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Portal:Aviation

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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

Microburst schematic from NASA. Note the downward motion of the air until it hits ground level, then spreads outward in all directions. The wind regime in a microburst is completely opposite to a tornado.
Microburst schematic from NASA. Note the downward motion of the air until it hits ground level, then spreads outward in all directions. The wind regime in a microburst is completely opposite to a tornado.
Wind shear, sometimes referred to as windshear or wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere. Wind shear can be broken down into vertical and horizontal components, with horizontal wind shear seen across weather fronts and near the coast, and vertical shear typically near the surface, though also at higher levels in the atmosphere near upper level jets and frontal zones aloft.

Wind shear itself is a microscale meteorological phenomenon occurring over a very small distance, but it can be associated with mesoscale or synoptic scale weather features such as squall lines and cold fronts. It is commonly observed near microbursts and downbursts caused by thunderstorms, weather fronts, areas of locally higher low level winds referred to as low level jets, near mountains, radiation inversions that occur due to clear skies and calm winds, buildings, wind turbines, and sailboats. Wind shear has a significant effect during take-off and landing of aircraft due to their effects on steering of the aircraft, and was a significant cause of aircraft accidents involving large loss of life within the United States.

Sound movement through the atmosphere is affected by wind shear, which can bend the wave front, causing sounds to be heard where they normally would not, or vice versa. Strong vertical wind shear within the troposphere also inhibits tropical cyclone development, but helps to organize individual thunderstorms into living longer life cycles which can then produce severe weather. The thermal wind concept explains with how differences in wind speed with height are dependent on horizontal temperature differences, and explains the existence of the jet stream. (Full article...)

Selected image

Antonov An-124
Antonov An-124
An Antonov An-124 belonging to Polet Airlines on final approach to Sheremetyevo International Airport in Moscow, Russia. The An-124 was designed for strategic lift capability and remains the third-largest operating cargo aircraft.

Did you know

...that George H. W. Bush flew a TBF Avenger while he was in the U.S. Navy? ...that one of the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic was the Italian Savoia-Marchetti S.55 flying boat, which went on to serve in the Luftwaffe in WWII? ... that Samuel Frederick Henry Thompson, a British flying ace of World War I, scored 30 kills in five months of service and won both the DFC and MC?

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

Amelia Earhart, c. 1928
Amelia Mary Earhart (July 24, 1897 – missing as of July 2, 1937), daughter of Edwin and Amy Earhart, was an American aviator and noted early female pilot who mysteriously disappeared over the Pacific Ocean during a circumnavigational flight in 1937.

By 1919 Earhart had enrolled at Columbia University to study pre-med but quit a year later to be with her parents in California. Later in Long Beach she and her father went to a stunt-flying exhibition and the next day she went on a ten minute flight.

Earhart had her first flying lesson at Kinner Field near Long Beach. Her teacher was Anita Snook, a pioneer female aviator. Six months later Earhart purchased a yellow Kinner Airster biplane which she named "Canary". On October 22, 1922, she flew it to an altitude of 14,000 feet, setting a women's world record.

After Charles Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927, Amy Guest, a wealthy American living in London, England expressed interest in being the first woman to fly (or be flown) across the Atlantic Ocean, but after deciding the trip was too dangerous to make herself, she offered to sponsor the project, suggesting they find "another girl with the right image." While at work one afternoon in April 1928 Earhart got a phone call from a man who asked her, "Would you like to fly the Atlantic?"

Selected Aircraft

The Avro Lancaster was a British four-engine Second World War bomber aircraft made initially by Avro for the British Royal Air Force (RAF). It first saw active service in 1942, and together with the Handley-Page Halifax it was one of the main heavy bombers of the RAF, the RCAF and squadrons from other Commonwealth and European countries serving within RAF Bomber Command. The "Lanc" or "Lankie," as it became affectionately known, became the most famous and most successful of the Second World War night bombers, "delivering 608,612 tons of bombs in 156,000 sorties." Although the Lancaster was primarily a night bomber, it excelled in many other roles including daylight precision bombing, and gained worldwide renown as the "Dam Buster" used in the 1943 Operation Chastise raids on Germany's Ruhr Valley dams.

  • Span: 102 ft (31.09 m)
  • Length: 69 ft 5 in (21.18 m)
  • Height: 19 ft 7 in (5.97 m)
  • Engines: 4× Rolls-Royce Merlin XX V12 engines, 1,280 hp (954 kW) each
  • Maximum Speed: 240 knots (280 mph, 450 km/h) at 15,000 ft (5,600 m)
  • First Flight: 8 January 1941
  • Number built: 7,377
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Today in Aviation

