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

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

Color Autochrome Lumière of a Nieuport Fighter in Aisne, France 1917
Color Autochrome Lumière of a Nieuport Fighter in Aisne, France 1917
One of the many innovations of World War I, aircraft were first used for reconnaissance purposes and later as fighters and bombers. Consequently, this was the first war which involved a struggle for control of the air, which turned it into another battlefield, alongside the battlefields of land and sea. (Full article...)

Selected image

Did you know

...that Swedish adventurer Saloman Andrée died in 1897 while trying to reach the geographic North Pole by hot-air balloon? ...that the Aerocar Coot was a two-seat amphibious aircraft designed for home-building by Moulton Taylor? ... that the first exhibition at the Boeing Galleries was a series of photographs taken from helicopters and hot air balloons?

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

Related portals

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Selected biography

Sophie Blanchard
Sophie Blanchard (25 March 1778 – 6 July 1819) was a French aeronaut and the wife of ballooning pioneer Jean-Pierre Blanchard. Blanchard was the first woman to work as a professional balloonist, and after her husband's death she continued ballooning, making more than 60 ascents. Known throughout Europe for her ballooning exploits, Blanchard entertained Napoleon Bonaparte, who promoted her to the role of "Aeronaut of the Official Festivals", replacing André-Jacques Garnerin. On the restoration of the monarchy in 1814 she performed for Louis XVIII, who named her "Official Aeronaut of the Restoration".

Ballooning was a risky business for the pioneers. Blanchard lost consciousness on a few occasions, endured freezing temperatures and almost drowned when her balloon crashed in a marsh. In 1819, she became the first woman to be killed in an aviation accident when, during an exhibition in the Tivoli Gardens in Paris, she launched fireworks that ignited the gas in her balloon. Her craft crashed on the roof of a house and she fell to her death. She is commonly referred to as Madame Blanchard and is also known by many combinations of her maiden and married names, including Madeleine-Sophie Blanchard, Marie Madeleine-Sophie Blanchard, Marie Sophie Armant and Madeleine-Sophie Armant Blanchard.

Selected Aircraft

The Airbus A340 is a long-range four-engined widebody commercial passenger airplane manufactured by Airbus. The latest variants (-600 & A340E) competed with Boeing's 777 series of aircraft on long-haul and ultra long-haul routes, but it has since been succeeded by the Airbus A350.

The A340-600 flies 380 passengers in a three-class cabin layout (419 in 2 class) over 7,500 nautical miles (13,900 km). It provides similar passenger capacity to a 747 but with twice the cargo volume, and at lower trip and seat costs.

The A340-600 is more than 10 m longer than a basic -300, making it the second longest airliner in the world, more than four meters longer than a Boeing 747-400.

  • Span: 63.45 m (208 ft 2 in)
  • Length: 75.30 m n(246 ft 11 in)
  • Height: 17.30 m (56 ft 9 in)
  • Engines: four 56,000 lbf (249 kN) thrust Rolls-Royce Trent 556 turbofans
  • Cruising Speed: Mach 0.83 (885 km/h, 550 mph)
  • First Flight: October 25, 1991
More selected aircraft Read more...

