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Portal:Aviation

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The Aviation Portal

A Boeing 747 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

Airbus A380, the largest passenger jet in the world, entered commercial service in 2007.
Airbus A380, the largest passenger jet in the world, entered commercial service in 2007.
Airbus SAS is an aircraft manufacturing subsidiary of EADS, a European aerospace consortium. Based in Toulouse, France and with significant activity across Europe, the company produces around half of the world's jet airliners. Airbus began as a consortium of aerospace manufacturers. Consolidation of European defence and aerospace companies around the turn of the century allowed the establishment of a simplified joint stock company in 2001, owned by EADS (80%) and BAE Systems (20%). After a protracted sale process BAE sold its shareholding to EADS on 13 October 2006. Airbus employs around 57,000 people at sixteen sites in four European Union countries: Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and Spain. Final assembly production is at Toulouse (France) and Hamburg (Germany). Airbus has subsidiaries in the United States, Japan and China. (Full article...)

Selected image

San Francisco International Airport (IATA: SFO) opened on May 7, 1927 on 150 acres (607,000 m²) of cow pasture leased from prominent local landowner Ogden L. Mills, and was named Mills Field Municipal Airport. During the economic boom of the 1990s and the dot-com boom, SFO became the 6th busiest international airport in the world. However, since the boom times ended, it has fallen back out of the top twenty.

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 the Ryan X-13 Vertijet aircraft landed by using a hook on its nose to hang itself on a wire? ... that to open the swing door on the General Aircraft Hamilcar glider and allow vehicles to emerge, pilots had to climb out of the glider's cockpit and slide down 15 feet of fuselage?

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

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 Beechcraft King Air is a line of twin-turboprop aircraft produced by the Beech Aircraft Corporation (now the Beechcraft Division of Hawker Beechcraft). The King Air has been in continuous production since 1964, the longest production run of any civilian turboprop aircraft. It has outlasted all of its previous competitors and as of 2006 is one of only two twin-turboprop business airplanes in production (the other is the Piaggio Avanti).

Historically, the King Air family comprises a number of models that fall into four families, the Model 90 series, Model 100 series, Model 200 series, and Model 300 series. The last two types were originally marketed as the Super King Air, but the "Super" moniker was dropped in 1996. As of 2006, the only small King Air in production is the conventional-tail C90GT.

  • Span: 50 ft 3 in (15.33 m)
  • Length: 35 ft 6in (10.82 m)
  • Height: 14 ft 3 in (4.35 m)
  • Engines: 2 × Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-21 turboprops , 550 shp (410 kW) each
  • Cruising Speed: 284 mph (247 knots ,457 km/h)
  • First Flight: May 1963
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Today in Aviation

August 13

  • 2010AIRES Flight 8250, operated by Boeing 737-73 V HK-4682, crashes short of the runway at Gustavo Rojas Pinilla International Airport, San Andrés, Colombia and breaks into three sections. One passenger dies from a heart attack following the accident. The other 124 passengers and six crew survive.
  • 2004Air Tahoma Flight 185, a Convair 580, crashes near Covington, Kentucky while descending to land, killing the First Officer.
  • 1976 – The Bell Model 222, the first twin-engined light commercial helicopter, developed in the United States, makes its first flight, powered by the 650 SHP Avco Lycoming LTS 101-650 C.
  • 1973Aviaco Flight 118, a Sud Caravelle, en route from Madrid to A Coruña crashes while approaching A Coruña Alvedro airport, in Montrove, 2 km from the airport; all 85 on board died, and 1 on the ground.
  • 1968 – Swedish Count Gustav von Rosen defies Nigerian air defences to fly in supplies to the Biafran rebels
  • 1951 – A Boeing B-50D-110-BO Superfortress, 49-0268, on test flight out of Boeing Field, Seattle, Washington after modifications, suffers problems immediately after take off, fails to gain altitude, comes down two miles (3 km) N of field, clipping roof of a brewery with the starboard wing, cartwheels into wooden Lester Apartments, wreckage and structure burns for hours. Six on bomber (three Air Force crew, three Boeing employees) and five on ground die.
  • 1945 – Carrier aircraft of Task Force 38 strike the Tokyo area, claiming 272 Japanese aircraft destroyed and 149 damaged.
  • 1945 – (Overnight) Seven B-29 Superfortresses drop five million leaflets over Tokyo, providing the Japanese population for the first time with the news that Japan had accepted the Potsdam Declaration and was negotiating for peace.
  • 1944 – Focke-Wulf Fw 190C V30 prototype, Werke Nummer 0055, modified to Fw 190 V30/U1 as prototype for Ta 152H-0, rebuilt with Fw 190D 1,750 hp (1,300 kW) Jumo 213A-1 power egg, but without new wingtanks, crashes this date on flight out of Langenhagen after only one week of testing. First flown in new guise on 6 August
  • 1943 – The USAAF makes its first bombing raid on Austria
  • 1942 – Attacking the Pedestal convoy, Axis aircraft sink two more cargo ships and inflict additional damage on a tanker.
  • 1940 – A Royal Australian Air Force Lockheed Hudson crashes near Canberra, Australia, killing all 10 people on board. Among the dead are Geoffrey Street, Australian Minister of Defence and Repatriation; James Fairbairn, Australian Minister for Air and Civil Aviation; Sir Henry Gullett, Australian Vice-President of the Executive Council and Minister in Charge of Scientific and Industrial Research; and General Sir Brudenell White, Australian Chief of the General Staff.
  • 1937 – Entered Service: Sikorsky XPBS-1
  • 1936 – A Nationalist air raid off Málaga damages the Republican battleship Jaime I.
  • 1914 – The first British airplane to reach French soil after mobilization is a BE2a, serial number 327, flown by Capt. F. F. Waldron and Air Mechanic Skerritt of No. 2 Sqdr. RFC commanded by Maj. C. J. Burke.
  • 1912 – During air-ground maneuvers held by the U.S. Army, at Stratford, Connecticut, Pvt. Beckwith Havens of the New York National Guard suffers engine failure in a Curtiss biplane at about 1000 ft (300 m) over a crowded parade ground, narrowly misses spectators and a cavalry troop as he swoops down, glides down the field and collides with a Burgess-Wright biplane that had just been flown by Lt. Benjamin Foulois, breaking off its tail. No injuries reported, and both aircraft are taken to hangars for repair.
  • 1909 – Baddeck No. 1, Canada's second aircraft, is wrecked at Petawawa, Ontario. The pilot, JAD McCurdy, survived.
  • 1824 – The first aerial ascent by a Native American as a passenger, Chief Waschisabe, in Dupuis-Delcourt's balloon “flotilla” takes place at Montjean, France.

References

  1. ^ "Syrian Rebels Claim to Have Brought Down a Jet". New York Times. 13 August 2012. Retrieved 13 August 2012.