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

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

Aircraft spotter on the roof of a building in London. St. Paul's Cathedral is in the background.
Aircraft spotter on the roof of a building in London. St. Paul's Cathedral is in the background.
The Battle of Britain (German: Luftschlacht um England) is the name given to the sustained strategic effort by the German Luftwaffe during the summer and autumn of 1940 to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force (RAF), especially Fighter Command. The name derives from a speech made on 18 June 1940 in the House of Commons by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, "The Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin..."

Had it been successful, the planned amphibious and airborne landings in Britain of Operation Sea Lion would have followed. The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces. It was the largest and most sustained bombing campaign attempted up until that date. The failure of Nazi Germany to destroy Britain's air defence or to break British morale is considered its first major defeat.

British historians date the battle from 10 July to 31 October 1940, which represented the most intense period of daylight bombing. German historians usually place the beginning of the battle in mid-August 1940 and end it in May 1941, on the withdrawal of the bomber units in preparation for the attack on the USSR. (Full article...)

Selected image

The UK Utterly Butterly display team perform an aerobatic maneuver with their Boeing Stearmans, at an air display in England.

Did you know

...that on October 5, 1914, a French Voisin III pilot scored the first air-to-air kill of World War I? ...that the Blohm und Voss Bv 144 was an attempt by Nazi Germany to develop an advanced commercial airliner for post-war service? ... that Samuel Frederick Henry Thompson, a British flying ace of World War I, scored 30 kills in five months of service and won both the DFC and MC?

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

Related portals

Associated Wikimedia

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

Selected biography

Frank Whittle speaking to employees of the Flight Propulsion Research Laboratory (now known as the NASA Glenn Research Center), USA, in 1946
Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle (1 June 1907 – 9 August 1996) was a Royal Air Force officer and was one of the inventors of jet propulsion. By the end of the war, Whittle's efforts resulted in engines that would lead the world in performance through the end of the decade.

Born in Earlsdon, Coventry, England on June 1, 1907, Whittle left Leamington College in 1923 to join the Royal Air Force (RAF). Through his early days as an Aircraft apprentice he maintained his interest in the Model Aircraft Society where he built replicas, the quality of which attracted the eye of his commanding officer, who was so impressed that he recommended Whittle for the Officer Training College at Cranwell in Lincolnshire in 1926, a rarity for a "commoner" in what was still a very class-based military structure. A requirement of the course was that each student had to produce a thesis for graduation. Whittle decided to write his thesis on future developments in aircraft design, in which he described what is today referred to as a motorjet.

Whittle and Hans von Ohain met after the war and initially Whittle was angry with him as he felt Ohain had stolen his ideas. Ohain eventually convinced him that his work was independent and after that point the two became good friends.

Selected Aircraft

An A400M flying
An A400M flying

The Airbus A400M Atlas is a four-engine turboprop aircraft, designed by Airbus Military (now Airbus Defence and Space) to meet the demand of European nations for military airlift. Since its formal launch, the aircraft has also been ordered by Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Indonesia.

The A400M is assembled at the Seville plant of Airbus Military. The first test flight occurred in December 2009.

  • Span: 42.4 m (139 ft 1 in)
  • Length: 45.1 m (148 ft)
  • Height: 14.7 m (48 ft 3 in)
  • Engines: 4 EPI TP400-D6 (8,250 kW power)
  • Cruising Speed: 780 km/h (480 mph, 420 knots)
  • First Flight: 11 December 2009
  • Number built: 119 as of 31 August 2023
More selected aircraft Read more...

