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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. Clément Ader built the "Ader Éole" in France and made an uncontrolled, powered hop in 1890. This is the first powered aircraft, although it did not achieve controlled flight. 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

United Airlines Flight 93 was a scheduled U.S. domestic passenger flight from Newark International Airport, in Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco International Airport. It was hijacked by four men as part of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Over 40 minutes into the flight the hijackers breached the cockpit, overpowered the pilots and took over control of the aircraft, diverting it toward Washington, D.C. Several passengers and crew members made telephone calls aboard the flight and learned about the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. As a result, the passengers decided to mount an assault against the hijackers and wrest control of the aircraft.

The plane crashed in a field just outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, about 150 miles (240 km) northwest of Washington, D.C., killing all 44 people aboard, including the hijackers. Many witnessed the impact from the ground and news agencies began reporting on the event within an hour. The plane fragmented upon impact, leaving a crater, and some debris was blown miles from the crash site. The remains of everyone on board the aircraft were later identified. Subsequent analysis of the flight recorders revealed how the actions taken by the passengers prevented the aircraft from reaching either the White House or United States Capitol. A permanent memorial is planned for construction on the crash site. The chosen design has been the source of criticism and is scheduled to be dedicated in 2011. (Full article...)

More selected articles

Selected image

Boeing-Stearman NS-1 Bi-plane

Boeing-Stearman Model 75

Credit: U.S. Navy

Boeing-Stearman Model 75's. Taken in 1936 at NAS Pensacola during training of the first class of the Naval Aviation Cadet program. Photo includes Boone Guyton (plane in rear) who later became a test pilot for Chance-Vought (Vought Sikorsky) in 1939.

Did you know

...that a Fairchild C-119 Flying Boxcar was used in the 2004 film Flight of the Phoenix?

• ...that the Aichi D1A (pictured) was a carrier-borne dive bomber primarily used by the Imperial Japanese Navy during the Second Sino-Japanese War?

...that the asymmetrical monoplane BV 141 is one of many military aircraft designed by Richard Vogt?

General images -

The following are images from various aviation-related articles on Wikipedia.

