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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

Color Autochrome Lumière of a Nieuport Fighter in Aisne, France 1917
Color Autochrome Lumière of a Nieuport Fighter in Aisne, France 1917
One of the many innovations of World War I, aircraft were first used for reconnaissance purposes and later as fighters and bombers. Consequently, this was the first war which involved a struggle for control of the air, which turned it into another battlefield, alongside the battlefields of land and sea. (Full article...)

Selected image

Schlieren photography (from the German word for "streaks") allows the visualization of density changes, and therefore shock waves, in fluid flow. Schlieren techniques have been used for decades in laboratory wind tunnels to visualize supersonic flow about model aircraft, but not full scale aircraft until recently. Dr. Leonard Weinstein of NASA Langley Research Center developed the first Schlieren camera, which he calls SAF (Schlieren for Aircraft in Flight), that can photograph the shock waves of a full sized aircraft in flight. He successfully took a picture which clearly shows the shock waves about a T-38 Talon aircraft on December 13, 1993 at Wallops Island, MD. The camera was then brought to the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center because of the high number of supersonic flights there.

Did you know

...the study of airmail is known as aerophilately?

Bede BD-4

...that a Cambridge University society has launched high altitude balloons that have taken a picture of the earth's curvature from a height of 32 km?

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

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

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

November 6

  • 2009 – A Russian Naval Aviation Tupolev Tu-142 M3 Bear F/J from the 310th Independent Long Range Anti-Submarine Aviation Regiment based at Kamenny Ruchey Airbase crashes 15–20 km from the coast of Cape Datta north of Sovetskaya Gavan. The Naval aircraft on a routine training exercise crashes into the sea in the Tatar Straight near the island of Sakhalin with the loss of all 11 crew.
  • 2006 – AH-64D Apache from A Company, 1–82nd Attack Reconnaissance Battalion (ARB) attached to 25th Combat Aviation Brigade crashes north of Baghdad, killing the two pilots.[1]
  • 2002 – Luxair Flight 9642, a Fokker F50, crashes short of the runway while landing near Niederanven, Luxembourg in foggy conditions; of the 19 passengers and three crew on board, only two survive.
  • 1990 – Crew of an US Navy Grumman A-6E Intruder, '506', of VA-176, suffering engine fire, aim bomber away from Virginia Beach, Virginia oceanfront before ejecting just after take-off from NAS Oceana, Virginia's Runway 5. Bomber comes down at 1015 hrs. in the Atlantic Ocean ~.75 miles offshore, after just clearing the Station One Hotel, on-shore breeze carries crew inland about three blocks from the beach, one landing in a tree, the other in a courtyard of a condominium, suffering only cuts and bruises. Aircraft, on routine training mission, was unarmed. Officials did not identify the crew, but said the pilot was a 29-year old lieutenant, and the bombardier-navigator was a 34-year old lieutenant commander, both assigned to VA-176.
  • 1967 – TWA Flight 159, a Boeing 707, overruns the runway at Greater Cincinnati Airport and catches fire; all on board escape the aircraft, but a passenger dies four days later.
  • 1963 – A TCA Douglas DC-8 operating as Flight 861 was taking off from runway 28L at London Heathrow Airport on a flight to Montreal, Canada with seven crew and 90 passengers on board. As the aircraft passed 132 knots on the take off roll the captain pulled back on the control column but mistakenly thought there was no response from the elevators and aborted the take off. As a result the aircraft overshot the runway and came to rest 800 yards from the end of the runway in a cabbage field. All passengers and crew on board survived the accident and the aircraft was repaired and returned to service.
  • 1957 – A prototype of the Bristol Britannia crashes in Downend, England, during a test flight, killing all 15 people on board and injuring one person on the ground.
  • 1956 – The world’s first ship-based helicopter-borne assault takes place, as helicopters from HMS Ocean and HMS Theseus land 425 men of the Royal Marines’ 45 Commando and 23 tons of stores in Port Said, Egypt, in 90 min. During the day, over 1,000 French paratroopers jump into Egypt, and French Corsairs and F-84 F Thunderstreaks provide close air support to French forces. A ceasefire ends hostilities between Egypt and the United Kingdom, France, and Israel in the evening. The last major operation by a British aircraft carrier force in history comes to an end.
  • 1956 – A Boeing B-47E-60-BW Stratojet, 51-2421, c/n 450474, of the 96th Bombardment Wing, Altus AFB, Oklahoma, suffers engine trouble while on a routine training mission late Tuesday, crashing on a farm near Hobart, Oklahoma, killing four crew. According to Ranson Hancock, publisher of the Hobart Democrat Chief, the bomber hit the ground about 320 yards W of a barn owned by Charles C. Harris, skidded into the barn and exploded. Officials identified the victims as Maj. Joseph E. Wilford, aircraft commander, Capt. Francis P. Bouschard, pilot, Capt. Lee D. Ellis, Jr., instructor-aircraft observer, all having families at Altus, and 1st Lt. Andrew J. Toalson, observer, Bartlesville, Oklahoma.
  • 1945 – After its piston engine fails, a mixed-propulsion Ryan FR-1 Fireball fighter flown by U. S. Navy Ensign Jake West (of VF-41) makes the first landing under jet power on an aircraft carrier, landing aboard USS Wake Island (CVE-65).
  • 1943 – (Overnight) The last Japanese air raid on Munda Airfield takes place.
  • 1942 – Grumman UC-103, 42-97044, former civilian Grumman G-32 Gulfhawk III, ex-NC1051, built for the Gulf Oil Refining Company, delivered 6 May 1938 and impressed by the USAAF in November 1942, used as VIP ferry aircraft, 427th Air Base Squadron, Homestead Army Air Field,[163] force-lands in the southern Florida Everglades with engine failure: written off.
  • 1939 – The formation of the Organization and Training Division at RCAF headquarters was authorized.
  • 1936 – The German Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion, a force of about 100 aircraft, begins to depart Germany for Seville, Spain, to support Nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War.

References

  1. ^ "ARMY AIR CREWS: Apache Crewmembers Line of Duty Deaths". Retrieved 2010-07-17.
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