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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. 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

A Ryanair Boeing 737 on the landing roll at Bristol Airport

Ryanair is an airline based in Ireland. It is Europe's largest low-cost carrier, operating 209 low-fare routes to 94 destinations across 17 European countries. Over the years it has evolved into the world's most profitable airline, running at remarkable margins by relentlessly driving costs down. Ryanair has been characterised by rapid and continuing expansion, enabled by the deregulation of the air industry in Europe in 1997. It operates a fleet of 74 Boeing 737s, and currently has firm orders for an additional 225 Boeing 737-800 airplanes by 2010, with options on a further 193. Ryanair is one of Europe's most controversial companies, praised and criticised in equal measure. Its supporters praise its commitment to exceptionally low fares, its radical management, its populism, and its willingness to challenge what Ryanair calls the 'establishment' within the airline industry. Critics, meanwhile, have attacked its labor union policies, and have charged that it practises deceptive advertising. (Full article...)

More selected articles

Selected image

F-4 Phantom II

Credit: Master Sergeant Michael Ammons

A formation of F-4 Phantom II fighter aircraft fly in formation during a heritage flight demonstration here. The heritage flight program was established in 1997 to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the U.S. Air Force.

Did you know

...that in 1929 the Graf Zeppelin completed a circumnavigation of the globe in 21 days, 5 hours and 31 minutes? ...that during World War II, Marine Fighting Squadron 215 established four new U.S. Marine Corps records in the South Pacific including having the most ace pilots? ... that the airline Vildanden started its first route with wet leased aircraft from Coast Air?

General images -

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

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  "Governable parachute" design of 1852 (from History of aviation)
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  Early Voisin biplane (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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  "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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  Qantas De Havilland biplane, c. 1930 (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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  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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  Flagg biplane from 1933 (from History of aviation)
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  The economy class cabin of an Airbus A350 (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  Cathay Pacific's first class cabin on board a Boeing 747-400 (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  The Aeroplane of Victor Tatin, 1879. (from History of aviation)
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  Alberto Santos-Dumont flying the Demoiselle over Paris (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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  The business class cabin on an A350 (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  Cessna CitationJet/M2, part of the Citation family of business jets (from General aviation)
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  Robinson R22, a light piston-engine helicopter (from General 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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  Apollo 11 lifts off on its mission to land a man on the Moon (from History of aviation)
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  La France flying in 1885 (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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  German Taube monoplane, illustration from 1917 (from History of aviation)
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  Planophore model aeroplane by Alphonse Pénaud, 1871 (from History of aviation)
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  Some wide-body jets: a Boeing 777 of United in the foreground, one Boeing 787s and one Boeing 777 of Air Canada, and two Airbus A380s; one of Singapore Airlines and the other of Thai Airways International. (from Wide-body aircraft)
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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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  Sailplane, a Rolladen-Schneider LS4 (from General 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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  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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  Otto Lilienthal, 29 May 1895 (from History of aviation)
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  One of Leonardo's sketches (from History of aviation)
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  Daedalus working on Icarus' wings (from History of aviation)
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  General aviation aircraft at Cheb Airfield in Czech Republic (from General 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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  The Wright Military Flyer aboard a wagon in 1908 (from History of aviation)
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  Leonardo da Vinci's ornithopter design (from History of aviation)
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  Map of record breaking flights of the 1920s (from History of aviation)
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  Félix du Temple's 1874 Monoplane (from History of aviation)
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  Clément Ader Avion III (1897 photograph) (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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  Maxim's flying machine (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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  Me 262, world first operational jet fighter (from History of aviation)
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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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  The Biot-Massia glider, restored and on display in the Musee de l'Air (from History of aviation)
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  The 14-bis, or Oiseau de proie (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

Related portals

Associated Wikimedia

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

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  Commons
  Free media repository

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  Wikibooks
  Free textbooks and manuals

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  Wikidata
  Free knowledge base

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  Wikinews
  Free-content news

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  Wikiquote
  Collection of quotations

• 

  Wikisource
  Free-content library

• 

  Wikiversity
  Free learning tools

• 

  Wikivoyage
  Free travel guide

• 

  Wiktionary
  Dictionary and thesaurus

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

Dash 8 300 landing at Bristol (UK)

The de Havilland Canada DHC-8, popularly the Dash 8, is a series of twin-turboprop airliners designed by de Havilland Canada in the early 1980s. They are now made by Bombardier Aerospace which purchased DHC from Boeing in 1992. Since 1996 the aircraft have been known as the Q Series, for "quiet", due to installation of the Active Noise and Vibration Suppression (ANVS) system designed to reduce cabin noise and vibration levels to near those of jet airliners.

