Jump to content

Portal:Aviation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portal topics
Activities
Culture
Geography
Health
History
Mathematics
Nature
People
Philosophy
Religion
Society
Technology
Random portal
Main page   Categories & Main topics  


Tasks and Projects

The Aviation Portal

A Boeing 747 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...)

Selected article

Air Force One
Air Force One
Air Force One (the ATC callsign of any U.S. Air Force aircraft carrying the President) has, since 1990, consisted of two specifically-configured, highly customized Boeing 747-200B series aircraft, known as the VC-25. The planes' three floors (4,000 square feet – 372 m²) include multiple modifications including the president's executive suite which includes a private dressing room, workout room, lavatory, shower, and private office. (Full article...)

Selected image

Credit: U.S. Air Force photo by TSgt Ben Bloker
Lt. Col. James Hecker (front) and Lt. Col. Evan Dertein line up their F/A-22 Raptor aircraft behind a KC-10 Extender to refuel while en route to Hill Air Force Base, Utah. Colonel Hecker commands the first operational Raptor squadron -- the 27th Fighter Squadron at Langley Air Force Base, Va. The unit went to Hill for operation Combat Hammer, the squadron's first deployment, Oct. 15. The deployment has a twofold goal: complete a deployment and to generate a combat-effective sortie rate away from home.

Did you know

...that in the late 1940s the USAF Northrop YB-49 set both an unofficial endurance record and a transcontinental speed record?

Bede BD-4

... 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

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

Francis Stanley "Gabby" Gabreski (Franciszek Gabryszewski) (28 January 1919 - January 31, 2002) was the top American fighter ace in Europe during World War II, a jet fighter ace in Korea, and commanded numerous fighter squadrons, groups, and wings during his Air Force career.

Assigned as a P-40 pilot with the 45th Fighter Squadron of the 15th Fighter Group at Wheeler Field, Hawaii, 2nd Lt. Gabreski witnessed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but did not become airborne in time to engage the attackers.

In March 1943 Gabreski became part of the 56th Fighter Group, flying the P-47 Thunderbolt, and in May was promoted to Major and named commander of the 61st Fighter Squadron, which included six Polish nationals as pilots in 1944. He made his 28th kill on July 5, 1944, passing Eddie Rickenbacker's record from World War I to become America's top ace (although several pilots passed him by the end of the war).

Col. Gabreski flew combat again during the Korean War, as commander of the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing, piloting an F-86 Sabre. He was credited with 6.5 MiG-15 kills, making him one of seven U.S. pilots to be aces in more than one war (the others are Col. Harrison Thyng, Col. James P. Hagerstrom, Major William T. Whisner, Col. Vermont Garrison, Major George A. Davis, Jr., and Lt.Col. John F. Bolt, USMC).

He ended his career as a commander of several tactical and air defense wings, his last assignment being commander of the 52d Fighter Wing at Suffolk County Air Force Base in Westhampton Beach, New York.

Selected Aircraft

Concorde at Heathrow
Concorde at Heathrow

Aérospatiale-BAC Concorde supersonic transport (SST), along with the Tupolev Tu-144, was one of only two models of supersonic passenger airliners to have seen commercial service.

Concorde had a cruise speed of Mach 2.02 (around 2170 km/h or 1,350 mph) and a maximum cruise altitude of 60,000 feet (18 300 metres) with a delta wing configuration and a reheat-equipped evolution of the engines originally developed for the Avro Vulcan strategic bomber. The engines were built by Rolls-Royce. Concorde was the first civil airliner to be equipped with an analogue fly-by-wire flight control system. Commercial flights, operated by British Airways and Air France, began on January 21, 1976 and ended on October 24, 2003, with the last "retirement" flight on November 26 that year.

Construction of the first two prototypes began in February 1965. Concorde 001 was built by Aerospatiale at Toulouse and Concorde 002 by BAC at Filton, Bristol. Concorde 001 took off for the first test flight from Toulouse on March 2, 1969 and the first supersonic flight followed on October 1. As the flight programme of the first development aircraft progressed, 001 started off on a sales and demonstration tour beginning on September 4, 1971. Concorde 002 followed suit on June 2, 1972 with a sales tour of the Middle and Far East. Concorde 002 made the first visit to the United States in 1973, landing at the new Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to commemorate its opening.

  • Span: 84 ft 0 in (25.6 m).
  • Length: 202 ft 4 in[2] (61.66 m)
  • Height: 40 ft 0 in (12.2 m )
  • Engines: 4× Rolls-Royce/SNECMA Olympus 593 Mk 610 afterburning turbojets 170 kN each.
  • Cruising Speed: Mach 2.04 (1,350 mph, 2,170 km/h)
  • First Flight: March 2, 1969
  • Number built: 20 (including prototypes)