November 5

  • 2010 – An Israeli Air Force F-16I crashes in Makhtesh Ramon while on a training over the Negev desert in southern Israel, killing both the pilot and navigator of the plane.
  • 2009 – N120FB, a Grumman Albatross operated by Albatross Adventures, crashes shortly after take-off from St. Lucie County International Airport, Fort Pierce, Florida, after suffering an engine failure. The aircraft was damaged beyond economic repair.
  • 2003 - British Airways Concorde G-BOAG became the last Concorde to leave JFK by air. She flew to Seattle Boeing Field and retired to Museum of Flight, Seattle.
  • 1995 – Landing: Space Shuttle Columbia STS-73 at 6:45:21 am EST, KSC Runway 33.
  • 1979 – A Chinook helicopter of 450 Squadron successfully lifted a Lancaster aircraft from Gederich Ontario to Mount Hope, Ontario.
  • 1959 – A small engine fire forces pilot Scott Crossfield to make an emergency landing on Rosamond Dry Lake, Edwards AFB, California, in North American X-15, 56-6671. Not designed to land with fuel on board, test craft comes down with a heavy load of propellants and breaks its back, grounding this particular X-15 for three months. Footage of this accident is later incorporated in The Outer Limits episode "The Premonition", first aired 9 January 1965.
  • 1956 – F4U-7 Corsairs from the French aircraft carriers Arromanches and La Fayette bomb the aerodrome at Cairo. Israeli jets mistakenly attack the British sloop HMS Crane in the Gulf of Aqaba, and Crane shoots one down in self-defense.
  • 1956 – The British and French bombing campaign against Egypt ends, with fixed-wing aircraft from the three British aircraft carriers alone having flown 1,300 sorties. Late in the day, the first British forces come ashore in Egypt as elements of the 3rd Battalion of the British Parachute Regiment land by parachute at El Gamil airfield and are reinforced by additional elements brought in by helicopter from the British aircraft carriers HMS Ocean and HMS Theseus.
  • 1948 – A Boeing DB-17G Flying Fortress, 44-83678 returning to Eglin AFB, Florida from Fort Wayne, Indiana, crashes in woods SE of Auxiliary Field 2, Pierce Field, crashing and burning NE of the runway at Eglin main base early Friday. All five on board are KWF, including Lt. Col. Frederick W. Eley, 43, of Shalimar, Florida, staff judge advocate at Eglin for nearly three years - he was returning from his grandmother's funeral in Portland, Indiana; Maj. Bydie J. Nettles, 29, who lived in Shalimar, Florida but was originally from Pensacola, Florida, group adjutant for the 3203rd Maintenance and Supply section; Capt. Robert LeMar, 31, Ben's Lake, Eglin AFB, test pilot with the 3203rd; crew chief M/Sgt. Carl LeMieux, 31, of Milton, Florida; and Sgt. William E. Bazer, 36, assistant engineer, Destin, Florida. Bazer's wife was the Eglin base librarian.
  • 1944 – U. S. Army Air Forces Twentieth Air Force B-29 s based at Calcutta, India, begin occasional attacks on drydock and ship repair facilities at Singapore.
  • 1944 – (5–6) U. S. Navy Task Force 38 carrier aircraft raid Japanese bases on Luzon. On the first day, SB2 C Helldiver dive bombers and TBM Avenger torpedo bombers from the aircraft carrier USS Lexington (CV-16) sink the Japanese heavy cruiser Nachi in Manila Bay, and U. S. Navy planes claim the destruction of 58 Japanese fighters over Clark and Mabalacat airfields. On the second day, a kamikaze damages Lexington. During the two days, U. S. Navy aircraft claim 439 Japanese aircraft destroyed, losing 25 U. S. aircraft in combat and 11 due to non-combat causes. The strikes cause a sharp reduction in Japanese air attacks on U. S. ships in Leyte Gulf.
  • 1943 – 97 carrier aircraft from USS Saratoga (CV-3) and USS Princeton (CVL-23) carry out a destructive strike on a Japanese task force at Simpson Harbor, Rabaul, damaging the heavy cruisers Atago, Maya, Mogami, and Takao, the light cruisers Agano and Noshiro, and a destroyer for the loss of 10 aircraft. The U. S. Army Air Forces’ Fifth Air Force follows up with a strike by 27 B-24 Liberators escorted by 67 P-38 Lighntings on Rabaul town and its wharves. A counterstrike by 18 Japanese Nakajima B5 N (Allied reporting name “Kate”) torpedo bombers against the U. S. aircraft carriers mistakenly attacks a group of PT boats and a tank landing craft. The Japanese never risk heavy ships in the Solomon Islands again.
  • 1940 – Four RAF squadrons are deployed to Greece to support the country against Italian attacks.
  • 1940 – The U. S. Army Air Corps activates the Hawaiian Air Force, its first air force based outside the continental United States.
  • 1910 – The Willows airship N° 3 City of Cardiff arrives after the first dirigible flight across the English Channel, flying from London 10 hours and 30 min.
  • 1909 – The United States Army Wright Military Flyer, serial 1, piloted by Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm with 2nd Lieutenant Frederick E. Humphreys as passenger crashes into the ground at College Park Airport, Maryland, while executing a sharp right turn. The aircraft had lost altitude due to engine misfiring and the aircrew had not taken account of their proximity to the ground when banking the aircraft to the right. Both officers were unhurt but the aircraft required repairs.
  • 1908 – Wilbur Wright receives the Grand Gold Medal of the Aéro Club of France for advances in aviation.

References

Edit today's anniversaries – November Archive – All anniversaries...


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