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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 includes 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; then a large step in significance came 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 which permitted a major form of transport throughout the world. (Full article...)

Selected article

Microburst schematic from NASA. Note the downward motion of the air until it hits ground level, then spreads outward in all directions. The wind regime in a microburst is completely opposite to a tornado.
Microburst schematic from NASA. Note the downward motion of the air until it hits ground level, then spreads outward in all directions. The wind regime in a microburst is completely opposite to a tornado.
Wind shear, sometimes referred to as windshear or wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere. Wind shear can be broken down into vertical and horizontal components, with horizontal wind shear seen across weather fronts and near the coast, and vertical shear typically near the surface, though also at higher levels in the atmosphere near upper level jets and frontal zones aloft.

Wind shear itself is a microscale meteorological phenomenon occurring over a very small distance, but it can be associated with mesoscale or synoptic scale weather features such as squall lines and cold fronts. It is commonly observed near microbursts and downbursts caused by thunderstorms, weather fronts, areas of locally higher low level winds referred to as low level jets, near mountains, radiation inversions that occur due to clear skies and calm winds, buildings, wind turbines, and sailboats. Wind shear has a significant effect during take-off and landing of aircraft due to their effects on steering of the aircraft, and was a significant cause of aircraft accidents involving large loss of life within the United States.

Sound movement through the atmosphere is affected by wind shear, which can bend the wave front, causing sounds to be heard where they normally would not, or vice versa. Strong vertical wind shear within the troposphere also inhibits tropical cyclone development, but helps to organize individual thunderstorms into living longer life cycles which can then produce severe weather. The thermal wind concept explains with how differences in wind speed with height are dependent on horizontal temperature differences, and explains the existence of the jet stream. (Full article...)

Selected image

US Navy Blue Angels Fat Albert (C-130T Hercules)
US Navy Blue Angels Fat Albert (C-130T Hercules)
The Blue Angels use a United States Marine Corps C-130T Hercules, nicknamed "Fat Albert", for their logistics, carrying spare parts, equipment, and to carry support personnel between shows. Beginning in 1975, "Bert" was used for Jet Assisted Take Off (JATO) and short aerial demonstrations just prior to the main event at selected venues, but the JATO demonstration ended in 2009 due to dwindling supplies of rockets.

Did you know

...that BŻ-1 GIL was the first Polish experimental helicopter? ...that the Alexander Aircraft Company, which produced Eaglerock biplanes in Colorado, was the largest aircraft manufacturer in the world for a brief period between 1928 and 1929? ... that the PZL SM-4 Łątka never flew, because its engine was not approved for use in flight?

More Did you know facts

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

In the news

Wikinews Aviation portal
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Associated Wikimedia

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

Selected biography

Billy Mitchell (1879–1936) was an early aviation pioneer who rose to become a chief of the U.S. Army Air Service. Mitchell was born in Nice, France and raised on his family estate near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He attended George Washington University before enlisting in the Army at age 18 during the Spanish–American War. Due to his family connection he quickly received a commission Signal Corps where he had the opportunity to witness a flight demonstration by the Wright brothers in 1908. In 1916 he took private flight lessons and was transferred to the Aeronautical Division.

Mitchell deployed to France in 1917 when the United States entered World War I. While there he was promoted to brigadier general and placed in command American combat air units in France. After the war Mitchell was appointed the deputy director of the Air Service became a passionate advocate of air power. In 1921 he set up a demonstration to show the capability of airpower against naval vessels. During the course of the demonstrations aircraft successfully sank a captured German destroyer, the light crusier Frankfurt, and the battleship Ostfriesland.

Mitchell regularly sparred with his superiors over the role of airpower in the military. In 1925 he was reverted to his permanent rank of colonel and was transferred to San Antonio, Texas. Later that year, after a series of aviation accidents he accused Army and Navy leadership of incompetence and "almost treasonable administration of the national defense." In response he was court-martialed for insubordination, found guilty, and sentenced to a five-year suspension from active duty. Mitchell resigned on 1 February 1926 in lieu of serving the sentence. He continued to advocate airpower as a civilian until his death in 1936. In 1942 President Franklin Roosevelt posthumously promoted Mitchell to major general in recognition of his contributions to air power.