Notable features of the Dash 8 design are the large T-tail intended to keep the tail free of propwash during takeoff, a very high aspect ratio wing, the elongated engine nacelles also holding the rearward-folding landing gear, and the pointed nose profile. First flight was in 1983, and the plane entered service in 1984 with NorOntair. Piedmont Airlines (formerly Henson Airlines) was the US launch customer for the Dash 8 in 1984.

The Dash 8 design had better cruise performance than the earlier Dash 7, was less expensive to operate, and more notably, much less expensive to maintain. The Dash 8 had the lowest costs per passenger mile of any feederliner of the era. The only disadvantage compared to the earlier Dash 7 was somewhat higher noise levels, but only in comparison as the Dash 7 was notable in the industry for extremely low noise due to its four very large and slow-turning propellers.

• Length: 107 ft 9 in (32.84 m)
• Wingspan: 93 ft 3 in (32.84 m)
• Height: 27 ft 5 in (8.34 m)
• Powerplant: 2× Pratt & Whitney Canada PW150A turboprops, 5,071 shp (3,781 kW) each
• Cruise speed: 360 knots (414 mph, 667 km/h)
• Maiden Flight: June 20, 1983

Today in Aviation

November 21

• 2012 – a Yemeni Air Force Antonov An-26, a twin-engine turboprop military transport aircraft, crashed in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, resulting in the deaths of all ten individuals on board, including five military officers.

• 2012 – A ceasefire brings fighting in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas to an end.

• 2012 – JetBlue Flight 1329: An Embraer E190, taxis to its gate after landing at Baltimore-Washington International Airport in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, a fire breaks out in one of its engines. After the airliner reaches its gate, everyone on board evacuates the plane uninjured via the jetway while firefighters douse the fire.

• 2004 – China Eastern Airlines Flight 5210, a Bombardier CRJ200, stalls and crashes near Baotou, China shortly after takeoff because of frost contamination; all 53 on board and two people on the ground are killed.

• 2003 – OH-58D Kiowa 92-0605 from D Troop, 1–17 Cavalry Regiment written off, reason unknown.

• 1990 – First flight of the Hongdu JL-8

• 1989 – A British Airways Boeing 747 narrowly misses crashing into the Penta hotel near Heathrow Airport

• 1986 – The first ever RAF air-to-air refuelling of a fully-loaded passenger carrying transport aircraft. It was carried out on a trooper flight to Oman as part of Exercise Saif Sareea. The refuelling took place over Sicily as part of the 4,200 mile, 9 h flight.

• 1981 – Aeroflot is banned from flying to the United States, after an earlier Aeroflot flight that overflew American military installations, straying from its supposed flight path.

• 1980 – Continental Micronesia Flight 614, a Boeing 727, crashes on landing at Yap International Airport; all on board survive.

• 1970 – US aircraft begin the first major bombing campaign of North Vietnam since 1968. 300 aircraft attack the Mu Gia and Ban Gari passes.

• 1959 – Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 202, a Douglas DC-4, crashes after an apparent in-flight fire, killing 24 of 27 on board.

• 1958 – Fairey Gannet AS.1, WN345, fitted with Armstrong Siddeley ASMD.8 Double Mamba 112 coupled turboprop powerplant, suffers belly landing this date during test programme, caused by a partially retracted nosewheel. The pilot tries unsuccessfully to get the gear to deploy. Lands gear-up on foam-covered runway 22 at Bitteswell, suffering minimal damage. Repaired, it is back in the air within weeks.

• 1952 – First flight of the Percival Pembroke

• 1948 – The Roundel, the RCAF service publication, made its first appearance.

• 1947 – First flight of the Grumman F9F Panther

• 1917 – 21-24 – The Zeppelin LZ-104 "Das Afrika-Schiff" makes a 6,757 km journey through Africa in 96 hours (average speed 71 km/h).

• 1914 – Three RNAS Avro 504s bomb the Zeppelin sheds at Friedrichshafen.

• 1783 – In a flight lasting 25 min, de Rozier and d'Arlandes take the first untethered ride in a Montgolfière in Paris, the first human passengers carried in free flight by a hot-air balloon.

References

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