Today in Aviation

June 7

  • 2009 – A Strait Air Britten-Norman Islander crashes on approach to Port Hope Simpson Airport, Canada, killing the pilot. The aircraft is destroyed.
  • 1992 – American Eagle Flight 5456, a CASA C-212 operated by Executive Airlines, crashes into a swamp on approach to Eugenio María de Hostos Airport in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, in heavy rain, killing all five people on board.
  • 1989 – Surinam Airways Flight 764, a Douglas DC-8, crashes while attempting to land in heavy fog at Paramaribo, Suriname. The plane hits trees and flips upside down, killing 176 of 187 people on board.
  • 1973 – Bahamasair commences operations.
  • 1966 – Robert and Joan Wallick set a round-the-world flight record.
  • 1957 – Chance Vought Aircraft pilot James P. Buckner is killed while performing a high-speed flyby of CVA's tower at Hensley Field, Dallas, Texas, while demonstrating an Vought F8U-1 Crusader for a graduating class from the Navy Post Graduate School there. Executing a zoom climb after his low-altitude pass, he apparently overstresses the fighter and it disintegrates before he can eject. The aircraft's wreckage violently explodes at low altitude over Main Street in adjacent Grand Prairie, Texas, causing minor injuries to several bystanders, and pieces of the fighter are scattered throughout the floodplain of the nearby Trinity River; Buckner's body is recovered a few hours after the crash.
  • 1946 – First flight of the Short Sturgeon
  • 1944 – Nos. 401, 411 and 412 (Fighter) Squadrons of No. 126 (RCAF) Wing destroyed 12 enemy aircraft and probably destroyed or damaged five more over the Normandy beaches.
  • 1942 – The English Electric-built Handley Page Halifax B Mk.II, V9977, on a test flight from RAF Defford carrying a secret H2S radar system crashes at 16:30 hrs at Welsh Bicknor, Herefordshire, killing the crew and several EMI personnel on board, including Alan Blumlein, pioneer of television and stereo audio recording. Blumlein, together with Cecil Browne and Frank Blythen, all from EMI, were attached to the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) at the time of the accident. Also killed was Geoffrey Hensby of TRE. Whilst flying at 500ft a fire starts in the starboard outer engine. Unable to extinguish it and by then too low for a parachute escape, whilst attempting to reach an open area to put down the fire burns through the outer main spar at low altitude causing the outer wing to fold and detach, whereupon the aircraft rolls almost inverted and impacts the ground. The aircraft's highly secret cavity magnetron is recovered the next day by a TRE team from RAF Defford led by Bernard Lovell. An investigation into the cause of the fire by Rolls-Royce concludes that an insufficiently tightened inlet valve tappet locknut during maintenance caused the inlet valve to drop, where it was hit by the rising piston and broken off at the stem, allowing burning fuel to enter the rocker cover whereupon it quickly spread. V9977 was one of only two Halifaxes fitted with H2S, the other being the Handley Page-built Mk II, R9490, used for trials of a klystron-based version of the system, developed for security reasons due to the difficulty of self-destructing a magnetron should its carrying aircraft come down over enemy territory. The crash of V9977 wiped out almost the entire H2S development team, delaying its introduction to the extent that Churchill has to be informed.
  • 1942 – Major General Clarence Leonard Tinker, (21 November 1887 - 7 June 1942), of 1/8 Osage Indian heritage, leads four LB-30 Liberator IIs requisitioned by the USAAF on an attack, some sources state against retreating Imperial Japanese Navy units during the Battle of Midway, some sources state a bombing run on Wake Island). His LB-30, AL589, of the 31st Bombardment Squadron, 5th Bombardment Group, 7th Air Force, drops out of formation and is never seen again. Tinker was the first American general to die in World War II; his body was never recovered. He received the Soldier's Medal in 1931 and, posthumously, the Distinguished Service Medal. Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, is named in his honor on 14 October 1942.
  • 1942 – 119 (BR) Squadron and No. 128 (F) Squadron were formed at Sydney, N. S.
  • 1940 – HMS Ark Royal brings aboard the five surviving Supermarine Walrus flying boats of No. 701 Squadron from Harstad and HMS Glorious the surviving Hurricanes of No. 46 Squadron and Gladiators of No. 263 Squadron from Bardufoss as the Allied evacuation from Norway continues.
  • 1927 – The Supermarine S.5 racer, constructed to take part in the 1927 Schneider cup race; makes its first flight in Suffolk, England, piloted by Flight Lieutenant O. E. Worsley.
  • 1920 – The U. S. Army orders 20 GAX (Ground Attack Experimental) triplanes from Boeing as the Model 10, an order later reduced to 10 before the first was delivered in May 1921.
  • 1919 – Flying a Caudron G.3, Raymonde de Laroche of France sets a women’s altitude record of nearly 13,000 feet (3,962 m).
  • 1912 - With Lieutenant Roy Carrington Kirtland flying a Wright Model B at College Park, Maryland, Captain Charles deForest Chandler was the first person to fire a machine gun mounted on an aircraft. The weapon was a prototype designed by Colonel Isaac N. Lewis.

References

  1. ^ Anonymous, "U.S. Drone Strike in Pakistan Said To Kill 7 Militants," UPI.com, June 8, 2013, 11:17 a.m. EDT
  2. ^ Craig, Tim, "Seven Killed in Suspected U.S. Drone Strike in Pakistan," washingtonpost.com, June 7, 2013.
  3. ^ Berhane, Daniel (June 9, 2012). "Kenyan Air Force Shells the Port Town Kismayo, Southern Somalia". Danielberhane.wordpress.com. Retrieved December 2, 2012.
Edit today's anniversaries – June Archive – All anniversaries...


Purge server cache

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Aviation&oldid=1142106391"