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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 is 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 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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Aircraft spotter on the roof of a building in London. St. Paul's Cathedral is in the background.
Aircraft spotter on the roof of a building in London. St. Paul's Cathedral is in the background.
The Battle of Britain (German: Luftschlacht um England) is the name given to the sustained strategic effort by the German Luftwaffe during the summer and autumn of 1940 to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force (RAF), especially Fighter Command. The name derives from a speech made on 18 June 1940 in the House of Commons by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, "The Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin..."

Had it been successful, the planned amphibious and airborne landings in Britain of Operation Sea Lion would have followed. The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces. It was the largest and most sustained bombing campaign attempted up until that date. The failure of Nazi Germany to destroy Britain's air defence or to break British morale is considered its first major defeat.

British historians date the battle from 10 July to 31 October 1940, which represented the most intense period of daylight bombing. German historians usually place the beginning of the battle in mid-August 1940 and end it in May 1941, on the withdrawal of the bomber units in preparation for the attack on the USSR. (Full article...)

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Did you know

...that Guy Menzies flew the first solo trans-Tasman flight (from Sydney to New Zealand) in 1931, but landed upside-down in a swamp? ...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 Flying Officer (later Air Commodore) Frank Lukis was one of the original twenty-one officers in the RAAF when it was formed in 1921?

More Did you know facts

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

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Selected biography

Orville Wright
Wilbur Wright

The Wright brothers, Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 - January 30, 1948) and Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867 - May 30, 1912), are generally credited with making the first controlled, powered, heavier-than-air flight on December 17, 1903. In the two years afterward, they developed their flying machine into the world's first practical airplane, along with many other aviation milestones.

In 1878 Wilbur and Orville were given a toy "helicopter" by their father. The device was made of paper, bamboo and cork with a rubber band to twirl its twin blades, and about a foot long. The boys played with it until it broke, then built their own. In later years, they pointed to their experience with the toy as the initial spark of their interest in flying.

Selected Aircraft

British Airways Boeing 747-400
British Airways Boeing 747-400

The Boeing 747 is a widebody commercial airliner, often referred to by the nickname Jumbo Jet. It is among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and was the first widebody ever produced. Manufactured by Boeing's Commercial Airplane unit in the United States, the original version of the 747 was two and a half times the size of the Boeing 707, one of the common large commercial aircraft of the 1960s. First flown commercially in 1970, the 747 held the passenger capacity record for 37 years.

The four-engine 747 uses a double deck configuration for part of its length. It is available in passenger, freighter and other versions. Boeing designed the 747's hump-like upper deck to serve as a first class lounge or (as is the general rule today) extra seating, and to allow the aircraft to be easily converted to a cargo carrier by removing seats and installing a front cargo door. Boeing did so because the company expected supersonic airliners (whose development was announced in the early 1960s) to render the 747 and other subsonic airliners obsolete; while believing that the demand for subsonic cargo aircraft would be robust into the future. The 747 in particular was expected to become obsolete after 400 were sold but it exceeded its critics' expectations with production passing the 1,000 mark in 1993. As of September 2023, 1,574 aircraft have been built, with the final delivery in January 2023.

The 747-8, the latest version in service, is among the fastest airliners in service with a high-subsonic cruise speed of Mach 0.855 (564 mph or 908 km/h). It has an intercontinental range of 7,730 nautical miles (14,320 km; 8,900 mi). The 747-8I (passenger version) can accommodate 467 passengers in a typical three-class layout. The 747-8 completed production on 6 December 2022 and the final 747 was delivered to Atlas Air on 31 January 2023.

