Indian Aviation - Wings Demystified

Rocket Launch Vehicle Cryogenic Stage Fully Qualified on Ground

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 12:08:00 +0000

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has achieved self-reliance in the third stage of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) through the successful test of indigenously developed Cryogenic Stage, which was till now powered by Russian version. The test was conducted for flight duration of 720 seconds on November 15, 2007 at Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), Mahendragiri, Tamil Nadu. The test is declared complete success.

With this test, the indigenous Cryogenic Upper Stage has been fully qualified on the ground. ISRO spokesperson said “The next test will now be on a GSLV rocket and the mission is slated for lift-off in the middle of 2008.” The next GSLV mission is GSLV-D3.

The successful ground test of the indigenous Cryogenic Upper Stage for the full flight duration has validated the design robustness and performance adequacy for its use in GSLV.

Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft Agreement Signed Between India and Russia

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 09:25:00 +0000

Relationship between India and Russia reached another milestone with the Intergovernmental Agreement for ‘co-development’ of a Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA), a truly contemporary air-superiority aircraft that should be inducted around 2012-15 and serve the Indian Air Force through the next 30-40 years. The landmark agreement was signed during the seventh session of the Indo-Russian Inter-Governmental Commission (IRIGC) on Military-Technical Cooperation by Indian Defence Minister A K Antony and his Russian counterpart Anatoly Serdyukov on 18th October 2007. It had taken six years of prolonged negotiations before the deal could be finalised in January this year.

Speaking to reporters shortly after the signing ceremony, Mr Antony said “We will further strengthen all-round defence cooperation and extend it to the future”. He continued saying “We have decided to expand our cooperation in R&D and have more co-development and co-production projects in aviation and other defence hardware.”

Mikhail Pogosyan, General Director of the Sukhoi aircraft company said, joint work on the project would be modeled along the lines of the BrahMos missile joint venture. He further said, “We will share the funding, engineering and intellectual property in a 50-50 proportion”.

The fifth-generation fighter deal was signed along with other important agreements such as transfer of technology to India to produce the RD-33 engines for India’s MiG-29 fleet (and the maritime version fighters to be delivered with the Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier) and a protocol of intent for the joint development and production of a Multi-role Transport Aircraft (MTA).

Indian version of the combat aircraft will be different from the Russian because of the specific Indian requirements.

Indian Subsonic Cruise Missile Nirbhay is on Development

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:19:00 +0000

DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) scientists are currently working on a long-range, subsonic cruise missile, Nirbhay. Nirbhay is a hindi word which means dauntless or fearless. Avinash Chander, the director of the Advanced Systems Laboratory, Hyderabad, in an seminar gave lot of information on the current developments and specifications of Nirbhay.

As of now, India had been very successful with six missile projects. They are, Agni, Prithvi, Brahmos, Akash, Trishul and Nag. Nirbhay is the seventh missile development project in India. Nirbhay comes under the same class as the American Tomahawk which gave a shock during the 1991 Gulf war and Nirbhay would have a range of 1000km which is 300km longer than Pakistan’s subsonic cruise missile Hatf-VII Babur. It’s approximately the distance between Delhi and Mumbai. Babur can cover ranges from 500km to 700km while the American Tomahawk right now can cover a range in excess of 1500km.

Avinash Chander said, “Every modern military needs to have missile options. The requirement for Nirbhay was projected by all three armed forces to fill a gap in our missile programme”. He further said, “We have Brahmos, which is a supersonic cruise missile and the need was felt for a subsonic cruise missile that will be capable of being launched from multiple platforms in land, air and sea”. The Indian military plans to mount Nirbhay on several upcoming platforms, including submarines.

Cruise missile is a missile that is guided to the target. Thus, Nirbhay will have a terrain identification system onboard that will continuously guide the missile through its course to the target by relaying information to its guidance and propulsion systems. Also, it follows a ground hugging, terrain hugging or nap-of-the-earth flight, which means that the missile is capable of flying near to the ground so that it can become completely undetected by ground based radar.

The design of the missile system is complete and right now the hardware development is going on. The missile is expected to weigh around 1000kg and to travel at 0.7 mach (approx. 850kmph). It would be capable of delivering 24 different types of warheads. The technology demonstration of the missile is expected to be in 2009.