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  Me 262, world first operational jet fighter (from History of aviation)
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  The Wright Flyer: the first sustained flight with a powered, controlled aircraft (from History of aviation)
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  1843 artist's impression of John Stringfellow's plane Ariel flying over the Nile (from History of aviation)
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  Jean-Marie Le Bris and his flying machine, Albatros II, 1868 (from History of aviation)
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  The Biot-Massia glider, restored and on display in the Musee de l'Air (from History of aviation)
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  Woodcut print of a kite from John Bate's 1635 book The Mysteryes of Nature and Art (from History of aviation)
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  Cathay Pacific's first class cabin on board a Boeing 747-400 (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  First failure of Langley's manned Aerodrome on the Potomac River, 7 October 1903 (from History of aviation)
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  A Boeing 787 Dreamliner of United Airlines landing at Beijing Capital International Airport on 28 December 2018. (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  Map of record breaking flights of the 1920s (from History of aviation)
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  Apollo 11 lifts off on its mission to land a man on the Moon (from History of aviation)
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  Experimental helicopter by Enrico Forlanini (1877), exposed at the Museo nazionale della scienza e della tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci of Milan, Italy (from History of aviation)
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  One of Leonardo's sketches (from History of aviation)
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  D.H. Comet, the world's first jet airliner. As in this picture, it also saw RAF service (from History of aviation)
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  Robinson R22, a light piston-engine helicopter (from General aviation)
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  French reconnaissance balloon L'Intrépide of 1796, the oldest existing flying device, in the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna (from History of aviation)
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  General aviation aircraft at Cheb Airfield in Czech Republic (from General aviation)
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  The business class cabin on an A350 (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  Daedalus working on Icarus' wings (from History of aviation)
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  First female combat pilot, Sabiha Gökçen, reviews her Breguet 19 (from History of aviation)
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  Cessna CitationJet/M2, part of the Citation family of business jets (from General aviation)
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  Clément Ader Avion III (1897 photograph) (from History of aviation)
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  Alberto Santos-Dumont flying the Demoiselle over Paris (from History of aviation)
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  Sailplane, a Rolladen-Schneider LS4 (from General aviation)
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  Félix du Temple's 1874 Monoplane (from History of aviation)
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  The Wright Military Flyer aboard a wagon in 1908 (from History of aviation)
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  Nieuport IV, operated by most of the world's air forces before WW1 for reconnaissance and bombing, including during the Italian-Turkish war (from History of aviation)
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  Planophore model aeroplane by Alphonse Pénaud, 1871 (from History of aviation)
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  Otto Lilienthal, 29 May 1895 (from History of aviation)
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  "Map of Air Routes and Landing Places in Great Britain, as temporarily arranged by the Air Ministry for civilian flying", published in 1919, showing Hounslow, near London, as the hub (from History of aviation)
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  Maxim's flying machine (from History of aviation)
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  The economy class cabin of an Airbus A350 (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  Leonardo da Vinci's ornithopter design (from History of aviation)
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  "Governable parachute" design of 1852 (from History of aviation)
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  The Aeroplane of Victor Tatin, 1879. (from History of aviation)
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  Santos-Dumont's "Number 6" rounding the Eiffel Tower in the process of winning the Deutsch de la Meurthe Prize, October 1901 (from History of aviation)
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  1928 issue of Popular Aviation (now Flying magazine), which became the largest aviation magazine with a circulation of 100,000. (from History of aviation)
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  German Taube monoplane, illustration from 1917 (from History of aviation)
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  The 14-bis, or Oiseau de proie (from History of aviation)
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  La France flying in 1885 (from History of aviation)
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  Flagg biplane from 1933 (from History of aviation)
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  Qantas De Havilland biplane, c. 1930 (from History of aviation)
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  Concorde, G-BOAB, in storage at London Heathrow Airport following the end of all Concorde flying. This aircraft flew for 22,296 hours between its first flight in 1976 and final flight in 2000 (from History of aviation)
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  Early Voisin biplane (from History of aviation)

In the news

Wikinews Aviation portal

• May 29: Austrian Airlines cancels Moscow-bound flight after Russia refuses a reroute outside Belarusian airspace
• August 8: Passenger flight crashes upon landing at Calicut airport in India
• June 4: Power firm helicopter strikes cables, crashes near Fairfield, California
• January 29: Former basketball player Kobe Bryant dies in helicopter crash, aged 41
• January 13: Iran admits downing Ukrainian jet, cites 'human error'
• January 10: Fire erupts in parking structure at Sola Airport, Norway
• October 27: US announces restrictions on flying to Cuba
• October 3: World War II era plane crashes in Connecticut, US, killing at least seven
• September 10: Nevada prop plane crash near Las Vegas leaves two dead, three injured
• August 6: French inventor Franky Zapata successfully crosses English Channel on jet-powered hoverboard

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Selected biography

Jeana Yeager (born May 18, 1952, in Fort Worth, Texas) is an aviator, most famous for flying with Dick Rutan on a non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world in the Voyager aircraft from December 14 to December 23, 1986. The flight took 9 days, 3 minutes, and 44 seconds and covered 24,986 miles (40,211 km), more than doubling the old distance record. She received the US annual Harmon Trophy for outstanding international achievements in the aeronautics, and is the first woman recipient of the Collier Trophy for "the greatest achievement in aeronautics in America, with respect to improving the performance, efficiency, and safety" of aircraft.

Despite her surname, Jeana Yeager is not related to Chuck Yeager, the first man to break the sound barrier in level flight.

Selected Aircraft

[[File:|right|250px|The two YC-130 prototypes; the blunt nose was replaced with radar on later production models.]] The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is a four-engine turboprop cargo aircraft and the main tactical airlifter for many military forces worldwide. Over 40 models and variants of the Hercules serve with more than 50 nations. On December 2006 the C-130 was the third aircraft (after the English Electric Canberra in May 2001 and the B-52 Stratofortress in January 2005) to mark 50 years of continuous use with its original primary customer (in this case the United States Air Force).

