Portal:Aviation

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The Aviation Portal

A Boeing 747 in 1978 operated by Pan Am.

Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. Aircraft include 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 was 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. A major leap followed with the construction of the Wright Flyer, 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 engine which enabled aviation to become a major form of transport throughout the world. In 2024, there were 9.5 billion passengers worldwide according to the ICAO. As of 2018, estimates suggest that 11% of the world's population traveled by air, with up to 4% taking international flights. (Full article...)

Selected article

A U.S. Air Force F-35A off the coast of Florida

The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II is an American family of single-seat, single-engine, all-weather stealth multirole combat aircraft that is intended to perform both air superiority and strike missions. It is also able to provide electronic warfare and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities. Lockheed Martin is the prime F-35 contractor, with principal partners Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems. The aircraft has three main variants: the conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) F-35A, the short take-off and vertical-landing (STOVL) F-35B, and the carrier-based (CV/CATOBAR) F-35C. (Full article...)

More selected articles

Selected image

Sukhoi Su-27

Credit: Dmitry A. Mottl

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

Did you know

...that four planes were simultaneously hijacked in the 1970 Dawson's Field hijackings? ...that the BAE Systems HERTI is the first and only fully autonomous UAV to have been certificated by the United Kingdom? ... that Teddy Air was the first airline to win a public service obligation in Norway?

General images -

The following are images from various aviation-related articles on Wikipedia.

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  Clément Ader Avion III (1897 photograph) (from History of aviation)
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  Leonardo da Vinci's ornithopter design (from History of aviation)
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  Robinson R22, a light piston-engine helicopter (from General aviation)
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  Swiss International Air Lines' business class cabin on an Airbus A340 (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  Jean-Marie Le Bris and his flying machine, Albatros II, 1868 (from History of aviation)
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  Daedalus working on Icarus' wings (from History of aviation)
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  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)
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  The Wright Military Flyer aboard a wagon in 1908 (from History of aviation)
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  German Taube monoplane, illustration from 1917 (from History of aviation)
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  Cathay Pacific's first class cabin on board a Boeing 747-400 (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  Woodcut print of a kite from John Bate's 1635 book The Mysteryes of Nature and Art (from History of aviation)
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  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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  Maxim's flying machine (from History of aviation)
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  D.H. Comet, the world's first jet airliner. As in this picture, it also saw RAF service (from History of aviation)
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  General aviation aircraft at Cheb Airfield in Czech Republic (from General aviation)
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  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)
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  Otto Lilienthal, 29 May 1895 (from History of aviation)
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  An Airbus A321 of Vietravel Airlines parking next to a Vietnam Airlines Airbus A350-900 and a Cargolux Boeing 747-400 widebodies, highlighting their size differences. (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  One of Leonardo's sketches (from History of aviation)
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  French reconnaissance balloon L'Intrépide of 1796, the oldest existing flying device, in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna (from History of aviation)
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  Map of record breaking flights of the 1920s (from History of aviation)
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  Félix du Temple's 1874 Monoplane (from History of aviation)
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  Experimental 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)
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  A Boeing 777X. It is under testing and will be the largest twinjet, with the widest and longest fuselage to enter production. (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  "Governable parachute" design of 1852 (from History of aviation)
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  Often published as a photo of Santos-Dumont during the prize-winning flight, this is actually an earlier attempt using his "Number 5" (from History of aviation)
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  Flagg biplane from 1933 (from History of aviation)
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  First female combat pilot, Sabiha Gökçen, reviews her Breguet 19 (from History of aviation)
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  Planophore model aeroplane by Alphonse Pénaud, 1871 (from History of aviation)
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  "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)
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  Sailplane, a Rolladen-Schneider LS4 (from General aviation)
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  Qantas De Havilland biplane, c. 1930 (from History of aviation)
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  The Biot-Massia glider, restored and on display in the Musee de l'Air (from History of aviation)
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  The Wright Flyer: the first sustained flight with a powered, controlled aircraft (from History of aviation)
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  First failure of Langley's manned Aerodrome on the Potomac River, 7 October 1903 (from History of aviation)
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  The General Electric GE90 was the most powerful turbofan engine. (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  1843 artist's impression of John Stringfellow's plane Ariel flying over the Nile (from History of aviation)
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  The Aeroplane of Victor Tatin, 1879. (from History of aviation)
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  Cessna CitationJet/M2, part of the Citation family of business jets (from General aviation)
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  Early Voisin biplane (from History of aviation)
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  La France flying in 1885 (from History of aviation)
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  Apollo 11 lifts off on its mission to land a man on the Moon (from History of aviation)
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  Delta Air Lines' economy class cabin on a Boeing 767 (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  Me 262, world first operational jet fighter (from History of aviation)
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  Alberto Santos-Dumont flying the Demoiselle over Paris (from History of aviation)
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  An Airbus A380 of Qantas. The A380 is the world's largest passenger airliner. (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  The 14-bis, or Oiseau de proie (from History of aviation)

Aviation news

6 October 2026 – Middle Eastern crisis

The Houthis launches missiles against the airports of Najran and Jizan, in Saudi Arabia, causing material damages and wounding three people. (Al Jazeera)

5 October 2026 – 2026 Nigerian Air Force ATR 42 crash

A Nigerian Air Force ATR 42-500 aircraft carrying 32 people crashes in Ondo State, Nigeria. (DW) (Reuters)

