Portal:Aviation
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The Aviation Portal
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 helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine driven rotors. In contrast with fixed-wing aircraft, this allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards and laterally. These attributes allow helicopters to be used in congested or isolated areas where fixed-wing aircraft would not be able to take off or land. The capability to efficiently hover for extended periods of time allows a helicopter to accomplish tasks that fixed-wing aircraft and other forms of vertical takeoff and landing aircraft cannot perform.
The word 'helicopter' is adapted from the French hélicoptère, coined by Gustave de Ponton d'Amecourt in 1861, which originates from the Greek helix/helik- (ἕλικ-) = 'spiral' or 'turning' and pteron (πτερόν) = 'wing'.
Helicopters were developed and built during the first half-century of flight, with some reaching limited production, but it was not until 1942 that a helicopter designed by Igor Sikorsky reached full-scale production, with 131 aircraft built. Though most earlier designs used more than one main rotor, it was the single main rotor with antitorque tail rotor configuration of this design that would come to be recognized worldwide as the helicopter. (Full article...)
Selected image
Inside of a hot air balloon
Did you know
...that the Vickers machine gun was the standard weapon on all British and French military aircraft after 1916? ...that the Ryan X-13 Vertijet aircraft landed by using a hook on its nose to hang itself on a wire? ... that Samuel Frederick Henry Thompson, a British flying ace of World War I, scored 30 kills in five months of service and won both the DFC and MC?
General images -
The following are images from various aviation-related articles on Wikipedia.
Planophore model aeroplane by Alphonse Pénaud, 1871 (from History of aviation)
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)
The Wright Flyer: the first sustained flight with a powered, controlled aircraft (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)
Maxim's flying machine (from History of aviation)
The Biot-Massia glider, restored and on display in the Musee de l'Air (from History of aviation)
1843 artist's impression of John Stringfellow's plane Ariel flying over the Nile (from History of aviation)
The Aeroplane of Victor Tatin, 1879. (from History of aviation)
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)
"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)
Map of record breaking flights of the 1920s (from History of aviation)
The 14-bis, or Oiseau de proie (from History of aviation)
First failure of Langley's manned Aerodrome on the Potomac River, 7 October 1903 (from History of aviation)
An Airbus A380 of Qantas. The A380 is the world's largest passenger airliner. (from Wide-body aircraft)
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)
1928 issue of Popular Aviation (now Flying magazine), which became the largest aviation magazine with a circulation of 100,000. (from History of aviation)
Me 262, world first operational jet fighter (from History of aviation)
Alberto Santos-Dumont flying the Demoiselle over Paris (from History of aviation)
One of Leonardo's sketches (from History of aviation)
Apollo 11 lifts off on its mission to land a man on the Moon (from History of aviation)
Clément Ader Avion III (1897 photograph) (from History of aviation)
Otto Lilienthal, 29 May 1895 (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)
Jean-Marie Le Bris and his flying machine, Albatros II, 1868 (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)
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)
The Wright Military Flyer aboard a wagon in 1908 (from History of aviation)
La France flying in 1885 (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)
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)
Flagg biplane from 1933 (from History of aviation)
Qantas De Havilland biplane, c. 1930 (from History of aviation)
"Governable parachute" design of 1852 (from History of aviation)
Early Voisin biplane (from History of aviation)
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Aviation news
- 5 August 2026 –
- A drone loaded with explosives is found and defused at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany, while a cargo Boeing 757 had a collision with another supposed UAV at the same airport. (Reuters) (DW)
- 3 August 2026 –
- Major League Soccer, the top flight of men's soccer in the U.S. and Canada, announces that Larry Berg, currently a co-owner of Los Angeles FC (LAFC) in that league, will succeed Don Garber as league commissioner at the start of 2027. Berg will sell his interest in LAFC before assuming his new position. (AP) (The Guardian)
- 1 August 2026 – 2026 Aerodiana Cessna 208 crash
- Thirteen people, including eleven tourists, are killed when a small aircraft crashes near the Nazca Lines, Peru, after departing Pisco, Ica. (Firstpost)
- 31 July 2026 –
- Indonesian authorities announces it arrested a Malaysia Airlines pilot for allegedly smuggling over 26 kg (57 lb) of ecstasy and a package of methamphetamine into Jakarta's Soekarno–Hatta International Airport. (AP)
- 25 July 2026 –
- Two people are killed when a Tecnam P2010 aircraft crashes into a home in Ganderkesee, Lower Saxony, Germany. (DPA via South China Morning Post)
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Selected biography
Elbert Leander "Burt" Rutan (born June 17, 1943 in Estacada, Oregon) is an American aerospace engineer noted for his originality in designing light, strong, unusual-looking, energy-efficient aircraft. He is most famous for his design of the record-breaking Voyager, which was the first plane to fly around the world without stopping or refueling, and the suborbital rocket plane SpaceShipOne, which won the Ansari X-Prize in 2004.