Capable of short takeoffs and landings from unprepared runways, the C-130 was originally designed as a troop, medical evacuation and cargo transport aircraft. The versatile airframe has found uses in a variety of other roles, including as a gunship, and for airborne assault, search and rescue, scientific research support, weather reconnaissance, aerial refuelling and aerial firefighting. The Hercules family has the longest continuous production run of any military aircraft in history. During more than 50 years of service the family has participated in military, civilian and humanitarian aid operations.

Today in Aviation

February 7

• 2013 – The Japan Air Self-Defense Force scrambles four jet fighters to intercept two Russian Naval Aviation jets of the Red Banner Pacific Ocean Fleet which Japan claims violated Japanese airspace off the northwest tip of Hokkaido. The Russian Navy denies that the aircraft, which were participating in a military exercise, violated Japanese airspace.

• 2013 – Syrian Air Force jets attack the Damascus ring road with air-to-ground rockets to halt a rebel offensive.

• 2009 – In the 2009 Manaus Aerotáxi crash, a Manaus Aerotáxi Embraer EMB-110 Bandeirante crashes near Santo António, Brazil, killing 24 of the 28 aboard.

• 2008 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-122 at 19:45 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 1E: European Laboratory Columbus, crew rotation.

• 2007 – CH-46E Sea Knight from HMM-364 is shot down, by a shoulder-fired missile, in al-Karma, outside Fallujah, killing all 7 on board. (see picture above)

• 2001 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-98 at 18:13 pm EST. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 5A: Destiny lab.

• 2001 – Death of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, born Anne Spencer Morrow, pioneering American aviator, author, and spouse of fellow aviator Charles Lindbergh.

• 1999 – Launch of Stardust, NASA robotic space probe to study the asteroid 5535 Annefrank and collect samples from the coma of comet Wild 2.It is the first sample return mission to collect cosmic dust and return the sample to Earth and the first to acquire images of a previously visited comet.

• 1995 – Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of multiple airliner bombing-plots and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, is arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan.

• 1994 – Death of Richard M. Bissell, Jr., Jr., American CIA officer responsible for major projects such as the U-2 spy plane.

• 1994 – First launch of a Milstar Satellite (Military Strategic and Tactical Relay) operated by the USAF.

• 1990 – A USAF Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II crashes in the Black Mountains of Wales, ~eight miles S of Hay-on-Wye on the English border, less than 18 hrs. after an General Dynamics F-111 was lost in the North Sea. The unidentified A-10 pilot was killed. Gen. Marcus Anderson, commander of the Third Air Force, grounds all British-based tactical fighters for a one-day safety review, although an Air Force press spokesman said the two accidents were unrelated, calling it "a terrible coincidence" that they occurred so close together.

• 1984 – Astronauts aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger STS-41-B Mission, become the first to use the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) in space during the first untethered space walk. Mission Specialist Bruce McCandless II makes the most distant space walk from a spacecraft at 320 feet.

• 1981 – A Tupolev Tu-104 airliner belonging to the Soviet Pacific Fleet and carrying its top brass on the return from a staff maneuvers in Leningrad crashes on take-off at a military airfield in Pushkin, Leningrad oblast. Out of 52 aboard, including 16 generals and admirals and 20 captains, 51 are pronounced dead at the scene, and the co-pilot later dies in hospital from his injuries. Admiral Emil Spiridonov, Fleet's CO, was among the killed. The reason was later determined to be the improper loading of the plane, with a part of the cargo, two huge rolls of book paper, unsecured and shifting during the take-off, causing a wingstrike.

• 1980 – Death of Secondo Campini, Italian engineer and one of the pioneers of the jet engine.

• 1980 – Death of Richard Williams (RAAF officer), Australian WWI Pilot, WWII high-ranking officer, Australian director of Civil aviation postwar, first military pilot trained in Australia, widely regarded as the “father” of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF).

