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A Boeing 747

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 craft 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

BAE Systems' offices in Farnborough, UK

BAE Systems is a British defence and aerospace company headquartered in London, UK, which has worldwide interests, particularly in North America through its subsidiary BAE Systems Inc. BAE is the world's seventh-largest defence contractor and the largest in Europe. BAE was formed on 30 November 1999 by the £7.7 billion merger of two British companies: Marconi Electronic Systems, the defence electronics and naval shipbuilding subsidiary of the General Electric Company plc (GEC) and aircraft, munitions and naval systems manufacturer British Aerospace (BAe). It has increasingly disengaged from its businesses in continental Europe in favour of investing in the United States. Since its formation it has sold its shares of Airbus, EADS Astrium, AMS and Atlas Elektronik. BAE Systems is involved in several major defence projects, including the F-35 Lightning II, the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Royal Navy Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. The company has been the subject of criticism, both general opposition to the arms trade and also specific allegations of unethical and corrupt practices, including the Al-Yamama contracts with Saudi Arabia that have earned BAE and its predecessor £43 billion in twenty years. (Full article...)

More selected articles

Selected image

wide-body aircraft

Credit: Clem Tillier

An overlay diagram showing four of the largest wide-body aircraft ever built, the Hughes H-4 Hercules (the "Spruce Goose", aircraft with the greatest wingspan), the Antonov An-225 Mriya (the largest freight aircraft), the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental (soon to be the largest version of the Jumbojet), and the Airbus A380-800 (the largest passenger aircraft).

Did you know

Fokker Spin

...that the Fokker Spin (pictured) was the first aircraft built by Anthony Fokker, in which he taught himself to fly and earned his pilot license? ...that the airfields captured in the battle of Tinian were used for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? ... that the first exhibition at the Boeing Galleries was a series of photographs taken from helicopters and hot air balloons?

General images -

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

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  Sailplane, a Rolladen-Schneider LS4 (from General aviation)
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  Flagg biplane from 1933 (from History of aviation)
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  General aviation aircraft at Cheb Airport in Czech Republic (from General aviation)
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  Leonardo da Vinci's ornithopter design (from History of aviation)
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  Planophore model aeroplane by Alphonse Pénaud, 1871 (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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  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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  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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  Maxim's flying machine (from History of aviation)
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  Map of record breaking flights of the 1920s (from History of aviation)
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  The Aeroplane of Victor Tatin, 1879. (from History of aviation)
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  Me 262, world first operational jet fighter (from History of aviation)
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  Qantas De Havilland biplane, c. 1930 (from History of aviation)
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  One of Leonardo's sketches (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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  La France flying in 1885 (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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  Daedalus working on Icarus' wings (from History of aviation)
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  Clément Ader Avion III (1897 photograph) (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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  First failure of Langley's manned Aerodrome on the Potomac River, 7 October 1903 (from History of aviation)
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  Alberto Santos-Dumont flying the Demoiselle over Paris (from History of aviation)
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  Félix du Temple's 1874 Monoplane (from History of aviation)
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  "Governable parachute" design of 1852 (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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  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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  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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  The business class cabin on an A350 (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  Robinson R22, a light piston-engine helicopter (from General 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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  The Biot-Massia glider, restored and on display in the Musee de l'Air (from History of 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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  The economy class cabin of an Airbus A350 (from Wide-body aircraft)
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  The Wright Military Flyer aboard a wagon in 1908 (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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  "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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  German Taube monoplane, illustration from 1917 (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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  Otto Lilienthal, 29 May 1895 (from History of aviation)
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  The 14-bis, or Oiseau de proie (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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  Jean-Marie Le Bris and his flying machine, Albatros II, 1868 (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

The Yakovlev Yak-42 is a line of tri-jet aircraft produced by the aircraft company Yakolev. The Yak 42 was produced from 1980-2003.

Historically, the yak-42 was competition for older Russian aircraft companies. The Yak-42 was only made in one passenger variant, but it was used in many tests of equipment.

• Crew: 3
• Span: 114 ft 5 in (34.88 m)
• Length: 119 ft 4 in (36.38 m)
• Height: 32 ft 3 in (9.83 m)
• Engines: 3× Lotarev D-36 turbofan
• Cruise Speed: 740 km/h (399 knots, 460 mph) (economy cruise)
• Range: 4,000 km (2,158 nmi, 2,458 mi) (with maximum fuel)

Today in Aviation

May 16

• 2013 – Nepal Airlines Flight 555, the de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter 9N-ABO, skids off the runway at Jomsom Airport in Jomsom, Nepal, and falls 20 meters (65 feet) into the Gandaki River. All 21 people on board survive, but seven suffer serious injuries.