Selected Aircraft

The Beechcraft King Air is a line of twin-turboprop aircraft produced by the Beech Aircraft Corporation (now the Beechcraft Division of Hawker Beechcraft). The King Air has been in continuous production since 1964, the longest production run of any civilian turboprop aircraft. It has outlasted all of its previous competitors and as of 2006 is one of only two twin-turboprop business airplanes in production (the other is the Piaggio Avanti).

Historically, the King Air family comprises a number of models that fall into four families, the Model 90 series, Model 100 series, Model 200 series, and Model 300 series. The last two types were originally marketed as the Super King Air, but the "Super" moniker was dropped in 1996. As of 2006, the only small King Air in production is the conventional-tail C90GT.

  • Span: 50 ft 3 in (15.33 m)
  • Length: 35 ft 6in (10.82 m)
  • Height: 14 ft 3 in (4.35 m)
  • Engines: 2 × Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-21 turboprops, 550 shp (410 kW) each
  • Cruising Speed: 284 mph (247 knots ,457 km/h)
  • First Flight: May 1963
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Today in Aviation

May 6

  • 2010 – A PZL-104 (Polish designed and built short-takeoff-and-landing (STOL) Civil Aviation utility aircraft) carrying The former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage crashed at Hinton-in-the-Hedges Airfield, Northamptonshire.
  • 2009 – World Airways Flight 8535, a McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30, registration N139WA, makes a hard landing at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport, United States, causing overhead panels to detach. A go-around is initiated and the aircraft subsequently lands safely. The damage to the aircraft was described as substantial.
  • 2007 – A French Air Force de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter transporting Multinational Force and Observers crashes into a truck while making an emergency landing near El-Thamad, Egypt killing all nine people on board.
  • 2006 – SkyValue USA and their fleet of one Boeing 737 (leased from Xtra Airways) ceases operations, citing poor demand and even blaming hot weather forcing them to fuel-stop on flights from Las Vegas, NY to Mesa and Phoenix, AZ
  • 2006 – The U. S. Air Force retired the last Lockheed Martin C-141 Starlifter The Hanoi Taxi landed for the last time and was received in a formal retirement ceremony at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, located at WPAFB in Riverside, Ohio near Dayton.
  • 2004 – An Air Cush Let 410UVP (9XR-EF) stalls on takeoff in Jiech, Sudan, due to an imbalance after a shift in its cargo load. The plane is sent crashing into the ground, killing 6 of the 10 occupants.
  • 2003 – OH-58D Kiowa 94-0163 of N Troop, 4th Squadron, 3d ACR crashes near Al Asad and burns out. One crewmember injured.[4]
  • 2001 – Soyuz TM-31 is back on Earth.
  • 1993 – STS 55, 55th overall flight of the US Space Shuttle and the 14th flight of Columbia lands at Edwards AFB.
  • 1988 – Widerøe Flight 710, a Dash 7, crashes in Torghatten, Norway in thick fog, killing all 36 passengers in the worst-ever Dash 7 accident.
  • 1988 – Royal Air Force Boeing Chinook HC.1 ZA672 hit a pier at Hanover Airport while taxiing and was destroyed, 3 crew killed.
  • 1988 – Sikorsky CH-53D Stallion from Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 46 crashed into South China Sea killing all 17 on board.
  • 1983 – Death of Harris George "Clem" Clements, British WWI flying ace
  • 1983 – Death of Sergei Petrovich Izotov, Russian aircraft turbine engine designer
  • 1982 – second prototype (SP-PSB) of the Helicopter PZL Swidnik W-3 "Sokol" makes his first flight.
  • 1982 – Royal Navy Sea Harrier FRS.1s, XZ452, '007', and XZ453, '009', of 801 Naval Air Squadron on combat air patrol from HMS Hermes of the Falklands task force, collide in poor visibility, killing pilots Lt. Cmdr. John Eyton-Jones in 452 and Lt. Alan Curtis in 453. Another source states that they were from the HMS Invincible.
  • 1981 – Death of Jens Frederick "Swede" Larson, American WWI flying ace
