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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 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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Zeppelin
Zeppelin
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship pioneered by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century. Due to the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the term zeppelin in casual use came to refer to all rigid airships. The German defeat in World War I halted the business temporarily, but under the guidance of Hugo Eckener, the successor of the deceased count, civilian Zeppelins experienced a renaissance in the 1920s. They reached their zenith in the 1930s, when the airships LZ127 "Graf Zeppelin" and LZ129 "Hindenburg" profitably operated regular transatlantic passenger flights. The Hindenburg disaster in 1937 triggered the fall of the "giants of the air", though other factors, including political issues, contributed to the demise. (Full article...)

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Credit: US Air Force photo
Wingtip vortices are visible trailing from an F-15E Strike Eagle as it disengages from midair refueling with a KC-10 Extender during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Did you know

...that the pioneer American airman Lowell Smith participated in the first mid-air refueling, the first aerial circumnavigation and held 16 records for military aircraft in speed, endurance and distance? ...that the Ryan X-13 Vertijet aircraft landed by using a hook on its nose to hang itself on a wire? ...that the Silver Centenary biplane, built in Beverley, Western Australia in 1930, received its airworthiness certificate 77 years after its first flight?

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

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Wikinews Aviation portal
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Selected biography

Elizabeth 'Bessie' Coleman (January 26, 1892 – April 30, 1926), popularly known as "Queen Bess", was the first African American (male or female) to become an airplane pilot, and the first American of any race or gender to hold an international pilot license. Growing up in Chicago, she heard tales of the world from pilots who were returning home from World War I. They told stories about flying in the war, and Coleman started to fantasize about being a pilot. She could not gain admission to American flight schools because she was black and a woman. No black U.S. aviator would train her either. Coleman took French language class at the Berlitz school in Chicago, and then traveled to Paris on November 20, 1920. Coleman learned to fly in a Nieuport Type 82 biplane.

Selected Aircraft

[[File:|right|250px|The two YC-130 prototypes; the blunt nose was replaced with radar on later production models.]] The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is a four-engine turboprop cargo aircraft and the main tactical airlifter for many military forces worldwide. Over 40 models and variants of the Hercules serve with more than 50 nations. On December 2006 the C-130 was the third aircraft (after the English Electric Canberra in May 2001 and the B-52 Stratofortress in January 2005) to mark 50 years of continuous use with its original primary customer (in this case the United States Air Force).

Capable of short takeoffs and landings from unprepared runways, the C-130 was originally designed as a troop, medical evacuation and cargo transport aircraft. The versatile airframe has found uses in a variety of other roles, including as a gunship, and for airborne assault, search and rescue, scientific research support, weather reconnaissance, aerial refuelling and aerial firefighting. The Hercules family has the longest continuous production run of any military aircraft in history. During more than 50 years of service the family has participated in military, civilian and humanitarian aid operations.

