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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

Traditional general aviation fixed-wing light aircraft, the most numerous class of aircraft in the sector
Traditional general aviation fixed-wing light aircraft, the most numerous class of aircraft in the sector
General aviation in the United Kingdom has been defined as a civil aircraft operation other than a commercial air transport flight operating to a schedule. Although the International Civil Aviation Organization excludes any form of remunerated aviation from its definition, some commercial operations are often included within the scope of general aviation in the UK. The sector operates business jets, rotorcraft, piston and jet-engined fixed-wing aircraft, gliders of all descriptions, and lighter than air craft. Public transport operations include business (or corporate) aviation and air taxi services, and account for nearly half of the economic contribution made by the sector. There are 28,000 Private Pilot Licence holders, and 10,000 certified glider pilots. Although GA operates from more than 1,800 aerodromes and landing sites, ranging in size from large regional airports to farm strips, over 80 per cent of GA activity is conducted at 134 of the larger aerodromes. GA is regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority, although regulatory powers are being increasingly transferred to the European Aviation Safety Agency. The main focus is on standards of airworthiness and pilot licensing, and the objective is to promote high standards of safety. (Full article...)

Selected image

Grumman JRF-5 Goose
Grumman JRF-5 Goose
Credit: USN
This JRF-5 Grumman JRF-5 Goose was assigned to Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Florida (USA), in 1941 and remained on the station throughout the Second World War. Only one of these aircraft flew from the station and was used for utility purposes, including photography.

Did you know

...that Guy Menzies flew the first solo trans-Tasman flight (from Sydney to New Zealand) in 1931, but landed upside-down in a swamp? ...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? Two pilots of No. 7 EFTS RAAF discuss the day's flying next to their Tiger Moth training biplanes. ... that No. 7 Elementary Flying Training School RAAF (aircraft of unit pictured) was the only Royal Australian Air Force training unit to be based in Tasmania during World War II?

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

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Selected biography

Erich Alfred "Bubi" Hartmann (19 April 1922 – 20 September 1993), also nicknamed "The Blond Knight of Germany" by friends and "The Black Devil" by his enemies, was a German fighter pilot and still is the highest scoring fighter ace in the history of aerial combat. He scored 352 aerial victories (of which 345 were won against the Soviet Air Force, and 260 of which were fighters) in 1,404 combat missions and engaging in aerial combat 825 times while serving with the Luftwaffe in World War II. During the course of his career Hartmann was forced to crash land his damaged fighter 14 times. This was due to damage received from parts of enemy aircraft he had just shot down, or mechanical failure. Hartmann was never shot down or forced to land due to enemy fire.[1]

Hartmann, a pre-war glider pilot, joined the Luftwaffe in 1940 and completed his fighter pilot training in 1942. He was posted to Jagdgeschwader 52 (JG 52) on the Eastern front and was fortunate to be placed under the supervision of some of the Luftwaffe's most experienced fighter pilots. Under their guidance Hartmann steadily developed his tactics which would earn him the coveted Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds on 25 August 1944 for claiming 301 aerial victories.

He scored his 352nd and last aerial victory on 8 May 1945. He and the remainder of JG 52 surrendered to United States Army forces and were turned over to the Red Army. Convicted of false "War Crimes" and sentenced to 25 years of hard labour, Hartmann would spend 10 years in various Soviet prison camps and gulags until he was released in 1955. In 1956, Hartmann joined the newly established West German Luftwaffe and became the first Geschwaderkommodore of Jagdgeschwader 71 "Richthofen". Hartmann resigned early from the Bundeswehr in 1970, largely due to his opposition of the F-104 Starfighter deployment in the Bundesluftwaffe and the resulting clashes with his superiors over this issue. Erich Hartmann died in 1993.

Selected Aircraft

The VZ-9 Avrocar (full military designation VZ-9-AV) was a Canadian VTOL aircraft developed by Avro Aircraft Ltd. as part of a secret U.S. military project carried out in the early years of the Cold War.[2] The Avrocar intended to exploit the Coandă effect to provide lift and thrust from a single "turborotor" blowing exhaust out the rim of the disk-shaped aircraft to provide anticipated VTOL-like performance. In the air, it would have resembled a flying saucer. Two prototypes were built as "proof-of-concept" test vehicles for a more advanced USAF fighter and also for a U.S. Army tactical combat aircraft requirement.[3] In flight testing, the Avrocar proved to have unresolved thrust and stability problems that limited it to a degraded, low-performance flight envelope; subsequently, the project was cancelled in 1961.

