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Portal:Aviation

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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. 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

Traditional general aviation fixed-wing light aircraft, the most numerous class of aircraft in the sector
Traditional general aviation fixed-wing light aircraft, the most numerous class of aircraft in the sector
General aviation in the United Kingdom has been defined as a civil aircraft operation other than a commercial air transport flight operating to a schedule. Although the International Civil Aviation Organization excludes any form of remunerated aviation from its definition, some commercial operations are often included within the scope of general aviation in the UK. The sector operates business jets, rotorcraft, piston and jet-engined fixed-wing aircraft, gliders of all descriptions, and lighter than air craft. Public transport operations include business (or corporate) aviation and air taxi services, and account for nearly half of the economic contribution made by the sector. There are 28,000 Private Pilot Licence holders, and 10,000 certified glider pilots. Although GA operates from more than 1,800 aerodromes and landing sites, ranging in size from large regional airports to farm strips, over 80 per cent of GA activity is conducted at 134 of the larger aerodromes. GA is regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority, although regulatory powers are being increasingly transferred to the European Aviation Safety Agency. The main focus is on standards of airworthiness and pilot licensing, and the objective is to promote high standards of safety. (Full article...)

Selected image

USS Akron over Manhattan
USS Akron over Manhattan
The airship USS Akron} flying over the southern tip of Manhattan circa 1931–1933. The Akron was a commissioned 'ship' of the United States Navy, built for them by the Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation in Akron, Ohio. She cast off for her maiden voyage on 2 November 1931, but crashed less than two years later.

Did you know

...that the mysterious objects known as Black Triangles may actually be hybrid airships? ...that Indra Lal Roy of the Royal Air Force became India's first flying ace after he achieved 10 victories in thirteen days during World War I? ... that Walter Borchers was one of three brothers, all three received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross during World War II?

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

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Wikinews Aviation portal
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Selected biography

Amelia Earhart, c. 1928
Amelia Mary Earhart (July 24, 1897 – missing as of July 2, 1937), daughter of Edwin and Amy Earhart, was an American aviator and noted early female pilot who mysteriously disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during a circumnavigational flight in 1937.

By 1919 Earhart had enrolled at Columbia University to study pre-med but quit a year later to be with her parents in California. Later in Long Beach she and her father went to a stunt-flying exhibition and the next day she went on a ten minute flight.

Earhart had her first flying lesson at Kinner Field near Long Beach. Her teacher was Anita Snook, a pioneer female aviator. Six months later Earhart purchased a yellow Kinner Airster biplane which she named "Canary". On October 22, 1922, she flew it to an altitude of 14,000 feet, setting a women's world record.

After Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, Amy Guest, a wealthy American living in London, England expressed interest in being the first woman to fly (or be flown) across the Atlantic Ocean, but after deciding the trip was too dangerous to make herself, she offered to sponsor the project, suggesting they find "another girl with the right image." While at work one afternoon in April 1928 Earhart got a phone call from a man who asked her, "Would you like to fly the Atlantic?"

Selected Aircraft

The Pregnant Guppy was a large, wide-bodied cargo aircraft built in the USA and used for ferrying outsized cargo items, most notably NASA's components of the Apollo moon program. The Pregnant Guppy was the first of the Guppy line of aircraft produced by Aero Spacelines, Inc. The design also inspired similar designs such as the jet-powered Airbus Beluga, and the Boeing 747 LCF designed to deliver Boeing 787 parts.

  • Span:141 feet, 3 inches.
  • Length: 127 feet.
  • Height: 31 feet, 3 inches.
  • Engines: 4 3500hp P&W R-4360.
  • Cruising Speed: 250 mph
  • First Flight:September 19, 1962
  • Number built: 1
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Today in Aviation