Selected Aircraft
The Avro Lancaster was a British four-engine Second World War bomber aircraft made initially by Avro for the British Royal Air Force (RAF). It first saw active service in 1942, and together with the Handley-Page Halifax it was one of the main heavy bombers of the RAF, the RCAF and squadrons from other Commonwealth and European countries serving within RAF Bomber Command. The "Lanc" or "Lankie," as it became affectionately known, became the most famous and most successful of the Second World War night bombers, "delivering 608,612 tons of bombs in 156,000 sorties." Although the Lancaster was primarily a night bomber, it excelled in many other roles including daylight precision bombing, and gained worldwide renown as the "Dam Buster" used in the 1943 Operation Chastise raids on Germany's Ruhr Valley dams.
- Span: 102 ft (31.09 m)
- Length: 69 ft 5 in (21.18 m)
- Height: 19 ft 7 in (5.97 m)
- Engines: 4× Rolls-Royce Merlin XX V12 engines, 1,280 hp (954 kW) each
- Maximum Speed: 240 knots (280 mph, 450 km/h) at 15,000 ft (5,600 m)
- First Flight: 8 January 1941
- Number built: 7,377
Today in Aviation
- 2011 – IrAero Flight 103, an Antonov An-24, overruns the runway after landing at Ignatyevo Airport, Blagoveshchensk; all 36 on board survive with 12 suffering injuries.
- 2009 – Hudson River mid-air collision: N71 MC, a Piper PA-32R, and N401LH, a Eurocopter AS350 collide mid-air over New York. Both aircraft crash into the Hudson River, killing all three people on board the aircraft and all six people on board the helicopter.
- 2007 – Virgin America began operations.
- 2007 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavou STS-118 at 22:36:42 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 13A.1: S5 Truss & Spacehab-SM & ESP3. First use of SSPTS (Station-to-Shuttle Power Transfer System).
- 2007 – An RAF Aérospatiale-Westland Puma HC.1, ZA934, 'BZ', of 33 Squadron, crashes in a wooded area of Hudswell Grange, W of Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire, UK. Two RAF crew, pilot and aircraft commander Flt. Lt. David Oxer Hanson Sale, and crewman Sgt. Phillip Anthony "Taff" Burfoot died in the crash, while Army Pvt. Sean Tait, Royal Regiment of Scotland, died two days later in hospital. Nine others injured but survive.
- 2006 – A UH-60 Black Hawk 86-24535 from 82nd AAC (MEDEVAC) attached to 3rd MAW crashes in Anbar, killing two crew members and injuring four.[1][2]
- 2004 – OH-58D(I) Kiowa 96-0015 made emergency landing north of Baghdad after being hit by RPG. Crew unhurt.[3]
- 2002 – Rico Linhas Aéreas Flight 4823, an Embraer EMB 120 Brasília, crashes on approach in a rainstorm; the aircraft breaks up into three pieces and catches fire; 23 of 31 on board perish.
- 1998 – An Grumman F-14A-95-GR Tomcat, BuNo 160407, 'AC 105', of VF-32, based at NAS Oceana, Virginia Beach, Virginia, crashes into the Atlantic Ocean, while on a routine training mission. Both crewmen eject and are rescued within 15 minutes, Navy officials in Norfolk, Virginia said. The F-14 was operating from the USS Enterprise.
- 1993 – A Saab JAS 39 Gripen, 39-102, crashed on the central Stockholm island of Långholmen, near the Västerbron bridge, during a slow speed manoeuver during a display over the Stockholm Water Festival. Lars Rådeström, the same pilot as in the 1989 incident, ejected safely. Despite large crowds of onlookers, only one person on the ground was injured.3] This crash was, like the previous one, caused by a PIO.
- 1989 – Launch: Space Shuttle Columbia STS-28 at 8:37:00 am EDT. Mission highlights: Fourth classified DoD mission; Satellite Data System deployment.
- 1986 – First flight of the British Aerospace EAP
- 1985 – A USAF General Dynamics F-16A Block 15F Fighting Falcon, 81-0750, of the 421st Tactical Fighter Squadron, crashed during a training mission in northwest Utah, killing the pilot. Crashed onto the Utah Test and Training Range killing pilot, First Lieutenant S. Brad Peale. The aircraft suffered a controlled flight into terrain (CFIT).
- 1985 – A USAF LTV A-7D Corsair II, 69‑6198, of the 4450th Tactical Group, lost power, caught fire and crashed into Midwest City, a suburb of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, pilot Maj. Dennis D. Nielson staying with aircraft as he attempted to steer it towards less-populous area before ejecting, but fighter impacted house, killing one, injuring one, one missing, said a United Press International report. Second victim found on 9 August. This unit was secretly operating Lockheed F-117 Nighthawks at this time.
- 1982 – First flight of the Cessna 208 Caravan
- 1967 – First flight of the Boeing 737-200
- 1957 – Mikoyan-Gurevich Ye-50, a swept-wing, experimental high-altitude interceptor, the Ye-2 airframe modified to fit Dushkin S-155 rocket motor, with design work started in 1954, first flight in 1956. Programme terminated after crash of Ye-50/3 on this date. Test pilot N. A. Korovin, of GK NII VVS, is killed when the engine explodes, escape system fails.