  • Diameter:18 ft (5.486 m)
  • Height: 3 ft 6 in (1.1 m)
  • Engines: 3 x Turbomeca Marboré Continental J69-T-9
  • Max Speed: 300 mph (482 km/h)
  • First Flight: 12 November 1959
  • Number built: 2
More selected aircraft Read more...

Today in Aviation

March 4

  • 2013 – Two minutes from touchdown at Goma International Airport, the Compagnie Africaine d'Aviation Fokker 50 9Q-CBD crashes in bad weather in an empty lot in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo, killing six of the people on board and injuring all three survivors.
  • 2012 – A Yemen Air Force Antonov An-26 transport plane destroyed by an explosion on the ground at Sana'a International Airport.
  • 2011 – The Libyan Air Force conducts occasional air strikes on Ajdabiya's weapon-storage area, with no reported casualties.[4]
  • 2008 – An Iraqi military Mil Mi-17 helicopter crashes south of Baiji due to a sandstorm, about 90 miles (140 km) south of Mosul in northern Iraq, killing an American soldier and seven other people.[6][7][8]
  • 2007 – US Airways and America West combine their reservations computer systems.
  • 2006 – The final attempt to contact Pioneer 10 results in no response, more than three years after the last contact was made from the spacecraft. It is considered to be the first human-built object to be on a solar system-leaving trajectory.
  • 2002Ansett (Mark II) permanently ceases operations
  • 1994 – Launch: Space Shuttle Columbia STS-62 at 1:38:34 am EST. Mission highlights: Microgravity experiments.
  • 1987Northwest Airlink Flight 2268, a CASA 212 crashes while attempting to land at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. Nine of the nineteen passengers and crew on board were killed.
  • 1981 – Two USAF McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom IIs collide near Albacete, Spain, crash in flames, killing two of the four crew. The other two parachute to safety. Airframes involved were F-4D, serial given by one source as 66-755, but this may be only a partial, 'SP' tail code, of the 401st Tactical Fighter Wing, and F-4D-30-MC, 66-7620, 'TJ' tail code, of the 52d Tactical Fighter Wing. Both fighters were on a routine training mission from Torrejon Air Base near Madrid. The crash occurred ~130 miles SE of Madrid.
  • 1958 – A Royal Canadian Navy McDonnell F2H-3 Banshee, BuNo 126333, Sqn. No. 142 of VF-871, suffers an apparent brake failure while taxiing aboard HMCS Bonaventure (CVL 22) and rolls off the carrier's deck. Pilot LCDR Brian Bell-Irving ejects as airplane falls, but partially opened canopy does not jettison, and Bell-Irving is knocked unconscious and severely injured as ejection seat smashes through canopy and slams into ocean surface. The damaged fighter jet catches fire and sinks; Bell-Irving is subsequently hauled aboard escort destroyer HMCS Haida (DDE 215) but dies from his injuries. This is the only operational ejection from a RCN Banshee.
  • 1958 – Royal Navy de Havilland Sea Venom FAW.22, XG732, 'B 440', of 891 Squadron, piloted by a pair of exchange pilots from the U.S. Marine Corps, lands on HMS Bulwark sans nose gear which refuses to extend. Airframe is repaired, but is lost in a ditching off of the same carrier on 9 May 1958.
  • 1957 – 4-15 – A US Navy airship sets a duration record for a non-rigid airship, traveling 9,448 miles (15,205 km) in 264 hours 12 min
  • 1946 – American Airlines begins using the Douglas DC-4 cross country on trips that lasted 13-to-14-hours.
  • 1945 – At precisely 0151 hrs., Junkers Ju 88G-6, Werknummer 620028, D5+AX, piloted by Hauptman J. Dreher, with a crew of three from night fighter unit 13./Nachtjagdgeschwader 3, becomes the last Axis aircraft to crash on British soil during World War II. Confused by auto headlights, fighter hits tree while attacking the airfield at RAF Elvington, crashing at Sutton upon Derwent, Yorkshire, all four KWF. Two other Ju 88s had crashed in separate incidents at 0137 and 0145 hrs
  • 1945 – Task Force 58 returns to base at Ulithi Atoll. During its two-week cruise to the Tokyo area and Okinawa its pilots have claimed 393 Japanese aircraft shot down and 250 destroyed on the ground, in exchange for the loss of 84 planes, 60 pilots, and 21 air crewmen in combat and 59 planes, eight pilots, and six air crewmen in non-combat incidents.
  • 1945 – Low on fuel after a raid on Japan, a B-29 Superfortress lands on Iwo Jima, the first of about 2,400 B-29 s to do so before World War II ends in August.
  • 1942 – Formation of No. 7 Manning Depot at Rockcliffe to process applications for Women’s Division.
  • 1942 – Aircraft from the U. S. Navy aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CV-6) raid Japanese bases on Marcus Island.
  • 1942 – (Overnight) – Two Imperial Japanese Navy Kawanishi H8 K (Allied reporting name “Emily”) flying boats fly from Wotje, refuel from a submarine at French Frigate Shoals, and fly on to bomb Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands, returning safely. The mission is unsuccessful because of heavy cloud cover in the Honolulu area. It is the first combat flight of the H8 K.
  • 1941 – Douglas TBD-1 Devastator, BuNo 0377, assigned to USS Lexington, but operating out of NAS North Island, San Diego, California, on a bombing training flight, suffers engine failure after making a practice drop, and ditches in the Pacific Ocean, sinking in ~100 fathoms ~5 miles W of Mission Beach, California. Pilot 1st Lt. (j.g.) W. A. H. Howland, AOM2c R. Rogers, and AMM3c O. A. Carter successfully deploy dinghy and are rescued after ~30 minutes by light seaplane tender USS Williamson.
  • 1937 – Entered Service: B-17 Flying Fortress with the United States Army Air Corps 2nd Bombardment Group
  • 1936 – The last great passenger-carrying airship, a veritable behemoth in its day, takes to the air for the first time. The German dirigible LZ 129, the Hindenburg, is powered by four 1,320-hp Daimler-Benz DB 602 diesel engines. The Hindenburg makes its first Atlantic crossing in the record time of 64 hours 53 min on May 6.
  • 1936 – Authorization to form No. 6 (TB) Squadron at Trenton with Vedette’s.
  • 1928 – The Boeing Model 204 (B-1E), a four-seat civilian flying boat, makes its first flight. Ten are built and are the last aircraft Boeing built specifically for private ownership by civilians. Four built by Boeing Aircraft of Canada in Vancouver, British Columbia, are called “Thunderbirds. ”
  • 1909 – President William Howard Taft approves Congressional Gold Medals for the Wright brothers.