December 5

  • 2008 – A MiG-29 crash at Chita in the district of Zabaykalsky Krai, Siberia at 0612 hrs. Moscow time, kills the pilot.
  • 2006 – Lufthansa becomes the first airline to order the Boeing 747-8 passenger jet with an order for 20 planes and options for an additional 20 planes.
  • 2005 – Southwest Airlines Flight 1248, a Boeing 737-7 H4 with 103 people on board, slides off a runway while landing in a snowstorm at Chicago Midway International Airport in Chicago, Illinois; 11 people on the aircraft are injured. The plane strikes at least three cars in a busy intersection; a six-year-old boy is killed and several people are injured in the cars.
  • 2001 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-108 at 22:19:28 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS supply, crew rotation.
  • 1997 – Russian Air Force Antonov An-124 Ruslan, RA-82005, delivering two Sukhoi Su-27 Flankers to Vietnam, loses both port engines at 200 feet (60 m) on take-off from Irkutsk, crashing into residential area, killing eight crew, 15 passengers, and 45 on the ground (some accounts list higher ground casualties). Cause was thought to be either contaminated fuel or wrong grade of fuel, taken on at Irkutsk.
  • 1994 – U.S. Navy pilot Lieutenant John Francis Brown, from Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, is killed when he loses control of his Beechcraft T-34C Turbo Mentor near Robertsdale, Alabama.
  • 1988 – A U.S. Navy Grumman EA-6B Prowler, BuNo 163044, 'NG', of VAQ-139, goes missing over the Pacific Ocean during training exercise 900 miles off San Diego. Search fails to find any sign of the four crew.
  • 1972 – During an Aerospace Defense Command night training mission, Convair F-102A-80-CO Delta Dagger, 56-1517, of the 157th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, South Carolina Air National Guard, McEntire Air National Guard Base, South Carolina, collided with Lockheed C-130E Hercules, 64-0558, of the 318th Special Operations Squadron, out of Pope AFB, North Carolina, during a simulated interception, over the Bayboro area of Horry County, east of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. One killed in the Delta Dagger, Capt. Thomas C. Hagood, Jr. of Lexington, South Carolina, and all twelve aboard the Hercules perish. They were Lt. Col. Donald E. Martin, of White Oak, Texas; Maj. Keith L. Van Note, of Mason City, Iowa; Capt. John R. Cole, of Tulsa, Oklahoma; Capt. Louis R. Sert, of St. Louis, Missouri; Capt. Marshall K. Dickerson, of Chicago; Lt. Douglas L. Theirer, address unavailable; T.Sgt. Robert E. Doyle, of South Hill, Virginia; T.Sgt. Claude L. Abbot, of Adel, Georgia; S.Sgt. Gilmore A. Minkley, Jr., of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania; Sgt. Billy M. Warr, Sr., of Sylmar, California; Sgt. Gerald K. Faust, of Oregon, Wisconsin; and Capt. Douglas S. Peterson, of Harvard, Illinois. Some press reports list Conway, South Carolina, west of the crash site, as the location.
  • 1965 – Douglas A-4E Skyhawk, BuNo 151022, of VA-56 on nuclear alert status, armed with one Mark 43 TN nuclear weapon, rolls off of elevator of aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14), in the Pacific Ocean. The Skyhawk was being rolled from the number 2 hangar bay to the number 2 elevator when it was lost. Airframe, pilot Lt. D.M. Webster, and bomb are lost in 16,000 feet of water 80 miles from one of the Ryukyu Islands in Okinawa.] Webster, from Warren, Ohio, was a 1964 graduate of the Ohio State University. No public mention was made of the incident at the time and it would not come to light until a 1981 Pentagon report revealed that a one-megaton bomb had been lost. Japan then asks for details of the incident.
  • 1964 – An LGM-30B Minuteman I missile is on strategic alert at Launch Facility (LF) L-02, Ellsworth AFB, South Dakota, when two airmen are dispatched to the LF to repair the inner zone (IZ) security system. In the midst of their checkout of the IZ system, one retrorocket in the spacer below the Reentry Vehicle (RV) fires, causing the RV to fall about 75 feet to the floor of the silo. When the RV strikes bottom, the arming and fusing/attitude control subsystem containing the batteries are torn loose, thus removing all sources of power from the RV. The RV structure receives considerable damage. All safety devices operate properly in that they do not sense the proper sequence of events to allow arming the warhead. There is no detonation or radioactive contamination.
  • 1956 – An Northrop XSM-62 Snark, 53-8172, N-69D test model, fitted with new 24 hour stellar inertial guidance system, launches from Cape Canaveral Missile Test Annex, Florida, wanders off-course, ignores destruct command, disappears over Brazil. It is found by a farmer in January 1983.
  • 1945 – Flight 19 was the designation of five TBM Avenger torpedo bombers that disappeared during a United States Navy-authorized overwater navigation training flight from Naval Air Station Fort Lauderdale, Florida. All 14 airmen on the flight were lost, as were all 13 crew members of a PBM Mariner flying boat assumed to have exploded in mid-air while searching for the flight. Navy investigators could not determine the cause for the loss of Flight 19 but said the aircraft may have become disoriented and ditched in rough seas after running out of fuel.
  • 1944 – British Douglas Dakota III aircraft, serial number FL588, of the Royal Air Force crashed on the Pic de la Camisette, a mountain close to the commune of Mijanès, Ariège, in the French Pyrenees. The Dakota was piloted by three RAF pilots. In total twenty-three airmen were on board, including twenty members of the Glider Pilot Regiment. Only six airmen survived the incident; sixteen died in the crash, another died within hours from his injuries. In spite of serious wounds, two of the survivors managed to reach the village of Mijanès to get help for the other survivors. The bodies of eleven men were recovered from the crash site between 10 and 19 December, and buried in Mijanès. The search was suspended due to adverse weather conditions, but in the spring of 1945 a further six bodies were brought down from the crash site after the snow had melted. All of the airmen who died in the crash were later reburied in the Mazargues War Cemetery, Marseilles. Remains of Dakota FL 588 have been preserved and today are on display at the Château d'Usson, a ruined medieval Castle noted for its association with the Cathars.
  • 1942 – Canadian Vickers prototype of the Consolidated Canso was test flown at St Hubert Quebec, by ECW Dobbin and crew.
  • 1941 – First flight of the Kawanishi E15K Shiun (“Violet Cloud”), Allied reporting name “Norm”
  • 1931 – Lowell Bayles, winner of the 1931 Thompson Trophy, dies when the Gee Bee Model Z racer he is piloting crashes during a speed run at Wayne County Airport in Detroit, Michigan.
  • 1909 – George Taylor becomes the first person to fly a heavier-than-air craft in Australia, in a glider he designed. On the same day Florence Taylor becomes the first woman in Australia to fly a heavier-than-air craft, in the glider designed by her husband.

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