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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...)

Selected article

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...)

Selected image

The Roulettes
Photo: Fir0002
The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Roulettes aerobatics squadron at the 2008 Australian Grand Prix. The squad was formed in 1970 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the RAAF and perform about 150 flying displays a year throughout Australia and neighboring countries.
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Did you know

... that Paul Haenlein was the first to create a dirigible airship powered by an internal combustion engine? ...that the BAE Systems HERTI is the first and only fully autonomous UAV to have been certificated by the United Kingdom? ... that Flying Officer (later Air Commodore) Frank Lukis was one of the original twenty-one officers in the RAAF when it was formed in 1921?

More Did you know facts

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

In the news

Wikinews Aviation portal
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Associated Wikimedia

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

Selected biography

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Hugh Montague Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard GCB OM GCVO DSO (3 February 1873 – 10 February 1956) was a British officer who was instrumental in establishing the Royal Air Force. He has been described as the Father of the Royal Air Force.

During his formative years Trenchard struggled academically, failing many examinations and only just succeeding in meeting the minimum standard for commissioned service in the British Army. As a young infantry officer, Trenchard served in India and in South Africa. During the Boer War, Trenchard was critically wounded and as a result of his injury, he lost a lung, was partially paralysed and returned to Great Britain. While convalescing in Switzerland he took up bobsleighing and after a heavy crash, Trenchard found that his paralysis was gone and that he could walk unaided. Some months later, Trenchard returned to South Africa before volunteering for service in Nigeria. During his time in Nigeria, Trenchard commanded the Southern Nigeria Regiment for several years and was involved in efforts to bring the interior under settled British rule and quell inter-tribal violence.

In 1912, Trenchard learned to fly and was subsequently appointed as second in command of the Central Flying School. He held several senior positions in the Royal Flying Corps during World War I, serving as the commander of Royal Flying Corps in France from 1915 to 1917. In 1918, he briefly served as the first Chief of the Air Staff before taking up command of the Independent Air Force in France. Returning as Chief of the Air Staff under Winston Churchill in 1919, Trenchard spent the following decade securing the future of the Royal Air Force. He was Metropolitan Police Commissioner in the 1930s and a defender of the RAF in his later years.

Selected Aircraft

The VZ-9 Avrocar (full military designation VZ-9-AV) was a Canadian VTOL aircraft developed by Avro Aircraft Ltd. as part of a secret U.S. military project carried out in the early years of the Cold War.[1] The Avrocar intended to exploit the Coandă effect to provide lift and thrust from a single "turborotor" blowing exhaust out the rim of the disk-shaped aircraft to provide anticipated VTOL-like performance. In the air, it would have resembled a flying saucer. Two prototypes were built as "proof-of-concept" test vehicles for a more advanced USAF fighter and also for a U.S. Army tactical combat aircraft requirement.[2] In flight testing, the Avrocar proved to have unresolved thrust and stability problems that limited it to a degraded, low-performance flight envelope; subsequently, the project was cancelled in 1961.

  • Diameter:18 ft (5.486 m)
  • Height: 3 ft 6 in (1.1 m)
  • Engines: 3 x Turbomeca Marboré Continental J69-T-9
  • Max Speed: 300 mph (482 km/h)
  • First Flight: 12 November 1959
  • Number built: 2
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Today in Aviation

