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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 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...)

Selected article

Mirabel Satellite photo
Mirabel Satellite photo
Montréal-Mirabel International Airport is a large airport located in Mirabel, Quebec, near Montreal and was opened 4 October 1975. The airport serves mainly cargo flights, and is a manufacturing base of Bombardier Aerospace, where final assembly of regional jets (CRJ700 and CRJ900) aircraft is conducted. It is part of the National Airports System. It is the second largest airport in the world in terms of area, covering more land area than the five New York City boroughs.

The airport's location and lack of transport links, as well as Montreal's economic decline relative to Toronto, made it unpopular with airlines. Eventually relegated to the simple role of a cargo airport, Mirabel became an embarrassment widely regarded in Canada as being a boondoggle, or a "white elephant," and one of the best examples of a failed megaproject. (Full article...)

Selected image

The inverted Jenny (or Jenny Invert) is a United States postage stamp of 1918 in which the image of the Curtiss JN-4 airplane in the center of the design was accidentally printed upside-down; it is probably the most famous error in American philately. Only 100 of the inverts were ever found, making this error one of the most prized in all philately; an inverted Jenny was sold at a Robert A. Siegel auction in June 2005 for US$525,000.

Did you know

...the study of airmail is known as aerophilately? ...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 loss of nine military crew members and passengers when Buffalo 461 was shot down over Syria in 1974, remains the largest single-incident loss of life in Canadian peacekeeping history?

More Did you know facts

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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

F-4E from 81st Tactical Fighter Squadron dropping 500 lb (230 kg) Mark 82 bombs
F-4E from 81st Tactical Fighter Squadron dropping 500 lb (230 kg) Mark 82 bombs

The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is a two-seat, twin-engined, all-weather, long-range supersonic fighter-bomber originally developed for the U.S. Navy by McDonnell Aircraft. Proving highly adaptable, it became a major part of the air wings of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and U.S. Air Force. It was used extensively by all three of these services during the Vietnam War, serving as the principal air superiority fighter for both the Navy and Air Force, as well as being important in the ground-attack and reconnaissance roles by the close of U.S. involvement in the war.

First entering service in 1960, the Phantom continued to form a major part of U.S. military air power throughout the 1970s and 1980s, being gradually replaced by more modern aircraft such as the F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon in the U.S. Air Force; the F-14 Tomcat and F/A-18 Hornet in the U.S. Navy; and the F/A-18 in the U.S. Marine Corps. It remained in use by the U.S. in the reconnaissance and Wild Weasel roles in the 1991 Gulf War, finally leaving service in 1996. The Phantom was also operated by the armed forces of 11 other nations. Israeli Phantoms saw extensive combat in several Arab–Israeli conflicts, while Iran used its large fleet of Phantoms in the Iran–Iraq War. Phantoms remain in front line service with seven countries, and in use as an unmanned target in the U.S. Air Force.

Phantom production ran from 1958 to 1981, with a total of 5,195 built. This extensive run makes it the second most-produced Western jet fighter, behind the F-86 Sabre at just under 10,000 examples.

  • Span: 38 ft 4.5 in (11.7 m)
  • Length: 63 ft 0 in (19.2 m)
  • Height: 16 ft 6 in (5.0 m)
  • Engines: 2× General Electric J79-GE-17A axial compressor turbojets, 17,845 lbf (79.6 kN) each
  • Cruising Speed: 506 kn (585 mph, 940 km/h)
  • First Flight: 27 May 1958
  • Number built: 5,195
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Today in Aviation