- 1955 – Internal explosion aboard Bell X-1A, 48-1384, while being carried aloft by Boeing B-29 mothership, forces NACA pilot Joseph Albert Walker to exit aircraft back into the Superfortress, which is then jettisoned due to the full fuel load it carries, the rocket-powered testcraft coming down on the Edwards AFB, California bombing range.
- 1948 – FW ‘Casey’ Baldwin, the first Canadian to pilot an heavier-than-air flying machine, died at Neareagh, Nova Scotia.
- 1948: Birth: Svetlana Savitskaya, cosmonaut
- 1946 – First flight of the Convair B-36
- 1945 – 245 B-29 s drop 1,296 tons (1,175,723 kg) of bombs on Yawata, Japan.
- 1944 – First flight of the Junkers Ju 287 was on 16 Aug 1944.
- 1943 – Axis bombers attack the American light cruiser USS Philadelphia (CL-41) off Sant’Agata di Militello, Sicily, scoring no hits.
- 1943 – (8-17) Allied aircraft of the Northwest African Air Force attack Axis forces evacuating Sicily across the Strait of Messina to mainland Italy in Operation Lehrgang. Wellington strategic bombers average 85 sorties nightly – Attacking evacuation beaches in Sicily until the night of August 13-14, then ports in mainland Italy – And medium bombers and fighter-bombers fly 1,170 sorties. Allied planes face no Axis air opposition but face heavy antiaircraft fire and succeed in sinking only a few vessels, never endangering the success of the Axis evacuation.
- 1942 – U. S. Marines capture the partially completed Japanese airstrip on Guadalcanal. They will rename it Henderson Field, and it will be the focal point of the six-month Guadalcanal campaign. Offshore, Rabaul-based Japanese aircraft damage a U. S. transport, which becomes a total loss.
- 1942 – 1st Lt. Edward Joseph Peterson dies in hospital from injuries suffered in the crash this date of Lockheed F-4 Lightning, 41-2202, a reconnaissance variant of the P-38, when it suffers engine failure on take-off from Air Support Command Base, near Colorado Springs, Colorado. Field is renamed Peterson Army Air Field on 3 March 1943, later Peterson Air Force Base on 1 March 1976.
- 1942 – The sole Republic XP-47B Thunderbolt, 40-3051, operating out of the Republic plant at Farmingdale, New York, is lost when the pilot interrupted wheel retraction, leaving the tailwheel in the superchargers' exhaust gases. This set the tire alight which ignited the magnesium hub. When the burning unit retracted into the fuselage, it severed the tail unit control rods, forcing the pilot, Fillmore "Fil" Gilmer, a former naval aviator, to bail out with the airframe crashing in the waters of Long Island Sound. Loss of prototype went unpublicized at this early stage of the war. Nothing is ever found of the wreckage.
- 1935 – First flight of the Morane-Saulnier M.S.406
- 1934 – 8-9 – James Ayling and Leonard Reid make the first non-stop flight from Canada to England, in a de Havilland DH.84, taking 30 hours 50 min for the flight.
- 1930 – End of the Challenge 1930 contest, won by Fritz Morzik..
- 1929 – The Graf Zeppelin (LZ 127) begins its circumnavigation of the globe at Lakehurst, New Jersey.
- 1924 – The U. S. Navy dirigible USS Shenandoah (ZR-1) docks with the airship tender USS Patoka (AO-9) while the latter is underway, showing that airships could operate from support ships far out to sea.
- 1914 – A French aerial observer is injured by small-arms fire, becoming that nation's first casualty of air war.
- 1910 – The first aircraft tricycle landing gear is installed on the US Army’s Wright airplane.
- 1908 – Wilbur Wright makes his first flights at the Hunaudières racetrack at Le Mans, France. The Wright Flyer used for this and later flights had been shipped to Le Havre by Orville the previous year. It had been seriously damaged by custom officials when it arrived in France and uncrated. Wilbur spent the whole summer of 1908 rebuilding the machine and getting it into flying condition. Wilbur’s flights in this machine will have a profound effect on European aviation during the following months.
- 1901 – Wilbur Wright achieves a flight of 389 feet (118.5 m) at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in the Wright 1901 glider.
- 1709 – First person in flight: Bartolomeu de Gusmão in a balloon filled with heated air at the hall of the Casa da India in Lisbon. (However, this claim is not generally recognized by aviation historians outside the Portuguese speaking community, in particular the FAI.)
References
- ↑ "2 U.S. Soldiers Missing After Helicopter Crash In Iraq". newsnet5.com. 2006-08-08. Archived from the original on March 10, 2008. Retrieved 2007-11-29.
- ↑ "KTRE.com Lufkin and Nacogdoches – Our Apologies". Retrieved 2010-07-16.
- ↑ "1996 USAF Serial Numbers". Retrieved 2010-02-17.
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