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Today in Aviation

January 19

  • 2013 – The Syrian Air Force strikes a mosque and a school building sheltering Syrian refugees in Salqin, Syria, killing and wounding dozens.[1]
  • 2013 – Two American unmanned aerial vehicle strikes during the evening kill a total of eight people in Yemen' Ma'rib province, including at least two members of al-Qaeda.[2]
  • 2006 – Launch of New Horizons, NASA robotic spacecraft mission to the dwarf planet Pluto. It is expected to be the first spacecraft to fly by and study Pluto and its moons, Charon, Nix, and Hydra. NASA may also attempt flybys of one or more other Kuiper belt objects.
  • 2006 – A Slovak Air Force Antonov An-24 carrying peace-keepers from Kosovo crashes near Telkibánya, Hungary. Of the 43 people on board, only one survived.
  • 1995 – Bristow Flight 56C, a Eurocopter Super Puma, is struck by lightning and is forced to make an emergency landing in the North Sea; all 18 on board survive.
  • 1995 – Rockwell-MBB X-31, BuNo 164584, first of two testbed airframes, crashes on 67th flight, north of Edwards AFB, California. German Federal Ministry of Defense test pilot Karl-Heinz Lang, assigned to the X-31 International Test Organization (ITO), ejects safely at 18,000 feet. He is taken to hospital for examination, a fire department spokesman said.[314][315] Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWcBcxvZfMc
  • 1993 – STS-54, space shuttle Endeavour is back on earth.
  • 1991 – The second Rockwell X-31 enhanced fighter makes its first flight.
  • 1991 – Two Coalition aircraft are shot down, both by Iraqi ground fire. The Iraqi Air Force loses five aircraft in air-to-air combat, all shot down by U. S. Air Force F-15 C Eagle fighters employing AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missiles.
  • 1991 – Death of Paul F. Bikle, American Engineer, Record setting glider pilot and Director of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Facility.
  • 1989 – American Airlines purchases the Central and South American routes owned by struggling Eastern Air Lines.
  • 1983 – Death of Ham, also known as Ham the Chimp and Ham the Astrochimp, first chimpanzee launched into outer space in the American space program.
  • 1975 – Death of Antonio Reali, Italian WWI fighter ace.
  • 1972 – Flying a United States Navy F-4 J Phantom II fighter of Fighter Squadron 96 (VF-96) off of USS Constellation (CVA-64), Lieutenants Randy “Duke” Cunningham (pilot) and William “Irish” Driscoll (radar intercept officer) shoot down a North Vietnamese MiG fighter. It is the first air-to-air victory by an American aircraft over Vietnam since March 1970.
  • 1968 – Death of Gaetano Arturo Crocco, Italian scientist and aeronautics pioneer, founder of the Italian Rocket Society.
  • 1965 – Suborbital flight of Gemini 2, US unmanned mission intended as a test flight for the Gemini spacecraft's heat shield.
  • 1961 – Boeing B-52B-35-BO Stratofortress, 53-0390, c/n 16869, of the 95th Bomb Wing, Biggs AFB, Texas, crashes in Utah after failure of tail section in turbulence-induced accident.
  • 1960 – First flight of the Convair CV-580 Super Convair.
  • 1960 – Scandinavian Airlines System Flight 871, a Sud Aviation Caravelle, crashes while on approach to Esenboğa International Airport, killing all 42 on board; an undetermined descent was to blame for the first fatal crash of the Sud Caravelle.
  • 1950 – First flight of the Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck (affectionately known as the "Clunk") RCAF 18101 in Malton by Canadian test pilot Bill Waterton.
  • 1949 – First flight of Martin XSSM-A-1 Matador test vehicle, from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, ends in crash.
  • 1949 – First flight of the Fouga CM.100, French high-wing cantilever monoplane of conventional configuration with fixed tricycle undercarriage airliner prototype, issued from the Glider assault CM.10 by adding two SNECMA 12 S piston engines.
