Portal:Aviation
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The Aviation Portal
Aviation, or air transport, refers to the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. Aircraft includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, parachutes, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as 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; then a largest 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 with the introduction of the jet which permitted a major form of transport throughout the world.
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A portrait of Wernher von Braun standing in front of the cluster of F-1 rocket engines on the base of the first stage of a Saturn V launch vehicle. Von Braun had a lifelong aspiration to fly to the moon. A pioneer of rocket development, in the Second World War von Braun led the German development of the V2 rocket at Peenemünde. Along with his team of engineers, he surrendered to the American forces in the closing stages of the war, then helped to establish the military rocket program in the United States. In 1958 he transferred to the newly established NASA program, developing the Saturn V rocket that successfully delivered a man to the moon in 1969.
Selected biography
Born in Kingston upon Hull, Johnson graduated from University of Sheffield with a Bachelor of Arts in economics. She was introduced to flying as a hobby, gaining a pilot's A Licence No. 1979 on 6 July 1929 at the London Aeroplane Club. In that same year, she became the first British woman to gain a ground engineer's C License.
Johnson achieved worldwide recognition when, in 1930, she became the first woman to fly solo from England to Australia. She left Croydon on 5 May of that year and landed in Darwin, Australia on 24 May after flying 11,000 miles. Her aircraft for this flight, a De Havilland Gipsy Moth (registration G-AAAH) named Jason, can still be seen in the Science Museum in London. She received the Harmon Trophy as well as a CBE in homage to this achievement, and was also honoured with the No. 1 civil pilot's licence under Australia's 1921 Air Navigation Regulations.
In July 1931, Johnson and her co-pilot Jack Humphreys became the first pilots to fly from London to Moscow in one day, completing the 1,760-mile journey in approximately 21 hours. From there, they continued across Siberia and on to Tokyo, setting a record time for flying from England to Japan. The flight was completed in a De Havilland Puss Moth.
Did you know
...that the Soviet spotter aircraft Sukhoi Su-12, though approved, was never produced due to lack of manufacturing capacity in the USSR?
...that the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight contains the world's oldest airworthy survivor of the Battle of Britain, alongside ten other historic aircraft - two of which fought over Normandy on D-Day?
...that Royal Brunei Catering, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Royal Brunei Airlines, was named as Best Regional Caterer 1995/1996 by Singapore Airlines?
Aviation News
- May 11: Report blames New Zealand skydive plane crash that killed nine on overloading
- May 10: Russian passenger jet crashes on Indonesian demonstration flight
- April 11: Airlines modify flight routes amid North Korea rocket launch plans
- April 7: Military jet crashes in Virginia Beach, Virginia
- April 3: Palau police shoot Chinese fisherman, police plane feared lost
Today in Aviation
- 2009 – A Lockheed C-130 Hercules of the Indonesian Air Force crashes at Magetan killing 97 people on board the aircraft and a further two on the ground.
- 2009 – The Indonesian Air Force Hercules crash
- 2003 – First Flight: SpaceShipOne (first captive flight, unmanned)
- 1978 – McDonnell Douglas delivers its 5,000th F-4 Phantom II aircraft, twenty years after the first flight of the prototype.
- 1977 – First Flight: Sukhoi T-10 (prototype of Sukhoi Su-27)
- 1971 – Boeing announces that it has canceled its Supersonic Transport (SST) project.
- 1967 – American aircraft strike military targets in downtown Hanoi.
- 1965 – First Flight: De Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter
- 1965 – Pakistan International Airlines Flight 705, a Boeing 720-040B on an inaugural flight carrying mostly journalists and owners of travel agencies and crewed by what the airline considered its best crew members, crashes short of the runway while descending to land at Cairo International Airport in Cairo, Egypt, killing 119 of the 125 people on board and injuring all six survivors.
- 1965 – DHC-6 Twin Otter prototype was test flown at Downsview by R.H. Fowler.
- 1958 – Vickers Viscount N7410 of Capital Airlines collides in mid-air with a Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star of the Air National Guard. All eleven on board the Viscount are killed when it crashes at Brunswick, Maryland, as is one of the two crew members of the T-33.