March 14

  • 2008 – An Lockheed Martin F-16C Block 25D Fighting Falcon, 84-1273, flown by pilot 2nd Lt. David J. Mitchell, 26, of Amherst, Ohio, crashes during training mission in a remote area three miles (5 km) S of Alamo Lake, Arizona. His body is located in a ravine near the aircraft wreckage. Mitchell, of the Ohio Air National Guard's 180th Fighter Wing at Toledo Express Airport, Swanton, Ohio, was assigned to the 62d Fighter Squadron at Luke AFB, Arizona since November 2007 as a student pilot. He had 237 total flying hours, ~26 in the F-16.
  • 1995 – An Aeroflot Antonov An-12 crashes near Baku after running out of fuel. Crew negligence is blamed, and it is suggested that the flight crew were drunk.
  • 1984 – Marc Garneau named the first Canadian astronaut.
  • 1980 – LOT Flight 7, an Ilyushin Il-62, crashes near Warsaw, Poland after the No. 2 engine disintegrates and severs the elevator and rudder control lines; all 87 on board are killed.
  • 1979 – A British-built Trident aircraft crashed into a factory in Beijing, China killing an estimated 200 people, including a dozen crew and passengers and scores of victims in the factory.
  • 1972 – Sterling Airways Flight 296, a Sud Caravelle, crashes near Kalba, United Arab Emirates due to pilot error; all 112 on board die in the worst air disaster in the history of the United Arab Emirates.
  • 1972 – Two USAF McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs have mid-air collision over the town of El Buste, Spain, about 30 miles from the joint US-Spanish base at Zaragoza. All four crewmen are KWF. Debris showered down onto the town, damaging communications and starting several roof fires, but no injuries to townspeople. Aircraft were returning to base in strong winds and broken clouds after a routine gunnery mission.
  • 1961 – 1961 Yuba City B-52 crash: Failure of a cabin pressurization system forces USAF Boeing B-52F-70-BW Stratofortress, 57-0166, c/n 464155, to fly low, accelerating fuel-burn, bomber has fuel starvation at 10,000 feet over Yuba City, California, crashes, killing aircraft commander. Two nuclear weapons on board tear loose on impact but no explosion or contamination takes place.
  • 1960 – Within a year of completion of a major expansion program, Chicago’s O’Hare International airport has become the busiest terminal in the US, handling 10.2 million passengers in 1959, the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) reports. In the same year it handled 431,600 take-offs and landings.
  • 1957 – Sikorsky HO4S-3, 55892, c/n 55-892, of the Royal Canadian Navy, ditches off the coast of Key West, Florida. Crew rescued by USS Cromwell.
  • 1951 – RAF Coastal Command Avro Lancaster GR.3, TX264, 'BS-D', of 120 Squadron RAF Kinloss, off-course in high winds and heavy overcast during a night-time navigation exercise between the Faroes and Rockall, crashes into Beinn Eighe's Triple Buttress at ~0200 hrs., just 15 feet (4.6 m) below the top of the 2,850-foot (870 m) westernmost gully of the buttress known as Coire Mhic Fhercair in the Scottish Highlands, killing all eight crew. Wreck not found until 17 March, crew remains not recovered until August. Due to remoteness of the crashsite the wreckage is still there.
  • 1946 – The last operation for the Canadian 435 (T) squadron was from Down Ampney England. With 15,681 sorties, 28,792 operational hours and 2734 non-operational hours. They airlifted 27,460 tons of freight, 14,000 passengers and had 851 casualties.
  • 1946 – The Royal Canadian Navy commissions its first aircraft carrier, HMCS Warrior (CVL 20), which the United Kingdom has transferred to Canada. She will serve until replaced by HMCS Magnificent (CVL 21) in 1948.
  • 1945 – The first prototype of two of the experimental Cornelius XFG-1-CR fuel glider, 44-28059, crashes 3 miles W of Wilmington, Ohio during spin testing out of Clinton County Army Air Field, Ohio, killing test pilot Alfred Reitherman of the Spartan Aircraft Company which constructed the design. The fuel glider concept (to be towed behind bombers) is abandoned at the end of the war.
  • 1936 – Imperial Airways opens a weekly service to Hong Kong.
  • 1908 – Henri Farman makes the first flight in his modified Voisin-Farman I-bis, the biplane built by Voisin brothers.
  • 1889 – German Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his “Navigable Balloon”.
  • 1885 – Raoul Lufbery, American World War I pilot, was born (d. 1918). Lufbery was a French-American fighter pilot and flying ace in World War I. Because he served in both the French and later the United States Army Air Service in World War I, he is sometimes listed as a French ace and sometimes as an American ace, though all but one of his 17 combat victories came while flying in French units.

References

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