November 14

  • 2009 – English Electric Lightning T5 ZU-BEX crashed during an airshow at AFB Overberg, Bredasdorp, South Africa after a hydraulic failure, killing the pilot.
  • 2008 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-126 at 19:55 EST. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight ULF2: MPLM Leonardo, crew rotation.
  • 2006 – EasyJet announces an order for 52 Airbus A319.
  • 1987 – Air Transat began airline operations.
  • 1982 – A Mitsubishi T-2B, 19-5174, of the Blue Impulse (or 11 Squadron) air demonstration team of the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force fails to pull out of a descending bomb-burst manoeuvere following a formation loop, crashes into civilian house, Takaoka Town, Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, N of Hamamatsu Air Base, during base's 30th anniversary air show, killing pilot Capt. Takashima Kiyoshi. Thirteen civilians injured, 28 civilian houses and about 290 cars damaged. Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3-m8tIf97A&feature=related
  • 1981 – Landing: Space shuttle Columbia STS-2 at 21:23:11 UTC. Mission highlights: First reuse of a manned orbital space vehicle; first test of Canadarm robot arm; Truncated due to fuel cell problem.
  • 1974 – Entered Service: F-15 Eagle with the United States Air Force 555th Tactical Fighter Training Squadron at Luke Air Force Base
  • 1970 – Southern Airways Flight 932, a chartered Douglas DC-9, crashes on approach at Tri-State Airport in Huntington, West Virginia, killing all 75 on board, including 37 players of the Marshall University football team and all but one of the coaching staff.
  • 1969 – NASA launches Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon.
  • 1967 – Two McDonnell F-101B Voodoos of the 60th Fighter-Interceptor Squadron, out of Otis AFB, Massachusetts, collide over Maine during a cross-country formation flight. Aircraft 57-376 is destroyed crashing on Mount Abraham after the two-man crew ejects with minor injuries. The uninjured crew of moderately damaged aircraft 57-378 makes an emergency landing at Dow AFB, Maine.
  • 1967 – A USMC Bell UH-1E Iroquois, BuNo. 153757, of VMO-3, callsign Scarface 1-0, departs Phú Bài, South Vietnam, at 1040 hrs. with three crew, pilot Capt. Milton George Kelsey, co-pilot 1st Lt. Thomas Anthony Carter, and crew chief Cpl. Ronald Joseph Phelps. At 1145 they pick up Major General Bruno Arthur Hochmuth, CG 3rd MARDIV, his aide Maj. Robert Andrew Crabtree and Liaison Maj. Nguyễn Ngọc Chương to visit ARVN Brig. Gen. Ngô Quang Trưởng in Huế, departing the hospital pad at Huế Citadel at 1145. En route to Đông Hà, the helicopter is chased by an HMM-364 UH-34 Choctaw piloted by Capt. J. A. Chancey. At 1150, the UH-1 is flying NW over Highway 1 at ~1500 feet. At YD672266, Capt. Chancey sees the aircraft’s nose yaw to the right twice and at the same instant the aft/engine section explodes in an orange fireball. The fuselage separates from the rotor and the aircraft falls in pieces. The fuselage lands inverted in a flooded rice paddy; the tail cone a short distance away. All on board are apparently killed on impact. Hochmuth was the only Marine Corps officer of General rank to die in Vietnam. Although many theories were postulated for the crash, from enemy gunfire, to ARVN gunfire, to U.S. "friendly fire", to sabotage, the most likely reason was the failure of the tail rotor gearbox and the official findings on the incident, submitted by Brig.Gen. Robert Keller in November, 1967, states “there is no evidence to indicate this mishap was caused either by hostile action or inadvertent friendly fire.”
  • 1965 – (14-18) The Battle of Ia Drang in South Vietnam is the culmination of the Ia Drang Valley campaign. The U. S. Army’s helicopter assault concept has made its combat debut as the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) undergoes its baptism of fire, losing only four helicopters to North Vietnamese fire during the campaign.
  • 1962 – Yukon aircraft from 437 Squadron began carrying dependants, as well as troops, to and from Canadian military forces in Europe.
  • 1961 – The 1961 Cincinnati Zantop DC-4 crash: A Zantop Air Transport DC-4 was on its final approach down to Greater Cincinnati Airport runway 18, when it clipped some trees, lost altitude and crashed into a wooded area near the airport.. This aircraft was the first of at least three aircraft on their final approach that failed to reach the safety of runway 18 at the Greater Cincinnati Airport, becoming victims of the area’s hilly terrain with steep changes in elevation from the Ohio River.
  • 1944 – (13–14) Task Force 38 carrier aircraft raid Luzon, sinking the Japanese light cruiser Kiso, four destroyers, and seven merchant ships and destroying 84 Japanese aircraft in exchange for the loss of 25 U. S. planes.
  • 1944 – RAF Air Chief Marshal Sir Trafford Leigh-Mallory, his wife Dora, and eight aircrew are killed when Avro 685 York Mk. C.I, MW126, strikes ridge at the 6,300-foot (1,900 m) level in the French Alps between Belledonne and Seven Lakes Mountains, 30 miles (48 km) S of Grenoble, France, in a blizzard. Wreckage found by a villager in June 1945. Leigh-Mallory, originator of the "Big Wing" concept during the Battle of Britain, and younger brother of Everest mountaineer George Mallory, was en route to his new posting in Ceylon where he was to take over command of Allied air operations in South East Asia Command.
  • 1942 – During the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, U. S. Navy aircraft from the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) and U. S. Marine Corps aircraft from Henderson Field fatally damage the crippled Japanese battleship Hiei in Ironbottom Sound north of Guadalcanal in a series of air strikes during the day. Hiei sinks that evening.
  • 1941 – The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal sinks due to torpedo damage from U 81 sustained on November 13.
  • 1940 – 14-15 – 437 Luftwaffe aircraft make a massed air raid on Coventry. 380 civilians are killed and some 800 wounded.
  • 1938 – A KLM DC-3 (registered PH-ARY) crashed on approach to Schiphol, Amsterdam in low visibility, killing 6 of the 19 on board.
  • 1935 – Prototype Noorduyn Norseman was tested at Pointe aux Trembles, Quebec by WJ McDonough. This was the first all-Canadian designed bush aircraft.
  • 1933 – Fred Haise, American astronaut, was born. Haise was the Lunar Module Pilot on the aborted Apollo 13 lunar mission 1970. He later flew five flights as the Commander of the space shuttle Enterprise, 1977, for the Approach and Landing Test Program at Edwards Air Force Base, and was selected to command the original STS-2 mission to rescue the Skylab space station 1979, but was cancelled due to the long delays in the Shuttle’s development as well as the break-up of the Skylab in mid-1979.
  • 1932 – 14-18 – Amy Johnson breaks the UK-Cape Town speed record, shaving 11 hours off Mollison's record in March. She flies a de Havilland Puss Moth.
  • 1930 – Edward White (Lt.Col, USAF), American astronaut, was born (d. 1967). On June 3, 1965, he became the first American to conduct a spacewalk. White was killed during the Apollo 1 training accident and posthumously awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor and the Purple Heart Medal.

References

  1. ^ Yenne 2003), pp. 281–283.
  2. ^ Milberry 1979, p. 137.
  3. ^ Brulliard, Karin, and Joel Greenberg, "Israeli Aircraft Pound Gaza," The Washington Post, November 15, 2012, Page A1.
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