- 1951 – U.S. Air Force Captain James Jabara becomes the first fighter ace to score his five victories in a jet (an F-86 Sabre) against jets (Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15s).
- 1945 – 29 aircraft from the British aircraft carriers HMS Ameer, HMS Khedive, and HMS Stalker conduct devastating strikes against Japanese shipping, airfields, and communications in southern Burma and Sumatra.
- 1944 – American aircraft raid Marcus Island.
- 1941 – Italian CANT Z.1007 high-level bombers sink the British destroyer HMS Juno southeast of Crete.
- 1941 – Germany invades Crete in Operation Merkur (“Mercury”), the Luftwaffe’s first large airborne assault and the first mainly airborne invasion in military history, dropping 10,000 paratroopers and 750 glider troops onto the island; 610 bombers, dive bombers, and fighters, 500 transport aircraft, and 80 gliders support the operation. The Germans encounter such unexpectedly heavy opposition by British and Commonwealth troops on the island that they fear the operation will fail.
- 1937 – Entered Service: Fairey Battle with No. 63 Squadron, Royal Air Force
- 1937 – First Flight: de Havilland Albatross.
- 1932 – Amelia Earhart, flying a Lockheed Vega, becomes the first woman to make a solo flight across the North Atlantic, flying from Harbour Grace in Newfoundland to Derry in Northern Ireland in 14 hours 54 minutes.
- 1929 – The Peruvian Army’s aviation branch and the Peruvian Navy’s Naval Aviation Corps are combined to form the Peruvian Aviation Corps, forerunner of the Peruvian Air Force.
- 1929 – Charles Lindbergh marries Anne, daughter of Dwight W. Morrow, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico and author of an influential report on American aviation.
- 1927 – (20-21) Charles Lindbergh flies across the Atlantic nonstop from New York City to Paris. It is the first solo transatlantic flight. In his Ryan monoplane Spirit of St. Louis, he covers 3,600 miles in 33 hours, 29 minutes and wins the Orteig Prize of $25,000.
- 1927 – Flight Lieutenant Roderic Carr sets out to set a new distance record, attempting to fly from England to India in a Hawker Horsely. Three days later, he will be rescued from the Persian Gulf.
- 1924 – French Captain Georges Pelletier d'Oisy and Adjutant Lucien Besin crash their Breguet 19.A.2 on a golf course in Shanghai, ending their attempt to fly around the world eastbound. They had covered 10,580 miles (17,037 km) in 26 days since leaving Paris.
- 1918 – German bombs fall on London for the last time in World War I. During their one-year-long heavier-than-air bombing campaign against England, the Germans have dropped 84,745 kg (186,830 lbs) of bombs and lost 61 bombers.
- 1917 – A Royal Naval Air Service Curtiss H-12 Large America flying boat bombs and sinks the German submarine U-36 in the North Sea near the North Hinder light ship while flying a “Spider Web” patrol. U-36 becomes the only German submarine sunk by an aircraft during World War I.
- 1784 – The first women to ascend in a tethered balloon are the Marchioness de Montalembert, the Contess de Montalenbert, the Contess de Podenas, and Mademoiselle de Ligarde. Their Montgolfier balloon lifts to the length of the restraining rope.
Selected Aircraft
The Tupolev TB-3 (Russian: Тяжёлый Бомбардировщик, Tyazholy Bombardirovschik, Heavy Bomber, civilian designation ANT-6) was a heavy bomber aircraft which was deployed by the Soviet Air Force in the 1930s and during World War II. It was the world's first cantilever wing four-engine heavy bomber. Despite obsolescence and being officially withdrawn from service in 1939, TB-3 performed bomber and transport duties through much of WWII. The TB-3 also saw combat as a Zveno project fighter mothership and as a light tank transport.
- Span: 41.80 m (137 ft 2 in)
- Length: 24.4 m (80 ft 1 in)
- Height: 8.50 m (27 ft 11 in)
- Engines: 4× Mikulin M-17F V12 engines, 525 kW (705 hp) each
- Maximum Speed: 196 km/h (106 knots, 122 mph) at 3000 m (9,840 ft)
- First Flight: 22 December 1930
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