Sunita Williams at Zephyr 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 18:50:00 +0000

Sunita Williams, NASA Astronaut, gave a guest lecture at Zephyr 2007 on experiences of her recent space journey to the International Space Station (ISS), an aero festival organised by aerospace engineering department of IIT Bombay, Powai, on 6th October. It was an interactive session where the students were able to get the real scenario in the space.

Recently in her space journey to ISS, Sunita Williams had completed 195 days in space, which is the longest uninterrupted stay by a woman. Also, she holds the record for the maximum duration of space walk by a woman (29 hours and 17 minutes), because of the tasks she carried out outside the International Space Station. And she is the only astronaut to have run a marathon in space.

Sunita Williams in her address described her recent space journey to the ISS as “beautiful summer vacation”. During her address, she gave running lectures on a video footage taken in the ISS. She spoke about the ISS, the countries involved in the formation of the ISS, her zero gravity experience in the space station, kind of work in the space station, maintaining fitness in the space station, communication to the earth and finally about the return journey to the earth.

Her lecture had been taken as a video and posted in the following links. Watch the videos to get to know more about the happenings in the International Space Station.

Part 1: http://www.domain-b.com/aero/video_index.aspx?id=69

Part 2: http://www.domain-b.com/aero/video_index.aspx?id=70

Part 3: http://www.domain-b.com/aero/video_index.aspx?id=71

Part 4: http://www.domain-b.com/aero/video_index.aspx?id=72

Future Plans of NAL by Dr Upadhya at Zephyr 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 12:48:00 +0000

Dr AR Upadhya, director of National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), gave a lecture on “Future Plans of NAL” at Zephyr 2007, an aero festival organised by aerospace engineering department of IIT Bombay, Powai, on 6th October. The lecture was really an eye opener for students for making an interesting career in NAL. Dr Upadhya clearly showcased the quality of work done in NAL and as a final note made an appeal to the IIT students to consider the kind of work at NAL, which the private companies, who are right now attracting brightest and the best talents in the country by giving high salary, could in no way match.

NAL is already ready with two prototypes of the rear mounted twin-engine Saras. The prototypes are powered by Pratt & Whitney engines and had had a successful maiden flight on 14 April 2007. The flight certification is expected in 2009. Dr Upadhya pointed out that the aircraft overweighed 500kg earlier but with the use of light carbon-fibre composites, the weight has been reduced considerably.

NAL’s most ambitious project is development and production of regional jet which will come in three variations – a 70-seater, 50-seater and a 90-seater. The jet will be lighter and thus more fuel-efficient so as to successfully compete with other regional jet makers in different countries.

NAL is also currently working on NM5, an aircraft which is either four or six seater, in partnership with Mahindra Plexion, and the first flight of the prototype is expected to take place by the end of 2008. NAL also has longstanding foreign collaboration with China Aerospace, the jet turbine maker Pratt & Whitney and many others in different countries.

NAL has made number of achievements in the field of carbon fibre composites. It has developed a low-cost method with vacuum-enhanced resin infusion technology for making composite components. These components are being used in Saras. In fact, the wings of India's fourth-generation Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) have composite components developed by NAL. Also, the middle part of the fuselage and airframe and the doors for the landing gear were developed by NAL. The composite technology is right now used in making radomes of Doppler radars too.

NAL has also developed Zirconi-based ceramic inserts for launch vehicles to tolerate temperatures up to 3,200 degrees Kelvin. Right now, the development of Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs) for the fins of the reusable launch vehicles and the technology to burn fuel at supersonic speeds in scramjets used in air-breathing hypersonic launch vehicle, for ISRO, are going on.

In engine field, NAL has developed a prototype for a 55 HP Wankel rotary engine and currently working on integration of microgas turbine, for which all parts are ready. Another field is development of micro-air vehicles, for surveillance purposes.

Apart from these, NAL is specialized in failure analysis and is involved in crash investigations. It is also specialized in development of test equipments like wind tunnels, aero-elastic modeling, G-meters, active noise control devices, semi-free jet test rig (developed along with Pratt & Whitey), computational fluid dynamics, flow visualization and pressure-sensitive paint and a software to monitor aircraft performance.

Future Plans of VSSC and Chandrayaan Mission – Dr Suresh’s Lecture at Zephyr

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 06:30:00 +0000

On the second day, October 6th at Zephyr 2007, Dr Suresh, Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) gave an lecture on “ISRO’s Chandrayaan Mission and Future Plans of VSSC”. As I said in the previous article, the eagerness in the audience could be noticed clearly as the auditorium was jam-packed with bubbling students on the very morning of the day. Everyone was very keen in listening to his lecture. Like the day before, his lecture was excellent with lots of information to digest.