References

  1. ^ Toliver & Constable 1986, p. 12.
  2. ^ Yenne 2003), pp. 281–283.
  3. ^ Milberry 1979, p. 137.
  4. ^ "Live Blog – Libya 4 March". Al Jazeera. 4 March 2011. Retrieved 29 March 2011.
  5. ^ Millership, Peter (4 March 2011). "Libyan Rebels Take Oil Town of Ras Lanuf: Rebels". RealClearWorld. Reuters. Retrieved 29 March 2011.
  6. ^ "Helicopter Crash in Iraq Kills 8". Associated Press. 2008-03-04. Retrieved 2008-03-24. [dead link]
  7. ^ "Iraqi army helicopter crash kills 8". CNN.com. 2008-03-04. Retrieved 2008-03-24.
  8. ^ "Iraqi helicopter crash kills all 8 aboard; cause was sandstorm". Star Tribune. 2008-03-04. Retrieved 2010-07-15. An Iraqi military helicopter crashed in a sandstorm, killing the seven Iraqis and one American service member on board, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Tuesday. [...] The Iraqi Defense Ministry said two Russian-built Mi-17 Hip transport helicopters were ferrying troops from the northern city of Tal Afar to Baghdad on Monday when they encountered bad weather south of Beiji. One aircraft was able to avoid the storm, but the other crashed, said Muhammad Askari, a ministry spokesman. Askari said the helicopter crew was made up of an Iraqi and a foreigner, but did not specify the latter's nationality. The U.S. military later confirmed the foreigner was an American. All six passengers were Iraqis, Askari said. It was the deadliest helicopter crash in Iraq since a U.S. Black Hawk went down during night maneuvers in northern Iraq on Aug. 22, killing all 14 troops on board.