  • 1948 – First Vampires were taken on strength by RCAF.
  • 1946 – First Flight of the Bell X-1. Originally designated XS-1, joint NACA-U. S. Army/USAF supersonic research project, first of the so-called X-planes.
  • 1944 – Allied heavy and medium bombers strike Viterbo, Rieti, and Perugia, Italy. The Allied air forces claim that their air campaign has cut all communications between northern Italy and the Rome area, although this does not turn out to be true.
  • 1941 – German aircraft again attack the Malta dockyard, causing underwater damage to HMS Illustrious.
  • 1939 – Yugoslav Rogožarski IK-3 prototype, piloted by Capt. Milan Pokorni, fails to recover from terminal velocity dive out of Zemun airfield, destroying airframe. Subsequent investigation exonerates the design and production order for twelve placed.
  • 1937 – Flying a redesigned H-1 Racer featuring extended wings, Howard Hughes set a new transcontinental airspeed record by flying non-stop from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, 28 min and 25 seconds (beating his own previous record of 9 hours, 27 min). His average speed over the flight was 322 miles per hour (518 km/h).
  • 1926 – Death of Leopoldo Eleuteri, Italian WWI flying ace.
  • 1923 – The De Bothezat helicopter lifted 2 persons to a height of 1.2 metres (3 ft 11 in).
  • 1919 – Jules Védrines claims an FF25,000 prize by landing an aircraft (a Caudron G-3) on the roof of a department store in Paris. Védrines is injured and his aircraft is damaged beyond repair in the hard landing in a space only 28 metres (92 ft) x 12 metres (39 ft).
  • 1918 – Birth of Tadeusz Góra, Polish glider pilot and WWII pilot.
  • 1915 – Birth of Ennio "Banana" Tarantola, Spanish War and WWII Italian fighter ace.
  • 1910 – Lieutenant Paul Ward Beck drops sandbag "bombs" over Los Angeles from an aeroplane piloted by Louis Paulhan.
  • 1908 – The world’s first official aerodrome, Port-Aviation, is opened outside of Paris, France.
  • 1899 – Birth of George Ebben Randall, British WWI Flying ace.
  • 1898 – Birth of Basil Henry Moody, South African WWI Flying ace.
  • 1898 – Birth of Carl-August von Schoenebeck, German WWI flying ace, Raid pilot, Arado test pilot and WWII high-ranking officer.
  • 1895 – Birth of Air Marshal Sir Arthur "Mary" Coningham KCB, KBE, DSO, MC, DFC, AFC, RAF, Royal Flying Corps flying ace during WWI, Conningham was later a senior Royal Air Force commander during WWII, as Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief 2nd Tactical Air Force and subsequently the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief Flying Training Command.
  • 1895 – Birth of Ivan Alexandrovich Orlov, Russian WWI flying ace, Self Glider and Aircraft designer.
  • 1893 – Birth of Maurice Joseph Emile Robert, French WWI flying ace.
  • 1888 – Birth of Millard Fillmore Harmon Jr. American WWI pilot and Lieutenant General in the USAAF during the Pacific campaign in WWII.
  • 1883 – Birth of James McKinley Hargreaves, Scottish WWI flying ace, One of the first Aces in history.
  • 1784 – One of the largest hot-air balloon ever made, called 'Le Flesselle' by the Montgolfier brothers, makes an ascent at Lyon, France. The balloon's capacity is 700,000 cubic feet and it goes up to 3,000 feet.

References

  1. ^ Mrouse, Bassem, "Syrian FM calls on rebels to disarm and negotiate," Associated Press, January 19, 2013.
  2. ^ Al-Haj, Ahmed, "Yemen Drone Strikes: Suspected U.S. Attack Kills At Least 8," The Huffington Post, January 19, 2013, 6:25 p.m. EST.
  3. ^ "Accident: PSA Airlines CRJ2 at Charleston on January 19th 2010, overran runway on takeoff". The Aviation Herald. Retrieved 20 January 2010.
  4. ^ "Accident: BinAir SW4 at Stuttgart on January 19th 2010, right main gear collapsed on landing". The Aviation Herald. Retrieved 20 January 2010.
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