  • 1981 – A mechanical failure caused an abrupt nose pitch-down of United States Air Force Boeing EC-135N ARIA, 61-0328, call sign AGAR 23, of the 4950th Test Wing, Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, from Flight Level 290, disappearing from radar at 10:49:48 EDT to crash in a farmer's field, in Walkersville, Maryland. All 21 aboard were killed. A memorial is scheduled to be built at Walkersville Heritage Farm Park pending funds.
  • 1968 – Astronaut Neil Armstrong ejects from Bell Aerospace Lunar Landing Research Vehicle No. 1, known as the "Flying Bedstead", at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center, Ellington AFB, Houston, Texas, as it goes out of control. Had he ejected 1/2 second later, his chute would not have deployed fully. Armstrong suffers a bit tongue.
  • 1966 – Birth of Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Skvortsov, Russian cosmonaut.
  • 1966 – USMC McDonnell RF-4B-24-MC Phantom II, BuNo 153090, of VMCJ-3, MCAS El Toro, California, on out-and-back familiarization flight from MCAS Yuma, Arizona, is lost ~2 miles off of Del Mar, California in the Pacific when the pilot gets into an aerobatic maneuver stall. Both crew eject. Cause of the accident was pilot factor in that he failed to control the aircraft properly resulting in a spin. He then failed to execute properly the spin recovery technique. His instrument scan and awareness of what his airplane was doing were also seriously deficient. Wreckage discovered in 1994 by the UB88 dive group.
  • 1963 – Death of Paul Ward Spencer 'George' Bulman CBE, MC, AFC and Bar, British WWI pilot, air racer and chief test pilot for Hawker aircraft.
  • 1960 – Death of Marcel Marc Dhôme, French WWI flying ace, racing car driver, who also served in WWII and during the Korean war.
  • 1959 – SNECMA C.450-01 Coleoptere made its first free vertical flight at Melun-Villaroche.
  • 1959 – Boeing B-47E-75-BW Stratojet, 51-7041, of the 306th Bomb Wing aborts takeoff at MacDill AFB, Florida, burns to right of runway. Three crew escape but co-pilot is killed.
  • 1957 – Birth of Didier Delsalle, French Helicopter test pilot, first pilot to land a Helicopter on Mount Everest.
  • 1955 – United Airlines begins the first nonstop flights between New York and San Francisco.
  • 1955 – Birth of Donald Alan Thomas, American engineer and a former NASA astronaut.
  • 1952 – Birth of Chiaki Mukai, Japanese doctor, and JAXA astronaut. She was the first Japanese woman in space, and was the first Japanese citizen to have 2 spaceflights.
  • 1951 – Convair B-36D-25-CF Peacemaker, 49-2660, of the 7th Bomb Wing, Carswell AFB, Texas, crashes while landing at Kirtland AFB, New Mexico, in high winds, 23 of 25 crew killed.
  • 1949 – Birth of David Cornell Leestma, American astronaut.
  • 1949 – Pacific Southwest Airlines (PSA) operates its first flight with a leased Douglas DC-3 with weekly service between San Diego and Oakland with a stop in Burbank, California. They would later be absorbed by USAir in May of 1987.
  • 1946 – Birth of Patrick Pierre Roger Baudry, French Air Force pilot And CNES astronaut.
  • 1945 – 1st Lt. Vincent J. Rudnick, on local training and acrobatics flight out of King's Cliffe, Great Britain, in North American P-51D Mustang, 44-13720, coded 'MC-X' and named "Mine 3 Express", of the 20th Fighter Group, loses control at top of a loop at ~1445 hrs. near Stoke Ferry, aircraft goes into irrecoverable spin, pilot bails out, airframe impacting near cottage of Springside. In June 1985, crash site excavated and some wreckage located.
  • 1945 – Royal Air Force sinks its last German submarine. (British Liberator aircraft Sqdn. 224/T)
  • 1944 – Mitsubishi A7 M1 Reppu (designed as the successor to the Imperial Japanese Navy's A6 M Zero) officially flies for the first time.
  • 1944 – First flight of the Douglas XB-42 Mixmaster, American experimental bomber aircraft, designed for a high top speed, with two engines within the fuselage driving a pair of contra-rotating propellers mounted at the tail, leaving the wing and fuselage clean and free of drag-inducing protrusions.