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Today in Aviation

April 25

  • 2010 – A Royal New Zealand Air Force Bell UH-1H Iroquois crashed in heavy fog about 40 km north east of Wellington. Three persons were killed and a fourth seriously injured.
  • 2009 – Lockheed P-2 V Neptune N442NA of Neptune Aviation Services crashes into a hill at Stockton, Utah, while on a ferry flight. The aircraft is destroyed and all three crew were killed.
  • 1992 – Second prototype Lockheed YF-22A, N22YX, suffers severe damage during start of a go-around when it belly-flops at Edwards AFB, California, following eight seconds of pilot-induced oscillation at an altitude of 40 feet when test pilot Tom Morgenfeld ignored a test-card requiring the 2-D convergent-divergent thrust nozzles to be locked in position during this stage of the PIO tests. Control surface actuators hit rate limiters causing commands to get out of synchronization with their execution, and the test fighter hit the ground, skidded several thousand feet, inducing fire that destroyed 25 percent of the airframe. Crash footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdfIiZnVhTI Aircraft never flew again, being rebuilt as a shell and subsequently used to test antennae at the Rome Air Development Center, Griffiss AFB, New York.
  • 1990 – McDonnell-Douglas F-15 Eagle s/n 81-0049 flown by the 32nd TFS based at Soesterberg AB, Netherlands suffered an engine fire while flying in a three ship formation during Exercise Elder Forest and subsequently lost all hydraulic power. Pilot major George D. Hulsey ejected safely and was picked up by an oil-rig supply vessel. Aircraft crashed into the North Sea, 9 miles off Spurn Point Humberside, United Kingdom.
  • 1983 – NASA exploration spacecraft Pioneer 10 flies past the orbit of Pluto.
  • 1980 – Dan-Air Flight 1008, a Boeing 727, crashes into a mountain near Tenerife, Spain; all 138 passengers and eight crew die.
  • 1968 – Apollo 6's SIV-B staqe re-enters the Earth's atmosphere and the Apollo 6 command module is recovered.
  • 1967 – A USAF Lockheed EC-121H-LO Warning Star, 53-549, of the 551st AEWCW, out of Otis AFB, Massachusetts, ditches in the North Atlantic ~one mile off of Nantucket, Massachusetts, just after having taken off from that base. One survivor, 15 crew KWF. Five bodies were not recovered. Col. James P. Lyle, the Commander of the 551st AEW&C Wing to which all the aircraft and crew members were assigned, was the pilot. Colonel Lyle had been assigned to take over that command nine months earlier. It was he who presented each of the next of kin of 11 November 1966 crash victims with the United States Flag during that memorial service.
  • 1962 – The United States Department of Defense announces its choice of the Northrop F-5 Freedom Fighter for its Military Assistance Program.
  • 1957 – Northrop SM-64 Navaho, 53-8272, falls back onto launchpad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, a few seconds after liftoff and explodes.
  • 1956 – First flight of the Bensen B-8 Gyro-Boat with a basic free-turning rotor system, known as the Roto-sail
  • 1952 – John Jay Hopkins founds General Dynamics Corporation.
  • 1951 – Cubana de Aviación Flight 493: Douglas DC-4, registration CU-T188, (ex-C-54A-15-DC, 42-72263) c/n 10368, en route from Miami, Florida, United States, to Havana, Cuba, has a mid-air collision with US Navy Beechcraft SNB-1 Kansan, BuNo 39939, which was on an instrument training flight in the vicinity of Naval Air Station Key West at the same time. All 43 aboard the airliner and four on the SNB were killed. Flight 493 departed Miami at 1109 hrs. and was cleared to climb to 4,000 feet (1,200 m) on a direct heading to Key West. Approximately ten minutes later, the SNB-1 took off from NAS Key West for simulated instrument training. Although the flight was not cleared to a specific altitude or heading, standard instrument training procedures were in place. At 1149 hrs. Flight 493, heading south, and the SNB-1, heading west, collided over NAS Key West at an estimated altitude of 4,000 feet (1,200 m).
  • 1945 – 275 B-17 s escorted by four groups of P-51 Mustangs attack the Pilzen-Škoda armament factory in Czechoslovakia. It is the last heavy bomber mission by the United States Army Air Forces’ 8th Air Force against an industrial target.
  • 1945 – The incomplete German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin is scuttled at Stettin to prevent her capture by the Soviet Union.
  • 1945 – The last bombing attack was carried out by No. 6 (RCAF) Group with 192 aircraft dropping over 902 tons of bombs on Wangerooge Island.
  • 1940 – McGee Airways pioneers the transportation of fresh meat and milk to the Alaskan interior.
  • 1940 – Swordfish and Skuas from the British aircraft carriers HMS Ark Royal and HMS Glorious raid targets in the Trondheim area in Norway.
  • 1940 – Oberfeldwebel Hermann Förster is the first German night fighter pilot to shoot down a British bomber during World War II. Flying a Messerschmitt Bf 109D-1, he downs a Handley Page Hampden laying naval mines off the coast of Schleswig-Holstein.
  • 1928 – Charles A. Lindbergh landed on the Plains of Abraham, Quebec City, in a Curtiss Falcon carrying pneumonia serum for Floyd Bennett.
  • 1922 – Known as the Stout ST-1, the first all-metal airplane designed for the U. S. Navy makes its first flight piloted by Eddie Stinson.
  • 1914 – The first combat flight by a U. S. Navy aircraft takes place. It is a flight to observe Mexican positions during the Veracruz Incident.
  • 1868 – John Bevins Moisant, designer, builder and pilot of the first aluminum airplane, is born in Kanakee, Illinois.

References

  1. ^ Booth, William, "Israel Downs Drone Flying From Lebanon," The Washington Post, April 25, 2013.
  2. ^ Staff (25 April 2011). "Libya: Berlusconi Backs Nato Strikes by Italy Jets". BBC News. Retrieved 27 April 2011.
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