4 October 2026 –

The United States Coast Guard suspends the search for the Latitude Air Ambulance Gulfstream G100 aircraft that went missing yesterday with six passengers on board after finding a debris field in the ocean south of Nantucket, Massachussetts. All six passengers, including four Canadian pilots and crew and two Bermudian passengers, are presumed dead. (CBC) (Winnipeg City News)

4 October 2026 – Chinese espionage in the United States

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation arrests a 34-year-old Chinese American woman at Los Angeles International Airport in California for allegedly acting as an unregistered Chinese agent and surveilling Taiwanese president Lai Ching-te's son and family in the United States. (AFP via RFI) (The Daily Telegraph)

3 October 2026 – Ethiopian civil conflict

Ethiopian federal forces retake control of the Alula Aba Nega Airport in Mekelle, Tigray, from the Tigray People's Liberation Front. (Los Angeles Times)

Related portals

Associated Wikimedia

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

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  Commons
  Free media repository
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  Wikibooks
  Free textbooks and manuals
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  Wikidata
  Free knowledge base
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  Wikiquote
  Collection of quotations
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  Wikisource
  Free-content library
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  Wikiversity
  Free learning tools
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  Wikivoyage
  Free travel guide
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  Wiktionary
  Dictionary and thesaurus

Selected biography

Wiley Hardeman Post (November 22, 1898 – August 15, 1935) was the first pilot to fly solo around the world. Also known for his work in high altitude flying, Post helped develop one of the first pressure suits. His plywood aircraft, the Winnie Mae is on display at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA, and his pressure suit is being prepared for display at the same location. On August 15, 1935, Post and American humorist Will Rogers were killed when Post's plane crashed on takeoff from a lagoon near Point Barrow, Alaska.

Selected Aircraft

An A400M flying

The Airbus A400M Atlas is a four-engine turboprop aircraft, designed by Airbus Military (now Airbus Defence and Space) to meet the demand of European nations for military airlift. Since its formal launch, the aircraft has also been ordered by Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Indonesia.

The A400M is assembled at the Seville plant of Airbus Military. The first test flight occurred in December 2009.

• Span: 42.4 m (139 ft 1 in)
• Length: 45.1 m (148 ft)
• Height: 14.7 m (48 ft 3 in)
• Engines: 4 EPI TP400-D6 (8,250 kW power)
• Cruising Speed: 780 km/h (480 mph, 420 knots)
• First Flight: 11 December 2009
• Number built: 119 as of 31 August 2023

Today in Aviation

October 7

• 2012 – FlyMontserrat Flight 107, the Britten-Norman Islander VP-NOM, crashes shortly after takeoff from V. C. Bird International Airport on Antigua, killing three of the four people on board and injuring the lone survivor. It is the deadliest air accident in the history of Antigua and Barbuda.

• 2009 – A Libyan Air Force Mikoyan MiG-23 Flogger crashes while taking part during an airshow for the Third Libyan Aviation Exhibition, LAVEX 2009 held at Mitiga International Airport, Tripoli, Libya. The aircraft travelling at low-level hit a one-storey house in the suburb of Souq Al-Jumaa in Tripoli killing the 2 crew and injuring two civilians.

• 2008 – Qantas Flight 72 an Airbus A330-300 makes an emergency landing in Exmouth, Australia following a rapid descent that leaves over 70 people injured, 14 of them seriously.

• 2003 – OH-58D Kiowa (92-0578) crashes inside Iraq, pilots survive.

• 2002 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-112 at 19:45:51 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 9A: S1 truss.
• 1996 – First flight of the Boeing 777-200ER

• 1995 – First flight of the Mitsubishi F-2

• 1995 – First flight of the Learjet 45

• 1989 – First flight of the Enstrom 480

• 1982 – BA-55 a Belgian Air Force Dassault Mirage 5BA crashed into a quarry at Bierset, pilot killed.

• 1963 – First flight of the Learjet 23 prototype, the very first Learjet built.

• 1961 – 1961 Derby Aviation crash occurred in the Canigou mountainside en-route London – Perpignan, killing all 34 aboard.

• 1944 – The RCAF’s No. 6 Group struck at Dortmund; they lost only two out of a record 293 bombers.

• 1944 – Luftwaffe night fighter ace Oberstleutnant Helmut Lent is fatally injured when his Junkers Ju 88G-6 night fighter crashes during a landing approach after a routine transit flight. He dies two days later, with his score at 110 kills, 103 of them at night.

• 1935 – United Airlines Trip 4, a Boeing 247D, crashes near Silver Crown, Wyoming due to pilot error; all 12 on board die.

• 1934 – First flight of the First prototype Tupolev ANT-40RT which becomes Tupolev SB

• 1932 – First flight of the Stipa-Caproni, a prototype aircraft employing Luigi Stipa’s “intubed propeller” concept, a forerunner of jet propulsion.

• 1926 – The Boeing FB-5 (production version) makes its first flight.

• 1919 – KLM is formed.

• 1909 – Glenn Curtiss becomes the first American to hold an FAI airplane certificate.

• 1908 – Edith Ogilby Berg became the first American woman airplane passenger when she flew with Wilbur Wright.

• 1903 – Samuel Pierpont Langley conducts the first tests of his full-sized man-carrying version of his earlier model aerodromes. The pilot, Charles Manly, nearly drowns when the machine slides off its launch apparatus atop a houseboat and falls into the Potomac River.

• 1849 – Frenchman Francisque Arban flies over the Alps in a free balloon (Marseille-Subini near Turin).

References

Edit today's anniversaries – October Archive – All anniversaries...

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