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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 aircraft 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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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...)

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Credit: U.S. Air Force
The Ryan X-13 Vertijet was designed to explore the feasibility of a pure-jet vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) fighter aircraft. Here, the X-13 is about to moor itself to a dual-role flatbed transport/launch trailer.

Did you know

...that in the late 1940s the USAF Northrop YB-49 set both an unofficial endurance record and a transcontinental speed record? ...that PWS-10 designed in late 1920s was the first Polish fighter to enter serial production? ... 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
Read and edit Wikinews

Associated Wikimedia

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

Selected biography

Benjamin Delahauf Foulois (1879-1967) was an early aviation pioneer who rose to become a chief of the U.S. Army Air Corps. The son of a French immigrant, he was born and raised in Connecticut. He enlisted in the Army at age 18 to serve in the Spanish–American War. After just a few month he was separated because of disease he had picked up in Puerto Rico. He re-enlisted in 1899 and was sent to the Philippines where he received a commission as a Second Lieutenant. Foulois believed that the new airplane would replace the cavalry for reconnaissance and in 1908 transferred into the Signal Corps.

Foulois conducted the acceptance test for the Army's first aircraft, a Wright Model A, in 1909. He participated in the Mexican Expedition from 1916–17 and was part of the American Expeditionary Force in France during World War I where he was responsible for the logistics and maintenance of the U.S. air fleet. During World War I he and Billy Mitchell began a long and hostile relationship over the direction of military aviation and the best method to get there. After the war he served as a military attaché to Germany where he gathered a great deal of intelligence on German aviation. He later went on to command the 1st Aero Squadron and ultimately commanded the Air Corps.

He retired in 1935 as part of the fallout from the Air Mail scandal. Foulois continued to advocate for a strong air service in retirement. In 1959, at the invitation of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Foulois began touring Air Force bases advocating national security. He died of a heart attack on 25 April 1967 and is buried in his home town of Washington, Connecticut.

Selected Aircraft

The Convair B-36 was a strategic bomber built by Convair for the United States Air Force, the first to have truly intercontinental range. Unofficially nicknamed the "Peacemaker", the B-36 was the first thermonuclear weapon delivery vehicle, the largest piston aircraft ever to be mass-produced, and the largest warplane of any kind.

The B-36 was the only American aircraft with the range and payload to carry such bombs from airfields on American soil to targets in the USSR, as storing nuclear weapons in foreign countries was diplomatically delicate. The nuclear deterrent the B-36 afforded may have kept the Soviet Army from fighting alongside the North Korean and Chinese armies during the Korean War. Convair touted the B-36 as an "aluminum overcast," a "long rifle" to give SAC a global reach. When General Curtis LeMay headed SAC (1949-57) and turned it into an effective nuclear delivery force, the B-36 formed the heart of his command. Its maximum payload was more than four times that of the B-29, even exceeding that of the B-52.

  • Span: 230 ft 0 in (70.10 m)
  • Length: 162 ft 1 in (49.40 m)
  • Height: 46 ft 9 in (14.25 m)
  • Engines: 6× Pratt & Whitney R-4360-53 "Wasp Major" radials, 3,800 hp (2,500 kW) each
  • Cruising Speed: 230 mph (200 kn, 380 km/h) with jets off
  • Range: 6,795 mi (5,905 nmi, 10,945 km) with 10,000 lb (4,535 kg) payload
  • First Flight: 8 August 1946

Today in Aviation

December 2

  • 2012 – Syria announces that Damascus International Airport has reopened and is running scheduled flights after being closed for three days due to fighting between government and rebel forces in the area.[1]
  • 2010 – US Navy F/A-18C Hornet, BuNo 165184, 'AD-351', suffers port undercarriage collapse on landing at NAF El Centro, California, at 1615 hrs., and departs runway. The pilot ejects safely.
  • 2009 – Merpati Nusantara Airlines Fokker 100 PK-MJD makes an emergency landing at El Tari Airport, Kupang when the left main gear fails to extend. There are no injuries among the passengers and crew.
  • 2004 – The pilot of a Blue Angels McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18, BuNo 161956, ejects approximately one mile off Perdido Key, Florida, after reporting mechanical problems and loss of power. Lt. Ted Steelman suffered minor injuries and fully recovered.
  • 1996 – A U.S. Navy Beechcraft T-34C Turbo Mentor crashes at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, killing the instructor and his student navigator from Italy. The pair, flying out of NAS Pensacola, Florida, were practicing maneuvers.
  • 1993 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-61 at 10:53 am EDT. Mission highlights: Hubble Space Telescope servicing.
  • 1992 – Launch: Space Shuttle Discovery STS-53 at 13:24:00 UTC. Mission highlights: Partially classified 10th and final DoD mission. Likely deployment of SDS2 satellite.
  • 1990 – Launch: Space Shuttle Columbia STS-35 at 1:49:01 am EST. Mission highlights: Use of ASTRO-1 observatory.
  • 1988 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-27 at 09:30:34 EST. Mission highlights: Third classified DoD mission; Lacrosse 1 deployment.
  • 1986 – Pacific Western Airlines merged with Canadian Pacific Airlines to form Canadian Airlines.
  • 1976 – The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, an ex-American Airlines 747 which has been adapted to carry the US reusable space shuttle, makes its flight.
  • 1964 – SAC Boeing B-47E-125-BW Stratojet, 53-2398, of the 380th Bomb Wing, suffers collapse of forward main gear unit, skids off right side of runway at Plattsburgh AFB, New York, crew escapes safely. Airframe struck off charge 13 January 1965.
  • 1959 – A USAF Douglas VC-47D Skytrain, 43-49024, c/n 14840/26285, built as C-47B-10-DK, crashes and burns in woods 10 miles (16 km) N of Oslo, Norway, killing all four on board. There was fog in the area at the time of the accident.
  • 1950 – (2–25) Four hundred aircraft from seven United Nations aircraft carriers support U. N. ground forces with air strikes while U. S. Air Force aircraft drop supplies to them as they break out of their encirclement in northern Korea and are evacuated successfully by sea from Hungnam in the Battle of Chosin Reservoir.
  • 1943 – First Canadian-built Mosquito aircraft saw action over Berlin with RAF 139 Squadron.
  • 1943 – A night raid by 105 German Junkers Ju 88 bombers surprise the brilliantly lit Italian port of Bari while it is crowded with about 30 Allied ships, meeting little opposition. A sheet of flame from a burning tanker spreads over the harbor; 16 ships carrying 38,000 tons (34,473,374 kg) of cargo are destroyed, eight are damaged, and a quantity of mustard gas is released from the cargo of one stricken ship; at least 125 American personnel alone are killed; and the port does not return to full operations for three weeks. It is the most destructive single air raid against shipping since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.
  • 1941 – Adolf Hitler orders the Luftwaffe’s Fliegerkorps II to redeploy from the Soviet Union to Sicily and North Africa and together with Fliegerkorps X to form Luftflotte 2 under the command of Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, and orders Kesselring to achieve air superiority over southern Italy and North Africa, suppress Allied forces on Malta, ensure safe passage of Axis convoys to North Africa, paralyze Allied sea traffic in the Mediterranean, and prevent Allied supplies from arriving at Tobruk and Malta. The redeployment will reverse the balance of power at sea in the Mediterranean in favor of the Axis.
  • 1939 – New York’s La Guardia Airport opened for service!

References

  1. ^ Morello, Carol, "Turkey Scrambles Jets After Syrian Bombs Hit Near Border," The Washington Post, December 4, 2012, p. A12.
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