In his lecture, he spoke about the projects currently undertaken by VSSC, step by step development in the Indian space program, objectives of ISRO and VSSC, application of space technology and the Chandrayaan moon mission.

He said that VSSC is currently working on the Chandrayaan unmanned moon landing mission, air-breathing hypersonic launch vehicles, reusable launch vehicle like the space shuttle, indigenous cryogenic engine and cheaper launch vehicles.

Then, he started briefing on the development of the Indian space program from 1960s. He mentioned that the Indian aerospace made history note as earlier during the time of Tipu Sultan, when Sultan used 3.5 kg rocket with 2 kg of gunpowder that could fly a distance of 1.5 km against the British.

He spoke about the sounding rockets in 1960s, the launch of experimental satellites into orbit with the solid-fuel analog guided Satellite Launch Vehicles (SLV) in the 1970s, the Augmented Satellite Launch Vehicles (ASLV) that had liquid-fuelled strap-on boosters and a closed-loop inertial guidance system in the 1980s, the four-stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles (PSLV) that successfully launched remote sensing satellites into polar and sun-synchronous orbits and the most recent three-stage Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV – F04) with a third cryogenic stage that successfully launched a communication satellite INSAT – 4CR on 2nd September 2007.

Dr Suresh then said that the present concern in space industry is to make every launch cost-effective as the space technology has tremendous applications in remote sensing, agriculture, forestry, mining and oil exploration, as well as in disaster management. Right now, the principal objective of ISRO and VSSC is to reduce the cost from the present $20,000 per kg first to $2,000 per kg and then to $500 per kg. The final objective, he said, is to bring down launch costs to $200 per kg.

For fulfilling the above objective, he said, ISRO and VSSC had already initiated work on air-breathing hypersonic launch vehicles that could increase payload efficiencies, as they do not carry oxidisers in addition to fuel, reusable launch vehicles that could be used again and again, thus reducing costs and developing the more economical two-stage and then single-stage rockets for launching smaller spacecraft.

Finally, he spoke about the Chandrayaan moon mission, where a lunar craft would be launched using a PSLV next year. He said the lunar craft would be initially put in the 30,000km Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) and then onboard boosters would be fired so that it gets transferred to Extended Transfer Orbit (ETO), which would enable it to gain escape velocity for leaving earth’s atmosphere and finally reach moon to get placed in a polar orbit at a distance 100km above the moon’s surface in 5 days. To know more about chandrayaan, read the following articles.

How Chandrayaan Started?

More Information about Chandrayaan

Dr. Annadurai Lecture on Chandrayaan

Dr Suresh Lecture at Zephyr - Investigation of Failures in Launch Vehicles

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:05:00 +0000

Zephyr is an aero festival organised by aerospace engineering department of IIT Bombay. This year, Zephyr 2007 was organised from October 5th to 7th. On the evening of October 5th, Dr B Suresh, Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC), gave an inaugural address on failures experienced by ISRO and VSSC in the Indian space initiatives. He pointed out that ISRO's failure rates were more or less comparable with those of space programmes the world over, which is very remarkable because ISRO learned and developed only by its own experience, as the space programmes all over the world maintain secrecy and doesn’t share with their experience or data.

Starting from the failure of its first ever rocket, the SLV3, on 18 august 1979, he said that failure and success are separated by a very thin, but extremely critical line. Failure is expensive, as each PSLV and GSLV mission that fails costs between Rs 300-350 crore.

He also said that among India's four major launch vehicles - SLV, ASLV, PSLV, and GSLV - the PSLV programme has been most successful, with only one failure in 12 launches. He then mentioned that the initial launch failures experienced by ISRO were mainly due to equipment failures, as time went on ISRO gained great experience and now equipment failures became rare and only human failures more common cause of disasters.

Pointing out that the first PSLV launch failure resulted from a single solenoid valve that did not close properly owing to a dust particle and the GSLV failure in 2006 that resulted from a one-mm larger aperture in one of the strap-on boosters, Dr Suresh said the failure of even a small critical system amongst hundreds of such systems can make all the difference.

