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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 include 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 was 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. A major leap followed with the construction of the Wright Flyer, 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 engine which enabled aviation to become a major form of transport throughout the world. In 2024, there were 9.5 billion passengers worldwide according to the ICAO. Air travel is not universal. In fact, in 2018, estimates suggest that only 11% of the world’s population traveled by air, with at most 4% taking international flights. (Full article...)

Selected article

Aircraft spotter on the roof of a building in London. St. Paul's Cathedral is in the background.
Aircraft spotter on the roof of a building in London. St. Paul's Cathedral is in the background.
The Battle of Britain (German: Luftschlacht um England) is the name given to the sustained strategic effort by the German Luftwaffe during the summer and autumn of 1940 to gain air superiority over the Royal Air Force (RAF), especially Fighter Command. The name derives from a speech made on 18 June 1940 in the House of Commons by Prime Minister Winston Churchill, "The Battle of France is over. I expect the Battle of Britain is about to begin..."

Had it been successful, the planned amphibious and airborne landings in Britain of Operation Sea Lion would have followed. The Battle of Britain was the first major campaign to be fought entirely by air forces. It was the largest and most sustained bombing campaign attempted up until that date. The failure of Nazi Germany to destroy Britain's air defence or to break British morale is considered its first major defeat.

British historians date the battle from 10 July to 31 October 1940, which represented the most intense period of daylight bombing. German historians usually place the beginning of the battle in mid-August 1940 and end it in May 1941, on the withdrawal of the bomber units in preparation for the attack on the USSR. (Full article...)

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Credit: NASA
A cutaway digram of an aircraft hangar.

Did you know

...that sailplane winglets were first successfully implemented by American inventor Peter Masak? ...that the Tenerife disaster remained the deadliest aircraft incident in history until the September 11, 2001 attacks and neither plane was in flight when the accident occurred. ... that the first exhibition at the Boeing Galleries was a series of photographs taken from helicopters and hot air balloons?

More Did you know facts

General images - load new batch

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

In the news

Wikinews Aviation portal
Read and edit Wikinews

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Selected biography

Frank Whittle speaking to employees of the Flight Propulsion Research Laboratory (now known as the NASA Glenn Research Center), USA, in 1946
Air Commodore Sir Frank Whittle (1 June 1907 – 9 August 1996) was a Royal Air Force officer and was one of the inventors of jet propulsion. By the end of the war, Whittle's efforts resulted in engines that would lead the world in performance through the end of the decade.

Born in Earlsdon, Coventry, England on June 1, 1907, Whittle left Leamington College in 1923 to join the Royal Air Force (RAF). Through his early days as an Aircraft apprentice he maintained his interest in the Model Aircraft Society where he built replicas, the quality of which attracted the eye of his commanding officer, who was so impressed that he recommended Whittle for the Officer Training College at Cranwell in Lincolnshire in 1926, a rarity for a "commoner" in what was still a very class-based military structure. A requirement of the course was that each student had to produce a thesis for graduation. Whittle decided to write his thesis on future developments in aircraft design, in which he described what is today referred to as a motorjet.

Whittle and Hans von Ohain met after the war and initially Whittle was angry with him as he felt Ohain had stolen his ideas. Ohain eventually convinced him that his work was independent and after that point the two became good friends.

Selected Aircraft

A spitfire in flight
A spitfire in flight

The Supermarine Spitfire was a single-seat fighter used by the RAF and many Allied countries in World War II.

Produced by Supermarine, the Spitfire was designed by R.J. Mitchell, who continued to refine it until his death from cancer in 1937. The elliptical wing had a thin cross-section, allowing a faster top speed than the Hurricane and other contemporary designs; it also resulted in a distinctive appearance. Much loved by its pilots, the Spitfire saw service during the whole of World War II, in all theatres of war, and in many different variants.

More than 20,300 examples of all variants were built, including two-seat trainers, with some Spitfires remaining in service well into the 1950s. It was the only fighter aircraft to be in continual production before, during and after the war.

The aircraft was dubbed Spitfire by Sir Robert MacLean, director of Vickers (the parent company of Supermarine) at the time, and on hearing this, Mitchell is reported to have said, "...sort of bloody silly name they would give it." The word dates from Elizabethan times and refers to a particularly fiery, ferocious type of person, usually a woman. The name had previously been used unofficially for Mitchell's earlier F.7/30 Type 224 design.

The prototype (K5054) first flew on March 5, 1936, from Eastleigh Aerodrome (later Southampton Airport). Testing continued until May 26, 1936, when Mutt Summers (Chief Test Pilot for Vickers (Aviation) Ltd.) flew K5054 to Martlesham and handed the aircraft over to Squadron Leader Anderson of the Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE).