• 1978 – Death of Johannes Jensen (aviator), German WWI flying ace.

• 1977 – Launch of Soyuz 24, Soviet mission to the Salyut 5 space station, 3rd and final mission to the station, last purely military crew for the Soviets and the final mission to a military Salyut.

• 1973 – A US Navy LTV A-7E-8-CV Corsair II, BuNo 157539, c/n E-195, of VA-195 piloted by Lt. Robert Lee Ward, 28, one of two on a routine training flight to Sacramento, California from NAS Lemoore near Fresno, California, crashes at 2013 hrs. in Alameda, after breaking formation at 28,000 feet for unexplained reasons. Fighter strikes four-story Tahoe Apartments building at 1814 Central Avenue in the city center with fire spreading to other structures, killing pilot and ten civilians, 26 injured. Navy inquiry found evidence of a cockpit fire involving the pilot's oxygen hose, and that the in-flight blaze was "very near" Ward's oxygen mask. Speculation that smoking could have caused it, but no proof. Lawsuits for more than $700,000 were filed in connection with the disaster, including a $500,000 damage action filed in Alameda County Superior Court by owner of the demolished 36-unit Tahoe Apartments.

• 1971 – Death of Alfred Atkey, Canadian WWI fighter ace.

• 1964 – The Canadian Golden Hawks aerobatic team is disbanded.

• 1963 – Birth of Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper, American Naval officer and a former NASA astronaut.

• 1956 – Death of Hugh Trenchard, 1st Viscount Trenchard, British officer who was instrumental in establishing the RAF, described as the Father of the Royal Air Force.

• 1938 – Squadron Leader J. W. Gillan of N° 111 Squadron, makes headline news when he flies his Hawker Hurricane from Edinburgh in Scotland to Northolt in Middlesex at an average speed of 657kph (408 mph). The night flight benefited from a strong tail wind.

• 1934 – The first airmail flight between Australia and New Zealand is made by Charles Ulm in an Avro Ten, taking 14 hours 10 min.

• 1932 – Birth of Alfred Worden, American test pilot and astronaut who was the command module pilot for the Apollo 15 Moon Mission, one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon.

• 1931 – Sole Boeing XP-15, (Boeing Model 202), NX270V, c/n 1151, accepted by the U.S.Army for testing at Wright Field but never actually purchased, so no USAAC serial, suffers propeller blade failure during a high-speed dash, unbalanced engine tears from mounts.

• 1928 – Bert Hinkler leaves Croydon in an Avro Avian, attempting the first solo flight from England to Australia. He will arrive in Darwin on February 22.

• 1927 – Georgetown University medical school in Washington, D. C., offers the first aviation medicine course in the United States.

• 1926 – Birth of Konstantin Petrovich Feoktistov, Soviet cosmonaut and eminent space engineer.

• 1920 – French aviator Joseph Sadi-Lecointe, piloting a Nieuport-Delage 29 V, becomes the first pilot to set a new Federation Aeronautique Internationale (FAI) world speed record after World War I. He reaches a measured speed of 171.141 mph along the 3,280-foot course.

• 1918 – During U.S. Navy tests of a converted Curtiss N-9 biplane as an unpiloted flying bomb, equipped with a Sperry automatic control, Lawrence Sperry takes it up to prove airworthiness of the design, crashes, but pilot unhurt.

• 1917 – Imperial German Navy Zeppelin LZ82 L 36, damaged during landing in fog at Rehben-an-der-Aller and decommissioned.

• 1906 – Birth of Oleg Antonov, Soviet aircraft designer, founder of Antonov ASTC, world-famous aircraft company.

• 1903 – Death of James Glaisher FRS, English meteorologist and aeronaut.

• 1897 – Birth of James Green (aviator), British WWI flying ace.

• 1894 – Birth of Arthur Coadou, French WWI flying ace, who also served in WWII.

• 1889 – Birth of Otto Hartmann, German WWI flying ace.

References

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