hours 48 min.
- 1957 – A Lockheed Super Constellation of Flying Tiger Lines sets a payload record for a commercial aircraft of 41,749 lb (18,936 kg) between Newark, New Jersey and Burbank, California
- 1955 – Orient Airways is merged into a new government-owned airline to become Pakistan International Airlines.
- 1955 – Third of 13 North American X-10s, GM-19309, c/n 3, on X-10 flight number 14, out of Edwards AFB, California, first flight of refitted c/n 3, the static test article. Vehicle exploded on gear retraction two seconds after lift-off - it was found that the destruct package was wired to the gear circuit instead of the engine circuit.
- 1945 – A Japanese balloon bomb, shot at in British Columbia, was recovered in Edson, Alberta.
- 1941 – The Congress of the United States passes the Lend-Lease bill, paving the way for the provision of (amongst other equipment) 16,000 warplanes to the UK. Later Lend-Lease arrangements will supply other Allied nations.
- 1918 – The first regular international airmail service begins, with Hansa-Brandenburg C.I aircraft linking Vienna, Lviv, Proskurov, and Kiev.
- 1918 – Lt. Paul Baer becomes the first AEF Air Service member awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.
- 1916 – The Royal Navy charters the cargo ship SS Manica for conversion into the first British balloon ship, HMS Manica. The Royal Navt will be the only navy during World War I to operate balloon ships, specialized ships designed to handle observation balloons as their sole function.
- 1912 – Lt. Frank P. Lahm opened an Army Air School at Fort William McKinley, Philippines, with two volunteer students, Lt. Moss L. Love and Cpl. Vernon L. Burge, who later became the first enlisted pilot.
- 1910 – Lieutenant J. W. Dunne’s D5 tailless biplane is tested at Eastchurch, Kent, England. It has a 60-hp Green engine and was built by Short Brothers.
References
- ^ Hradecky, Simon. "Tsunami rolled through Pacific, Sendai Airport under water, Tokyo Narita and Hawaiian Airports temporarily closed, Pacific region airports endangered". Aviation Herald. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
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