  • Length: 29 ft 11 in (9.12 m)
  • Wingspan: 36 ft 10 in (11.23 m)
  • Height: 12 ft 8 in (3.86 m)
  • Number Built: 20,351 (excluding Seafires)
  • Maximum speed: 330 knots (378 mph, 605 km/h)
  • Maiden flight: March 5, 1936
  • Powerplant: 1× Rolls-Royce Merlin 45 supercharged V12 engine, 1470 hp at 9250 ft (1096 kW at 2820 m)

Today in Aviation

June 26

  • 2009 – HK-4094, a Let L-410 Turbolet operated by Transporte Aéreo de Colombia overruns the runway at Capurganá Airport, Colombia, and is substantially damaged.
  • 2006 – U.S. Navy VFA-122 squadron pilot Brian R. Deforge, 25, dies when his McDonnell-Douglas F/A-18 Hornet collides with another over Fort Hunter Liggett, north of San Luis Obispo, California. The other pilot successfully ejects and survives.
  • 2003 – The NASA Helios prototype breaks up and falls into the Pacific Ocean about ten miles (16 km) W of the Hawaiian Island Kauai during a remotely piloted systems checkout flight in preparation for an endurance test scheduled for the following month. Cause was flight through wind shear on a day when the conditions had been pronounced "marginal".
  • 1994 – Air Ivory Fokker’s-27 crashes at Abidjan (16 killed / 1 lives).
  • 1988 – Air France Flight 296, an Airbus A320, makes a low pass over Mulhouse-Habsheim Airport in landing configuration during an air show and crashes into trees at the end of the runway. Of 130 passengers aboard, 3 die.
  • 1981 – Dan-Air Flight 240, a Hawker Siddeley HS 748, crashes near Nailstone, Leicestershire due to failure of the baggage door, causing rapid decompression and loss of control; all 3 crew on board die.
  • 1978 – Air Canada Flight 189, a McDonnell-Douglas DC-9, crashes on takeoff in Toronto, Ontario, Canada because of tire failure; two die out of 107 passengers on board.
  • 1963 – A BAF Fairchild C-119G Flying Boxcar, CP45, c/n 246, en route to RAF Gütersloh, crashes near Detmold, Germany after being accidentally hit by a British mortar bomb over the Sennelager Range. 5 crewmen and 33 paratroopers died, while 9 paratroopers managed to jump to safety using their parachutes.
  • 1959 – TWA Flight 891, a Lockheed Starliner, crashes due to a lightning strike shortly after taking off from Milan Malpensa Airport. All 68 passengers and crew on board are killed.
  • 1946 – The U. S. Army Air Force and Navy adopt “knot” and “nautical mile” as standard aeronautical units for speed and distance. A nautical mile is about 6.080 ft. (1,853 m), and knot is the equuivalent of one nautical mile per hour.
  • 1946 – Air Cadets were renamed the Royal Canadian Air Cadets by permission of H. M. the King.
  • 1945 – 468 B-29 s drop 3,058 tons (2,774,199 kg) of bombs on Osaka and other cities in Japan.
  • 1943 – 331 Wing, composed of Nos. 420, 424 and 425 (Bomber) Squadrons and commanded by G/C CR Dunlap, commenced operations in Tunisia.
  • 1940 – The Royal Air Force disbands the Advanced Air Striking Force. Since the German offensive in the West began on May 10, the AASF has lost 229 aircraft.
  • 1914 – The prototype Bristol S.S.A. (for Single-Seat Armoured), c.n. 219, a Henri Coanda single-seat tractor biplane design intended for production France, crashes on landing at Filton when an undercarriage bracing wire fails. Pilot Harry Busteed slightly injured, but airframe is severely damaged. The French authorities however agree to accept delivery of the type at the Breguet factory, where it is rebuilt, and Bristol takes no further part in its development.
  • 1911 – As spectators watch in amazement, Lincoln Beachey flies his Curtiss pusher biplane over Horseshoe Falls, the most spectacular of the Niagara Falls.
  • 1909 – The first commercial sale of an airplane in the United States is made as Glenn H. Curtiss sells one of his planes to the Aeronautic Society of New York for $7,500. This action spurs the Wright brothers to begin a patent suit to prevent him from selling airplanes without a license.
  • 1898 – Willy Messerschmitt, German aircraft designer, was born.
  • 1869 – Largest hydrogen balloon ever to make a free (untethered) ascent, makes a short flight from the Champs de Mars in Paris, France. It has a capacity of 424,000 cubic feet (c. 130,000 cubic meters).

References

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


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