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 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

Zeppelin
Zeppelin
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship pioneered by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in the early 20th century. Due to the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the term zeppelin in casual use came to refer to all rigid airships. The German defeat in World War I halted the business temporarily, but under the guidance of Hugo Eckener, the successor of the deceased count, civilian Zeppelins experienced a renaissance in the 1920s. They reached their zenith in the 1930s, when the airships LZ127 "Graf Zeppelin" and LZ129 "Hindenburg" profitably operated regular transatlantic passenger flights. The Hindenburg disaster in 1937 triggered the fall of the "giants of the air", though other factors, including political issues, contributed to the demise. (Full article...)

Selected image

Su-27 from Russian Knights aerobatic team on landing, Kubinka

Did you know

...that in 1929 the Graf Zeppelin completed a circumnavigation of the globe in 21 days, 5 hours and 31 minutes? ...that Pepsi offered a Harrier fighter jet in their Pepsi Billion Dollar Sweepstakes game and the Pepsi Stuff game for people accumulating a certain number of points? ... that Arthur Hartley developed the Fog Investigation and Dispersal Operation which is credited with safely landing 2,500 aircraft during World War Two?

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

Helmut Paul Emil Wick (5 August 1915 – 28 November 1940) was a German Luftwaffe ace and the fourth recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves (German: Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes mit Eichenlaub). The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross and its higher grade, the Oak Leaves, was awarded by the Third Reich to recognise extreme bravery in battle or successful military leadership. It was Germany's highest military decoration at the time of its presentation to Helmut Wick.

Born in Mannheim, Wick joined the Luftwaffe in 1936 and was trained as a fighter pilot. He was assigned to Jagdgeschwader 2 "Richthofen" (JG 2—2nd Fighter Wing), and saw combat in the Battles of France and Britain. Promoted to Major in October 1940, he was given the position of Geschwaderkommodore (wing commander) of JG 2—the youngest in the Luftwaffe to hold this rank and position. He was shot down in the vicinity of the Isle of Wight on 28 November 1940 and posted as missing in action, presumed dead. By then he had been credited with destroying 56 enemy aircraft in aerial combat, making him the leading German fighter pilot at the time. Flying the Messerschmitt Bf 109, he claimed all of his victories against the Western Allies.

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

September 26

  • 2008 – Yves Rossy, Swiss airline pilot and former fighter pilot, crosses the English Channel with his homemade jet-powered wing strapped on his back.
  • 1993 – Launch: Spot-3 satellite. Stopped functioning November 14, 1997.
  • 1983 – Cosmonauts Titov and Strekalov are saved from exploding Soyuz T-10.
  • 1981 – Vietnamese Cosmonaut Bùi Thanh Liêm (June 30, 1949–September 26, 1981), a native of Hanoi, Vietnam, is killed in a training flight in a Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 over the Gulf of Tonkin this date.
  • 1977 – Laker Airways inaugurates its no-booking "Skytrain" service between London and New York
  • 1976 – A USAF Boeing KC-135A-BN Stratotanker, 61-0296, c/n 18203, of the 46th Air Refueling Squadron, Strategic Air Command, on a routine tanker training mission en route from K.I. Sawyer AFB, Michigan, to Offutt AFB, Nebraska (two sources list Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan as its destination), crashes at 0830 hrs. EDT in a densely wooded swampy area near Alpena, Michigan, killing 15 of the 20 on board. Possible cabin pressurization problem may have led to the accident.
  • 1974 – The first CF C-130 H was delivered to the RCAF 435 Squadron.
  • 1973 – The Concorde makes its first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic in record-breaking time, though the record would go on to be broken a few more times until the aircraft’s retirement in 2003.
  • 1967 – The governments of France, West Germany, and Britain sign a memorandum that calls for the development of the Airbus A300 wide-bodied jet airliner.
  • 1961 – A USAF Boeing RB-47K-BW Stratojet, 53-4279, of the 55th Strategic Reconnaissance Wing, loses number six engine during take-off from Forbes AFB, Kansas, crashes, killing all four crew, aircraft commander Lt. Col. James G. Woolbright, copilot 1st Lt. Paul R. Greenwalt, navigator Capt. Bruce Kowol, and crewchief S/Sgt. Myron Curtis. Cause was contaminated water-alcohol in assisted takeoff system.
  • 1957 – A3D-1 crash on USS Forrestal (CVA-59).
  • 1947 – General Carl A. Spaatz becomes the first Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force.
  • 1943 – A Vought OS2U Kingfisher from Naval Air Station New York, Floyd Bennett Field, crashes 7 miles S of Little Egg Inlet, near Atlantic City, New Jersey. Two survivors are picked up by Coast Guard 83-foot Patrol Boat WPB-83340.
  • 1939 – Flying a No. 803 Squadron Blackburn Skua from HMS Ark Royal, Lieutenant B. S. McEwen of the Fleet Air Arm’s No. 803 Squadron scores the second British victory over a German aircraft of World War II, shooting down a Dornier Do 18. Skuas were originally credited with the first confirmed kill, but an earlier victory by a Fairey Battle on 20 September 1939 over Aachen, was later confirmed by French sources.
  • 1917 – For the second time, French ace René Fonck shoots down six German aircraft in a day.
  • 1916 – Flying ace Leutnant Max Ritter von Mulzer (ten aerial victories credited), the first Bavarian fighter ace, first Bavarian ace recipient of the Pour le Merite, and first Bavarian knighted for his exploits, on this date sideslips Albatros D.I 426/16 into a hard bank, loses control, and crashes at Armee Flug Park 6, Valenciennes, with fatal result.
  • 1909 – The brothers Alexander and Anatol Renner fly an airship (which they had designed and built themselves) for the first time, making eight flights over the autumn fair at Graz. They are the first airship flights in Austria-Hungary.
  • 1897 – Arthur Rhys Davids, English pilot, is born (d. 1917). Davids was credited with having brought down Germany’s Werner Voss on 23 September 1917, in one of the most famous dogfights of World War I.

References

  1. ^ nycavoation.com Lillenthal, David, "Photos: First Boeing 787 Delivery Takes Off Into History", 28 September 2011
Edit today's anniversaries – September Archive – All anniversaries...


Purge server cache

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