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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 craft 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...)

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Flight 11 flightpath
Flight 11 flightpath
American Airlines Flight 11 was a scheduled U.S. domestic passenger flight from Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles International Airport. It was hijacked by five men and deliberately crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City as part of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Fifteen minutes into the flight, the hijackers injured at least three people, forcefully breached the cockpit, and overpowered the pilot and first officer. Mohamed Atta, who was a known member of al-Qaeda, and trained as a pilot, took over the controls. Air traffic controllers noticed the flight was in distress when the crew stopped responding to them. They realized the flight had been hijacked when Atta mistakenly transmitted announcements to air traffic control. On board, two flight attendants contacted American Airlines, and provided information about the hijackers and injuries to passengers and crew.

The aircraft crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 08:46 local time; the impact killed all 92 people aboard, including the hijackers. Many people in the streets witnessed the collision, and Jules Naudet captured the impact on video. News agencies began to report on the incident soon after and speculated that the crash had been an accident. The impact and subsequent fire caused the North Tower to collapse, which resulted in thousands of additional casualties. During the recovery effort at the World Trade Center site, workers recovered and identified dozens of remains from Flight 11 victims, but many other body fragments could not be identified. (Full article...)

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Did you know

...that Swedish adventurer Saloman Andrée died in 1897 while trying to reach the geographic North Pole by hot-air balloon? ... that the Air Zoo in Kalamazoo, Michigan houses the only SR-71B Blackbird in existence? ... that the collection of the Prague Aviation Museum, Kbely includes 275 aircraft, of which approximately 110 are on public display?

More Did you know facts

General images - load new batch

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

In the news

Wikinews Aviation portal
Read and edit Wikinews

Associated Wikimedia

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

Selected biography

AIR VICE-MARSHAL GEORGE JONES
Air Marshal Sir George Jones KBE, CB, DFC (18 October 1896 – 24 August 1992) was a senior commander in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). He rose from being a private soldier in World War I to Air Marshal in 1948. He served as Chief of the Air Staff from 1942 to 1952, the longest continuous tenure of any RAAF chief. Jones was a surprise appointee to the Air Force’s top role, and his achievements in the position were coloured by a divisive relationship during World War II with his head of operations and nominal subordinate, Air Vice Marshal William Bostock.

Jones first saw action as an infantryman in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915, before transferring to the Australian Flying Corps the following year. Initially an air mechanic, he undertook flying training in 1917 and was posted to a fighter squadron in France, achieving seven victories to become an ace. After a short spell in civilian life following World War I, he joined the newly-formed RAAF in 1921, rising steadily through training and personnel commands prior to World War II.

He did not actively seek the position of Chief of the Air Staff before being appointed in 1942, and his conflict with Bostock—with whom he had been friends for 20 years—was partly the result of a divided command structure, which neither man had any direct role in shaping. After World War II Jones had overall responsibility for transforming what was then the world's fourth largest air force into a peacetime service that was also able to meet overseas commitments in Malaya and Korea. Following his retirement from the RAAF he continued to serve in the aircraft industry and later ran unsuccessfully for political office.

