7 interesting facts about aviation

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Today, December 7, is International Civil Aviation Day, established by the UN General Assembly in 1996 to draw attention to the achievements in this area. We, of course, could not miss this wonderful occasion and would like to present you with some interesting facts about aviation.

On December 17, 1903, an event happened that can be considered the starting point in the history of aviation. It was on this day that the first controlled flight of a man took place in an apparatus heavier than air with an engine. Its creators were brothers Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright. Interestingly, none of these talented inventors even graduated from high school. Before the start of the hobby of designing airplanes, the brothers worked in their own bicycle workshop and shop, where they sold printing presses, bicycles, engines and other mechanisms. However, many experts believe that the main merit of the Wright brothers is not the first flight, the priority of which is contested, but their discovery of the three axes of rotation of the aircraft, which allowed the pilots to effectively control the aircraft and maintain its balance during the flight.

At the dawn of aviation, military pilots wore white silk scarves, which gave their image a share of romance and heroism. However, this tradition arose not at all because of the love of beauty. During air combat, pilots had to constantly turn their heads 360 degrees in order to track the constantly changing air situation. At the same time, their neck was rubbed literally to blood with the rigid collar of the uniform. Therefore, they began to put on a soft silk scarf around their necks.

There is, perhaps, no more famous passenger aircraft in the world than the Boeing 747. At the time of its creation, this aircraft was the largest, heaviest and most capacious passenger airliner and remained so for 36 years. It was on the plane of this model that the world record was set for the maximum number of passengers carried in one flight. On May 24, 1991, during the transfer of Ethiopian Jews to Israel, the plane took on board 1,122 people. Initially, according to the plan, it was supposed to load 760 people on the plane, but the passengers turned out to be so light that it was decided to add additional loading. Interestingly, two babies were born during the flight, so there were more passengers at the destination airport than at the time of departure. For reference: Boeing 747 is designed to fly with 480 passengers on board.

The largest aircraft in the world is the An-225 "Mriya" - an extra-heavy transport jet aircraft developed by the OKB im. O. K. Antonova. It was designed and built in the USSR at the Kiev Mechanical Plant in 1984-1988. On March 22, 1989, the An-225 flew with a load of 156.3 tons, in which 110 world aviation records were simultaneously broken. And in August 2004, a new record was set, which has not yet been broken: An-225 transported a cargo weighing 250 tons from Prague to Tashkent with a stopover in Samara.

The largest accident in the history of civil aviation in terms of the number of victims occurred, surprisingly, on the ground. On the runway of Los Rodeos airport, the Boeing 747-206B of the KLM airline and the Boeing 747-121 of the Pan American airline collided. As a result, 583 people died. The accident was caused by a chain of tragic accidents, the first link of which was the explosion by terrorists of the movement for the independence and autonomy of the Canary Islands of a bomb at the largest airport in the Canary Islands, Las Palmas. As a result, it was closed, and all flights were redirected to Los Rodeos airport, where confusion arose.

More than 3 million people fly on passenger planes around the world every day. On a normal day, every 2 seconds, one plane takes off or lands somewhere. More than 5 billion people are transported by air every year. However, statistics show that only 5% of the world's population has ever flown by plane.

Many people are afraid to fly, but statistics claim that air travel is the safest form of transport. According to ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) calculations, there is only one accident per million departures. The probability that a passenger boarding a plane will die in a plane crash is approximately 1 / 8,000,000. This means that if a passenger takes a random flight every day, he will need to fly as much as 21,000 years to die in a crash. …