Today in Aviation

May 18

  • 2011 – Sol Líneas Aéreas Flight 5428, a Saab 340, crashes off Prahuaniyeu, Río Negro, Argentina while on approach to General Enrique Mosconi International Airport, Comodoro Rivadavia in heavy rain, killing all 22 passengers and crew on board.
  • 1996 – A Grumman F-14A-115-GR Tomcat, BuNo 161282, 'NF 101', of VF-154 crashes into the Pacific Ocean 500 miles W of Guam after suffering engine malfunction. Both crew eject safely.
  • 1973 – Death of Dieudonné Costes, French aviator, well known for long distance and record breaking flights (Costes with Maurice Bellonte, flew the Breguet 19 from Paris to New York City, as the first aircraft in more difficult westbound direction, between North American and European mainlands), as well as being a fighter ace during World War I.
  • 1972 – Aeroflot Flight 1491, an Antonov An-10A, suffers a inflight structural failure while descending to land at Kharkov Airport in the Ukraine. All 122 passengers and crew onboard are killed.
  • 1970 – National Airlines ends a 108-day strike by offering ground crews a 33% pay increase.
  • 1969 – Launch of Apollo 10, fourth manned mission in the American Apollo space program, for testing all of the procedures and components of a Moon landing without actually landing on the Moon itself.
  • 1969 – USMC Lockheed KC-130F Hercules BuNo 149814, c/n 3723, of VMGR-352, collided head-on with McDonnell F-4B Phantom II BuNo 151001 of VMFA-542, MAG-13, from Chu Lai (both crew killed), while refuelling two F-4Bs of VMFA-314 over South Vietnam near Phu Bai. Two crew of F-4B BuNo 151450, survived after jettisoning bombs and ejecting, while the second F-4B recovered safely to Chu Lai. Lars Olausson states that the KC-130F was from VMGR-352, while Chris Hobson claims it was assigned to VMGR-152.
  • 1967 – Prototype of the Dassault Mirage F1, French air-superiority fighter and attack aircraft, crashes due to flutter, killing its pilot.
  • 1966 – Kosmos 11, soviet spacecraft re-enters earth's atmosphere and breaks up.
  • 1961 – Commander J. L. Felsman, US Navy, is killed in a McDonnell F4H-1F Phantom II, BuNo 145316, during the first attempt at "Operation Sageburner" speed record at Edwards Air Force Base, California, when his aircraft disintegrated in the air after pitch damper failure. This was the first fatal Phantom II accident.
  • 1958 – An F-104A Starfighter sets a world speed record of 2,259.82 km/h (1,404.19 mph).
  • 1958 – In a Zero Length Launch (ZEL) experiment, a U. S. Air Force North American F-100D Super Sabre becomes airborne with no runway or take-off roll at all, using its own engine in afterburner and boosted by a 130,000-pound- (58,967-kg)-thrust Astrodyne rocket.
  • 1953 – First flight of the Douglas DC-7, American 4 engine transport aircraft, last major piston engine powered transport made by Douglas.
  • 1953 – Jackie Cochran becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier.
  • 1952 – Birth of Jeana Yeager, American aviatrix. most famous for co-piloting a non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world in the Rutan Voyager aircraft.
  • 1951 – First flight of the Vickers-Armstrongs Valiant, British four-jet bomber, once part of the Royal Air Force's V bomber nuclear force, originally developed for use as high-level strategic bomber, but its role, like other V bombers, was changed to low-level attacks.
  • 1951 – Gloster E.1/44, TX145, following test flight out of the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE), Farnborough, suffers damage when starboard undercarriage leg collapses on landing. Probably not repaired as it is struck off charge on 2 August and sent to the Proof and Experimental Establishment (PEE) at Shoeburyness.
  • 1947 – A U.S. Navy pilot and two school boys are killed when a Vought F4U Corsair fighter crashes onto a school playground in Burlington, Iowa, during an airshow at the Municipal Airport. The fighter, one of 35 aircraft from Lambert Field, St. Louis, Missouri, performing a mock formation raid in front of 3,500 spectators to signal the start of National Naval Reserve week, went into a series of barrel rolls, then appeared to go out of control before it crashed onto the playground at the Perkins School where 14 youngsters were playing ball. At least five others were injured, and several homes were struck by debris from the crash.
  • 1942 – RCAF No. 423 (Coastal) Squadron was formed at Oban, England.
  • 1940 – First flight of the Pashinin I-21 (not to be confused with the Ilyushin TsKB-32, also known as "I-21") Soviet fighter prototype.
  • 1940 – First flight of Saab 17, Swedish bomber-reconnaissance aircraft.
  • 1935 – The Tupolev ANT-20, Maxim Gorky, the largest aircraft ever built to that time, flown by pilots I. V. Mikheyev and I. S. Zhurov, and three more planes (Tupolev ANT-14, Polikarpov R-5 and Polikarpov I-5) take off for a demonstration flight over Moscow. As a result of a poorly executed loop maneuver (a third such stunt on this flight) around the plane performed by an accompanying I-5 fighter, flown by Nikolai Blagin, both planes collide and the Maxim Gorky crashes into a low-rise residential neighborhood west of present-day Sokol station. Forty-five people are killed in the crash, including crew members and 33 family members of some of those who had built the aircraft. (While authorities announced that the fatal maneuver was impromptu and reckless, it has been recently suggested that it might have been a planned part of the show.) Also killed was the fighter pilot, Blagin, who was made a scapegoat in the crash and subsequently had his name used eponymously (Blaginism) to mean, roughly, a "cocky disregard of authority." However, Blagin was given a state funeral at Novodevichy Cemetery together with ANT-20 victims.
  • 1934 – Entered into service was the Douglas DC-2 with Transcontinental and Western Air.
  • 1929 – During the 1929 U.S. Army maneuvers, two Boeing P-12s of the 95th Pursuit Squadron, operating out of Norton Field (the first airfield to be built in central Ohio), collide over the Linden neighborhood on the north side of Columbus, Ohio, the propeller of 2nd Lt. Andrew F. Solter's XP-12A, 29-362, cutting into the rear fuselage of 2nd Lt. Edward L. Meadow's P-12 (possibly 29-361). Meadow is killed but Solter bails out and lands safely. Gen. Benjamin Foulois tells newsmen, "It's all in a day's work of the Air Corps. Although an unhappy occurrence, the accident will cause no change in the maneuver plans, which will be carried out as scheduled."
  • 1919 – Harry Hawker and Lt Cdr Kenneth Mackenzie-Grieve attempt a non-stop Atlantic crossing but are forced to ditch their aircraft only 2,253 (1,400 miles) after leaving Newfoundland. London's Daily Mail newspaper awards them a prize of £5,000 for their attempt anyway.
  • 1912 – Birth of Robert Hoover?, Nasa Test Pilot.
  • 1910 – International talks open in Paris to draw up a legal basis for flight between countries.

References

  1. ^ Associated Press, "Suspected U.S. Drone in Yemen Kills 4 Militants," USA Today, May 18, 2013, 3:53 p.m. EDT
Edit today's anniversaries – May Archive – All anniversaries...


Purge server cache

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Aviation&oldid=1142106391"