• 2011 – Launch: Space Shuttle Endeavour STS-134 at 12:56:28 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight ULF6, ELC 3, ROEU, Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer. Final flight of Endeavour.

• 2001 – A Turkish Air Force CASA CN-235M-100 crashes into a field in Malatya, Turkey killing all 34 on board.

• 1995 – A Royal Air Force BAe Nimrod is forced to ditch in Moray Firth

• 1992 – STS-49, maiden flight of the Space Shuttle Endeavour lands at Edwards AFB.

• 1992 – Munich-Riem Airport, the main, international airport of Munich until is closed down. Operations moved to the new location near Freising. The IATA airport code MUC and the ICAO airport code EDDM were transferred to the new Munich Franz Josef Strauss Airport.

• 1992 – The 2,000th C-130 Hercules rolls off the production line.

• 1986 – Top Gun (film) opens in theaters in United States.

• 1977 – The landing gear failed on a New York Airways Sikorsky S-61 while it was taking on passengers on the roof of the Pan Am building. The aircraft rolled onto its side. Its spinning rotor blades killed four passengers waiting to board (including movie director Michael Findlay) and injured a fifth. Parts of a broken blade fell into the streets below, killing one pedestrian and injuring another.

• 1969 – Venera 5, probe in the Soviet space program Venera lands on Venus.

• 1968 – A British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) Super Vickers VC10 on a routine service from Chicago and Montreal makes the airline’s first fully automatic approach and landing in London.

• 1961 – First flight of Mikoyan/Gurevich Ye-152/1, Soviet single-seat fighter/interceptor aircraft.

• 1959 – Newly-formed RCAF aerobatic team, the Golden Hawks, flying gold-finished North American F-86 Sabre, performed its first demonstration at Torbay, Newfoundland.

• 1958 – Captain Walter W. Irwin sets a new airspeed record of 1,404 mph (2,259 km/h) in a F-104 Starfighter, the first record over 2,000 km/h.

• 1957 – First flight of the Saunders-Roe SR.53, prototype interceptor aircraft of mixed jet and rocket propulsion developed for the Royal Air Force.

• 1954 – Birth of Dafydd Rhys "Dave" Williams, Canadian physician and a retired CSA astronaut. He had two space flights, both of which were Space Shuttle missions.

• 1953 – 90 U. S. Air Force Republic F-84 Thunderjets carry out a successful attack against Chusan, Korea.

• 1946 – A B-17G Flying Fortress crashes into White's Hill near Fairfax, California, while en route to Hamilton Field in Marin County, California, after running out of fuel. Two crew members are killed.

• 1945 – Birth of Brewster Hopkinson Shaw, Jr. former NASA astronaut, veteran of three space shuttle missions and has logged 533 hours of space flight. He was pilot of Space Shuttle Columbia in November 1983, commander of Space Shuttle Atlantis in November 1985 and commander of Space Shuttle Columbia in August 1989.

• 1945 – (16-17) British Pacific Fleet carrier aircraft strike Japanese airfields in the Sakishima Gunto.

• 1943 – Launch of Operation Chastise, attack on German dams by Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron, subsequently known as the "Dambusters", using a specially developed "bouncing bomb" invented and developed by Barnes Wallis.

• 1942 – Canadian Pacific Airlines was formed.

• 1940 – Death of Allen Benjamin Angus, DFC, Canadian WWII fighter pilot and first Canadian ace of WWII.

• 1930 – First flight of the Blériot Bl-110 nicknamed 'Joseph Le Brix', French high wing single engine monoplane prototype designed for endurance records.

• 1929 – Wings, a silent film about World War I fighter pilots, is the first film, and the only silent film ever, to win the Academy Award for Best Picture.

• 1920 – Birth of Joseph Otis Fletcher, American Air Force pilot and polar researcher, first pilot to land at the North Pole along with William Pershing Benedict with a Douglas C-47 Skytrain.

• 1919 – A naval Curtiss aircraft NC-4 commanded by Albert Cushing Read leaves Trepassey, Newfoundland, for Lisbon via the Azores on the first transatlantic flight.

• 1918 – The Imperial German Navy recommissions the light cruiser Stuttgart after her conversion into a seaplane carrier. She is the only German seagoing aviation ship capable of working with the fleet commissioned during either World War I or World War II.

• 1917 – Death of Enrico Cottino and Francesco Guadalupi in their Farman 14.

• 1915 – (16-17 overnight) Two Royal Naval Air Service Avro 504s interceot the Imperial German Navy Zeppelins LZ 38 and LZ 39, badly damaging LZ39 with four 20-lb (9-kg) bombs dropped on its envelope from above.

• 1890 – Birth of http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucien_Bossoutrot, French pioneer aviator and politician.

References

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