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

October 26

  • 2009 – S-Air Flight 9607, a BAe 125, registration RA-02807, crashes on approach to Minsk International Airport. All three crew and both passengers are killed.
  • 2008 – Qatar Airways launches daily nonstop flights between Doha and New York-JFK using Boeing 777-300ER.
  • 2007 – Philippine Airlines Flight 475, an Airbus A320-214, overruns the runway on landing at Bancasi Airport in Butuan City, the Philippines, and is destroyed when it plows into the tropical rainforest beyond the end of the runway. All 154 people on board survive.
  • 2006 – 2006 Falsterbo Swedish Coast Guard crash was the crash of a CASA C-212 Aviocar turboprop airplane belonging to the Swedish Coast Guard in Falsterbo Canal, Sweden.
  • 1993 – ValuJet Airlines begins operations.
  • 1978 – A USAF LTV A-7D-6-CV Corsair II, 69-6240, of the 355th TFW, on flight from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, crashes on approach to Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, coming down in street between University of Arizona buildings and Mansfield Junior High School in Tucson, killing driver of auto struck by the fighter, and injuring at least six other civilians. Pilot Capt. Frederick Ashler, 28, ejected safely while passing over the university campus.
  • 1966 – A fire in a flare locker in Hangar Bay One of the USS Oriskany (CVA-34) beginning at 0728 hrs. spreads through the hangar deck and to the flight deck. Before the fires are extinguished two Kaman SH-2 Seasprite helicopters are lost, Douglas A-4E Skyhawk, BuNo 151075, is destroyed, and three others are damaged, as are Hangar Bays One and Two, the forward officer quarters and catapults, and 44 crew are killed.
  • 1962 – The last Boeing B-52 off the production line is delivered to the US Air Force.
  • 1958 – The first commercial flight by a Boeing 707 jet airliner takes place, on Pan American World Airways transatlantic service from New York City to Paris.
  • 1958 – Snowy Mountains Project worker Tom Sonter accidentally discovers the wreckage of the Australian National Airways Avro 618 Ten Southern Cloud, which had disappeared without trace in bad weather over the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales, Australia, with the loss of all eight people on board on March 21, 1931, in Australia‘s first airline disaster.
  • 1958 – North American F-86L Sabre, 53-0569, of the 330th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, Stewart AFB, New York, crashes W of that base while on approach in a snow storm, killing pilot Lt. Gary W. Crane.
  • 1956 – Royal Canadian Navy accepted the first seven of 100 Grumman Tracker aircraft at Downsview, Ontario.
  • 1956 – A USAF Fairchild C-119G-FA Flying Boxcar, 51-8026A, c/n 10769, of the 61st Troop Carrier Squadron, 314th Troop Carrier Wing, Tactical Air Command, Sewart Air Force Base, Tennessee, on a cargo airlift mission to Olmsted Air Force Base, Pennsylvania, crashes 7 miles N of Newburg, Pennsylvania at ~1515 hrs. ET, killing four crew. The weather at Olmsted was fluctuating rapidly with rain and fog, and at 1400 hrs. the pilot reported a missed approach to the field. After being cleared to altitude over the Lancaster beacon the conditions at Olmsted improved to above minimums and the pilot requested another approach. At 1506 Eastern he was cleared for a straight-in approach from New Kingston Fan Marker to Olmsted. At 1509 he reported leaving the New Kingston Fan Marker inbound and at 1511 he reported leaving 3,000 feet. The aircraft crashed in mountainous terrain 22.5 nm W of the Kingston Fan Marker. KWF are 1st Lt. Robert Siegfried Hantsch, pilot, Walter Beverly Gordon, Jr., co-pilot, T/Sgt. Marvin W. Seigler, engineer, and 1st Lt. Gracye E. Young, of the 4457th USAF Hospital, Sewart AFB.
  • 1952 – A BOAC Comet is badly damaged in an accident during take-off from Rome.
  • 1947 – (October 26-November 7) Rhulin A. Thomas makes the first solo coast-to-coast flight by a deaf pilot. (Calbraith Perry Rodgers was an earlier deaf pilot who flew coast-to-coast in 1911, but was supported by a team on the ground.)
  • 1944 – The highest-scoring Japanese ace in history, Hiroyoshi Nishizawa, is killed when the Nakajima Ki-49 (Allied reporting name “Helen”) transport aircraft in which he is riding as a passenger is shot down by a U. S. Navy F6 F Hellcat fighter over Calapan, Mindoro Island, in the Philippine Islands. His score stands at at least 87—and possibly over 100—victories at the time of his death.
  • 1944 – 44 U. S. Army Air Forces B-24 Liberator and B-25 Mitchell bombers of the Fifth and Thirteenth Air Forces sink the Japanese light cruiser Abukuma southwest of Negros, and 253 carrier aircraft of Task Force 38 sink the Japanese light cruiser Noshiro off Batbatan Island.
  • 1944 – Sole Platt-LePage XR-1A helicopter, 42-6581, is damaged in an accident at Wright Field, Ohio, due to the failure of a pinion bearing support in the starboard rotor hub and is shipped back to the manufacturer. It will be declared surplus following the end of World War II.
  • 1944 – WASP pilot Gertrude Tompkins Silver of the 601st Ferrying Squadron, 5th Ferrying Group, Love Field, Dallas, Texas, departs Mines Field, Los Angeles, California, in North American P-51D-15-NA Mustang, 44-15669, at 1600 hrs PWT, headed for the East Coast. She took off into the wind, into an offshore fog bank, and was expected that night at Palm Springs. She never arrived. Due to a paperwork foul-up, a search did not get under way for several days, and while the eventual search of land and sea was massive, it failed to find a trace of Silver or her plane. She is the only missing WASP pilot. She had married Sgt. Henry Silver one month before her disappearance.
  • 1943 – F/L RM Aldwinckle and crew in a Consolidated Liberator of No. 10 Squadron sank the German submarine U-420 in the North Atlantic.
  • 1942 – An aircraft carrier action takes place northeast of the Solomon Islands during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands. U. S. Navy carrier aircraft badly damage the Japanese aircraft carriers Shōkaku and Zuihō, while Japanese carrier aircraft fatally damage the aircraft carrier USS Hornet (CV-8). The abandoned Hornet is finished off by Japanese destroyers early the next morning becoming the only U. S. fleet carrier ever to be sunk by enemy surface ships.
  • 1922 – The first landing is made on USS Langley by Lt Cdr Geoffrey DeChevalier in an Aeromarine 39.
  • 1909 – Marie Marvingt pilots a balloon across the North Sea and the English Channel from Europe to England.
  • 1907 – Henry Farman sets a world powered heavier-than-air distance record of 771 m (2,530 ft).

References

  1. ^ "Boeing's Dreamliner completes first commercial flight". BBC News. 26 October 2011. Retrieved 26 October 2011.
  2. ^ Staff writers (29 October 2011) "Shock as Qantas chief Alan Joyce grounds airline's domestic and international fleet". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 30 October 2011
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