However, ISRO has limited the number of failures by setting up failure analysis committees, where the committee thoroughly analysis the data obtained from each failure. In fact the re-entry vehicle tested earlier this year in preparation for our lunar mission Chandrayaan, and for possible manned flights in future, exceeded the parameters prescribed for it, and could be described as close to perfect. By his address, the first day of Zephyr 2007 came to an end and everyone was eager to listen to his next lecture on the second day morning, i.e., on 6th of October.

Zephyr 2007 at IIT Bombay

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 08:47:00 +0000

Zephyr is an aero festival organised by aerospace engineering department of IIT Bombay. Over the past six years, Zephyr has drawn huge crowd with good participation from eminent colleges across the country. This year, Zephyr 2007 was organised from October 5^th to 7^th. The three-day long festival saw a variety of events including workshops, competitions, paper presentations, debates and guest lectures by eminent personalities. Also, it was held along with golden jubilee celebrations of IIT Bombay.

On the evening of October 5th, the festival started with an inaugural address by Dr B Suresh, Director of the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC). Before Dr Suresh's address, the film “16 days: Columbia's Final Mission” on the disastrous space shuttle flight that resulted in the death of Kalpana Chawla and six other astronauts and another film on the Challenger space shuttle disaster was screened.

On the second day, Dr Suresh was the first speaker. He spoke about ISRO's Chandrayan mission and the future plans of VSSC. Other eminent speakers on the day were Dr AR Upadhya of the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL), P Venugopal of 'BrahMos' and Pulak Sen. Dr Upadhya spoke about the future plans of NAL, P Venugopal gave a lecture on BrahMos supersonic cruise missile and Pulak Sen spoke on the history of Indian aviation.

Later on the day, the keynote speaker, NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, hosted an interactive session on her recent flight on the space shuttle and the longest stay ever in space aboard the International Space Station by a woman. She holds three records for female space travelers: longest spaceflight (195 days), number of space walks (four), and total time spent on spacewalks (29 hours and 17 minutes).

These sessions were then followed by a display of fighter helicopters by the Indian Air Force (IAF), and an astronomy workshop in the night after 9pm.

Day three was full of excitement and enthusiasm with students participating in interesting events, competitions, presentations and quiz. More information about the events and the lectures will soon be updated in this blog. Keep visiting and reading.

Dr. Annadurai Lecture on Chandrayaan

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 14:06:00 +0000

Dr. M. Annadurai, Project Director of Chandrayaan 1, came to Chennai for delivering a lecture on Chandrayaan in Shaastra, a technical festival conducted by IIT Madras, on October 6. The Key information from his lecture is as follows

The main aim of the project was not just to develop lunar science but to understand the moon itself.
Previous coverage of the moon was restricted only to some areas, but Chandrayaan will cover entire moon.
Also, nine lunar missions from the earth that took place between 1958 and 1976 were mainly due to the competition between the USA and the USSR, to prove their technical supremacy. But, Chandrayaan will look for fossil fuels on moon and thus becomes more important.
By the year 2010, Chandrayaan will provide for the first time the entire coverage of the moon, including its polar regions.
The lunar mission also gains importance in the light of space tourism and as an alternative establishment for human civilization due to the burgeoning population on earth.

Yu Fly Air Show in Shaastra

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 09:32:00 +0000

Shaastra, the technical festival of IIT-Madras started with overwhelming response. ‘Yu-Fly’, a project undertaken by the second year students of IIT-M, featuring Vertical Take Off and Landing) VTOL aircrafts was demonstrated yesterday. The Yu-Fly project implements a working model of the VTOL aircraft based on a principle called the “Coanda Effect”.

In general, a lift is produced when there is a pressure difference in the wings of the aircraft, i.e, low pressure in the top and high pressure in the bottom of the wing. Since atmospheric pressure is high enough, if we just create a low pressure on the top of the wing, we can generate lift. This is where the Coanda Effect can help us in providing vertical thrust. The Coanda Effect states that fluid flowing on a surface sticks to the surface rather than flowing tangentially to it. It is easily demonstrated by holding the back of a spoon vertically under a thin stream of water (See the figure below).

The Coanda Effect works with any of our usual fluids, such as air at usual temperatures, pressures, and speeds. The air stream gets pushed against a surface, even when the surface is curved away from the direction of flow. The air pressure between the air stream and surface is lower if the surface is curved away from the flow. When blowing an air stream close to a solid surface, there is a drop of air pressure in between the air stream and the surface. The ambient air at the other sides of the air stream and surface pushes the two together as it has higher pressure than the pressure in between the two. And further if surface is curved, the curved surface causes a continuing acceleration of the air stream, and thus a continuing area of low pressure between the air stream and the surface. Thus, applying Coanda Effect on the top of the wing will produce a lift as there is ambient pressure at the bottom of the wing. If we apply the Coanda Effect in addition to the conventional propeller lift, the aircraft will have a higher efficiency than most other VTOL aircraft of today.