  • 1943 – Curtiss XP-60D, 41-19508, crashed at Rome Air Depot, New York. Was second XP-53 - later redesignated XP-60D.
  • 1942 – Four U. S. Army Air Forces B-17 Flying Fortresses attack the Japanese aircraft carrier Shōhō south of Bougainville, but do not damage her.
  • 1942 – First flight of the Kawanishi N1K (“Mighty Wind”), an Allied reporting name “Rex”
  • 1941 – First flight of the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt. In its 25 years of service, more than 15, 600 were made by Republic Aviation in Farmingdale, NY.
  • 1941 – (Overnight) through 11-12 (overnight) – Royal Air Force Bomber Command mounts four major raids on Hamburg, Germany, over the course of six nights, averaging 128 bombers per raid. The second, third, and fourth raids combined kill 233, injure 713, and leave 2,195 homeless.
  • 1940 – Trans World Airlines receives their first Boeing 307 Stratoliner, one month after Pan Am becomes the launch airline.
  • 1937 – The Zeppelin Hindenburg bursts into flames and crashes while attempting a landing at Naval Air Engineering Station, Lakehurst, New Jersey; of the 97 people on board, 35 are killed; one person on the ground also dies.
  • 1936 – First flight of the Latécoère 298, French seaplane that served during WWII. It was designed primarily as a torpedo bomber, but served also as a dive bomber against land and naval targets, and as a maritime reconnaissance aircraft
  • 1935 – First flight of the Curtiss P-36 Hawk, also known as the Curtiss Hawk Model 75, American Fighter aircraft.
  • 1930 – First flight of the Boeing Monomail, American single, low set, all metal cantilever wing. Retractable landing gear and a streamlined fuselage.
  • 1926 – Flying a Blackburn Dart, Flight Lieutenant Gerald Boyce makes the first night deck landing in history, landing aboard the British aircraft carrier HMS Furious off the south coast of England.
  • 1919 – The first commercial flight, from Canada to United States, occurs as a Canadian Curtiss aircraft flies 150 pounds of raw furs from Toronto to Elizabeth, New Jersey. It is not a non-stop flight.
  • 1918 – Death of Jean Chaput, French WWI fighter ace, killed in action in his SPAD XIII.
  • 1918 – Death of William Lewis Wells, British WWI flying ace from wounds received in action.
  • 1917 – Birth of Rex Theodor Barber, American WWII fighter pilot, best known as a member of the top-secret mission to intercept the aircraft carrying Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto
  • 1912 – Birth of Paul M. Fitts, known as one of the pioneers in improving aviation safety
  • 1908 – The Wright brothers fly for the first time since 1905, at Kitty Hawk. Wilbur pilots the 1905 Flyer III, modified so that the pilot and a passenger can sit erect, on a flight of just over 1,000 feet.
  • 1906 – Death of Carl Berg, German entrepreneur and airship builder
  • 1899 – Birth of Edward Grahame Johnstone, British WWI fighter ace
  • 1895 – Birth of Ernest Charles Hoy DFC, Canadian WWI flying ace, and airmail flight pioneer.
  • 1894 – Birth of Richard Raymond-Barker, British WWI flying ace.
  • 1894 – Birth of Sir Alan John Cobham, KBE, AFC, English aviation pioneer.
  • 1894 – Birth of George Clifton Peters, Australian WWI flying ace
  • 1888 – Birth of Johann Frint, Austro-Hungarian WWI flying ace.

References

  1. ^ Miller, Greg, "U.S. Set to Keep Kill Lists For Years,' The Washington Post, October 24, 2012, p. A8.
  2. ^ "British helicopter that crashed in Iraq last year was shot down, investigation concludes". International Herald Tribune. 2007-04-27. Archived from the original on 2008-02-26. Retrieved 2007-05-30.
  3. ^ "PRESS RELEASE: Special Operations Soldier dies in Iraq" (Press release). U.S. Army Special Operations Command Public Affairs Office. 2006-05-16. Retrieved 2010-07-16. Two aviators from the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (Airborne) died May 14, 2006, when their AH-6M Little Bird helicopter was shot down by enemy fire during combat operations in Yousifiyah, south of Baghdad, Iraq.[...]
  4. ^ "1994 USAF Serial Numbers". Retrieved 17 February 2010.
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