Today in Aviation

July 25

  • 2011 – NATO aircraft strike various targets in Ziltan, Libya. The Libyan government claims that they struck a health clinic, a food-storage complex, and a military base and killed at least 11 civilians. NATO later rejects the claims, saying its planes hit a command-and-control node and a vehicle storage facility.[1]
  • 2008 – Qantas Flight 30, a Boeing 747-438 en route from Hong Kong to Melbourne, performs an emergency descent and lands in Manila after a hull penetration results in rapid decompression. All aboard survive.
  • 2000 – Air France Flight 4590 Concorde crashes during takeoff from Paris, France after its fuel tank catches fire, killing 9 crew and 100 passengers as well as four on the ground; the entire Concorde fleet is grounded for one year.
  • 1984 – Cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya becomes the first woman to perform a space walk, floating around the Salyut 7 space station for over 3 1/2 hours.
  • 1973 – The Soviet Union launches Mars 5, the fifth of seven of probes sent to the red planet in the 1960s and 70 s. Mars 5 would reach Mars in February of 1974, where it would transmit about 60 photos back to Earth before losing pressurization.
  • 1962 – The US Army forms its first armed helicopter company, using UH-1 Hueys
  • 1962 – The third launch attempt of a nuclear warhead in Operation Fishbowl, as part of Operation Dominic, aboard an Douglas SM-75 Thor IRBM, 58-2291, vehicle number 180, from Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean, named Bluegill Prime, after the 2 June 1962 failure of the first attempt, Bluegill, also fails when, due to a sticking valve, the Thor missile malfunctions after ignition of the rocket engine, but before leaving the launch pad. The range safety officer destroys the nuclear warhead by radio command with the missile still on the launch pad. The vehicle then explodes, causing extensive damage in the area of the launch pad. Although there was no danger of an accidental nuclear explosion, the destruction of the nuclear warhead on the pad causes extensive contamination of the area by alpha-emitting radioactive materials. Burning rocket fuel, flowing through the cable trenches, causes extensive chemical contamination of the trenches and the equipment associated with the cabling in the trenches. The radiation contamination on Johnston Island is determined to be a major problem, and it is necessary to decontaminate the entire area before the badly damaged launch pad can be rebuilt. Further launch operations will not resume until 15 October 1962. Although, by definition, this qualifies as a Broken Arrow incident, this test is rarely included in lists of such mishaps.
  • 1952 – French Leduc 0.22-01 ramjet-powered prototype interceptor, repaired following 27 November 1951 landing accident, strikes its SNCASE Languedoc launch aircraft, F-BCUT, on release and is forced to make a belly-landing. Limited range of design causes project to be dropped and second prototype not completed.
  • 1950 – Middle East Airlines “Dakota” aircraft was on its way from Jerusalem to Beirut when an Israeli military aircraft opened fire at the Lebanese-Israeli border. The radio operator “Antoine Wazir” was hit by a deadly bullet while sitting in his chair near the pilot.
  • 1949 – RCAF World War II ace, Squadron Leader Robert Allen "Bob" Kipp, DSO, DFC, (12 October 1919 - 25 July 1949), commanding officer of No. 410 Squadron, is killed while practicing aerobatics in a de Havilland Vampire F.3 of the Blue Devils demonstration team.
  • 1948 – A Douglas C-47B-15-DK Skytrain, 43-49534, c/n 15350/26795, participating in the Berlin Airlift, departs Wiesbaden Air Base, Germany, strikes apartment building on approach to Berlin and crashes in the street, killing both crew, 1st Lt. Charles H. King, and 1st Lt. Robert W. Stuber.
  • 1947 – First (of two) North American XP-82 Twin Mustangs, 44-83886, c/n 120-43742, of the 611 AAF Base Unit, crash lands at Eglin Field, Florida.
  • 1947 – US Air Force, Navy & War Dept form US Dept of Defense.
  • 1945 – No. 7 Squadron was disbanded.
  • 1944 – Aircraft from the British aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious strike Sabang, Sumatra.
  • 1943 – 100 U. S. Army Eighth Air Force bombers attack Hamburg.
  • 1943 – (Overnight) – 705 British bombers attack Essen, Germany, causing considerable damage to the Krupp works. Twenty-six British aircraft do not return.
  • 1943 – U. S. Army Fifth Air Force B-25 Mitchell bombers destroy two Japanese destroyers aground on a reef near Cape Gloucester, New Britain.
  • 1940 – (Overnight) 166 British bombers strike German airfields in the Netherlands and targets in the Ruhr.
  • 1938 – The Battle of the Ebro begins in Spain with a Republican offensive. Although Nationalist bombers attack bridges over the Ebro, Nationalist fighters are still deployed in Valencia and Spanish Republican fighter pilots trained in the Soviet Union gain local air superiority flying improved versions of the Polikarpov I-15 and I-16.
  • 1937 – The Battle of Brunete ends. During the 20-day-long battle, the Republicans have lost about 100 aircraft, while the Nationalists have lost 23. The appearance of the German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter and Heinkel He 111 bomber and the Italian Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 bomber in numbers during the battle signals the end of Republican air superiority in the Spanish Civil War.
  • 1923 – The first Canadian built amphibian, the Vickers Viking IV, was flown from the St. Lawrence at Montreal.
  • 1915 – Captain Lanoe Hawker of the RFC wins first Victoria Cross for aerial combat, over France.
  • 1909 – Van den Schkrouff makes the first flight in Russia in a Voisin biplane at Odessa.
  • 1909 – Louis Blériot claims a £1,000 prize from the British Daily Mail newspaper for being the first pilot to cross the English Channel. He makes the crossing in his Blériot Type XI from Les Barraques (near Calais) to Northfall Meadow (near Dover Castle) in 37 min. Blériot also received an additional £3,000 from the French government.

References

  1. ^ Watson, Ivan; Karadsheh, Jomana (26 July 2011). "Libya's Zlitan Increasingly in Rebel, NATO Sights". CNN. Retrieved 26 July 2011.
Edit today's anniversaries – July Archive – All anniversaries...


Purge server cache

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Aviation&oldid=1230432074"