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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 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...)

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Microburst schematic from NASA. Note the downward motion of the air until it hits ground level, then spreads outward in all directions. The wind regime in a microburst is completely opposite to a tornado.
Microburst schematic from NASA. Note the downward motion of the air until it hits ground level, then spreads outward in all directions. The wind regime in a microburst is completely opposite to a tornado.
Wind shear, sometimes referred to as windshear or wind gradient, is a difference in wind speed and direction over a relatively short distance in the atmosphere. Wind shear can be broken down into vertical and horizontal components, with horizontal wind shear seen across weather fronts and near the coast, and vertical shear typically near the surface, though also at higher levels in the atmosphere near upper level jets and frontal zones aloft.

Wind shear itself is a microscale meteorological phenomenon occurring over a very small distance, but it can be associated with mesoscale or synoptic scale weather features such as squall lines and cold fronts. It is commonly observed near microbursts and downbursts caused by thunderstorms, weather fronts, areas of locally higher low level winds referred to as low level jets, near mountains, radiation inversions that occur due to clear skies and calm winds, buildings, wind turbines, and sailboats. Wind shear has a significant effect during take-off and landing of aircraft due to their effects on steering of the aircraft, and was a significant cause of aircraft accidents involving large loss of life within the United States.

Sound movement through the atmosphere is affected by wind shear, which can bend the wave front, causing sounds to be heard where they normally would not, or vice versa. Strong vertical wind shear within the troposphere also inhibits tropical cyclone development, but helps to organize individual thunderstorms into living longer life cycles which can then produce severe weather. The thermal wind concept explains with how differences in wind speed with height are dependent on horizontal temperature differences, and explains the existence of the jet stream. (Full article...)

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Credit: US Air Force photo
Wingtip vortices are visible trailing from an F-15E Strike Eagle as it disengages from midair refueling with a KC-10 Extender during Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Did you know

...the study of airmail is known as aerophilately? ...that the Aerocar Coot was a two-seat amphibious aircraft designed for home-building by Moulton Taylor? ... that 820 Naval Air Squadron was involved in attacks on the German battleships Bismarck and Tirpitz during the Second World War?

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

In the news

Wikinews Aviation portal
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Selected biography

Wiley Hardeman Post (November 22, 1898 – August 15, 1935) was the first pilot to fly solo around the world. Also known for his work in high altitude flying, Post helped develop one of the first pressure suits. His plywood aircraft, the Winnie Mae[1] is on display at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, VA, and his pressure suit is being prepared for display at the same location. On August 15, 1935, Post and American humorist Will Rogers were killed when Post's plane crashed on takeoff from a lagoon near Point Barrow, Alaska.

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
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Today in Aviation

October 7

  • 2009 – A Libyan Air Force Mikoyan MiG-23 Flogger crashes while taking part during an airshow for the Third Libyan Aviation Exhibition, LAVEX 2009 held at Mitiga International Airport, Tripoli, Libya. The aircraft travelling at low-level hit a one-storey house in the suburb of Souq Al-Jumaa in Tripoli killing the 2 crew and injuring two civilians.
  • 2008 – Qantas Flight 72 an Airbus A330-300 makes an emergency landing in Exmouth, Australia following a rapid descent that leaves over 70 people injured, 14 of them seriously.
  • 2003 – OH-58D Kiowa (92-0578) crashes inside Iraq, pilots survive.[4]
  • 2002 – Launch: Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-112 at 19:45:51 UTC. Mission highlights: ISS assembly flight 9A: S1 truss.
  • 1996 – First flight of the Boeing 777-200ER
  • 1982 – BA-55 a Belgian Air Force Dassault Mirage 5BA crashed into a quarry at Bierset, pilot killed.
  • 1963 – First flight of the Learjet 23 prototype, the very first Learjet built.
  • 1944 – The RCAF’s No. 6 Group struck at Dortmund; they lost only two out of a record 293 bombers.
  • 1944 – Luftwaffe night fighter ace Oberstleutnant Helmut Lent is fatally injured when his Junkers Ju 88G-6 night fighter crashes during a landing approach after a routine transit flight. He dies two days later, with his score at 110 kills, 103 of them at night.
  • 1934 – First flight of the First prototype Tupolev ANT-40RT which becomes Tupolev SB
  • 1932 – First flight of the Stipa-Caproni, a prototype aircraft employing Luigi Stipa’s “intubed propeller” concept, a forerunner of jet propulsion.
  • 1926 – The Boeing FB-5 (production version) makes its first flight.
  • 1909 – Glenn Curtiss becomes the first American to hold an FAI airplane certificate.
  • 1908 – Edith Ogilby Berg became the first American woman airplane passenger when she flew with Wilbur Wright.
  • 1903 – Samuel Pierpont Langley conducts the first tests of his full-sized man-carrying version of his earlier model aerodromes. The pilot, Charles Manly, nearly drowns when the machine slides off its launch apparatus atop a houseboat and falls into the Potomac River.
  • 1849 – Frenchman Francisque Arban flies over the Alps in a free balloon (Marseille-Subini near Turin).

References

  1. ^ Winnie Mae
  2. ^ Yenne 2003), pp. 281–283.
  3. ^ Milberry 1979, p. 137.
  4. ^ "1992 USAF Serial Numbers". Retrieved 17 February 2010.
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