The IIT Students used a quadrotor structure (consisting of 4 individual units working together) to minimise net unbalanced torque. For their model, they used special light weight foam called Depron for the body of the craft. The quadrotor configuration gives superior stability, and hence better control. Their craft can lift up to 1.2 meters and stay stable.

Here is the video taken by IITM Students on the eve of Shaastra. Watch It!

NDTV Video on Yu-Fly

More Information about Chandrayaan

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 14:20:00 +0000

The primary objective of the Chandrayaan-I mission is high resolution remote sensing of the moon in visible, near infrared, low energy X-rays and high energy X-ray regions. To know more about specific objectives, spacecraft, payloads, ground segment and launch vehicle of Chandrayaan, visit the official ISRO site given below.

ISRO’s Official Site about Chandrayaan

You can also get very good information on Wikipedia. The direct link is given below.

Wikipedia Information on Chandrayaan

Videos on Chandrayaan

Official Video about the lunar mission had been released. The video gives lot of information about the mission objectives, how the lunar craft is going to be launched, the trajectory it is going to follow before placing it in the orbit and the data we are going to get about the moon from the payloads on board. This is a nice video. Watch it!

ISRO Video on Chandrayaan

Thejes Inc, has done a another good video about Chandrayaan. The video gives details about the launch vehicle, the lunar craft, complete trajectory and the objectives of the mission. Also, The video has the vision 2020 with some animations about Chandrayaan – II, a rover on moon and manned mission to the moon in 2020. Watch it!

Thejes Video on Chandrayaan

The above shown Thejes video can be directly downloaded from the following link.

Direct Link to Thejes video on Chandrayaan

How Chandrayaan Started?

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 08:59:00 +0000

Chandrayaan is a common name for all moon missions by India. Chandrayaan-I is the first mission where a lunar craft will be launched using a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). The lunar craft will orbit around the moon at a distance of 100 km from the moon’s surface.

The idea of moon mission was considered in a meeting of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1999. The idea was then discussed in the Astronautical Society of India in 2000. Based on the recommendations of the members of these scientific groups to ISRO, National Lunar Mission Task Force was formed.

Leading Indian scientists and technologists participated in the Task Force and discussed the feasibility of the mission. The Task Force recommended that given the technical expertise of ISRO it will be extreme worthwhile to plan an Indian Mission to the Moon. It also provided primary scientific objectives of such a mission as well as launch and spacecraft technologies that need to be developed.

About 100 eminent Indian scientists from various science fields discussed on the Study Report given by the Task Force team in April 2003. After detailed discussions, it was unanimously recommended that India should undertake the Mission to Moon, particularly in view of the renowned international interest on moon and to provide the needed boost to basic science an engineering research in our country.

Thus, Chandrayaan, the mission to land on moon originated. In November 2003, Government of India approved ISRO’s proposal for Chandrayaan-I.

ISRO Missions In The Near Future

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 19:48:00 +0000

With more and more successful missions every year, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is not just going to schedule only four missions every year like this year. Right now, ISRO has 60 proposed missions. With Chandrayaan-I mission next year, India will become only the fourth country to involve in a lunar venture. On the proposed 60 missions, a series of communication satellites including Oceansat and the radar imaging satellite had been lined up to meet national needs.

Ten missions will increase capacity of our communication satellite from 200 to 500 transponders and about 10-12 missions are earth observation satellites. Also, between 2009 an 2011, a series of seven satellites for an independent, stand-alone constellation called Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) is to be launched. These satellites would help ships, aircrafts and vehicles in navigation. The satellite design had been completed with total project cost of about Rs.1600 crore.

58th International Astronautical Congress

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 16:58:00 +0000

58th International Astronautical Congress began on 24th of this month in Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC), Hyderabad. About 2000 delegates from 45 countries attended and shared their knowledge. Fifty college students from India were among them. They were selected out of several thousands by competing in contest organised by ISRO.

James V. Zimmerman, president, International Astronautical Federation (IAF), who was here for IAC said that "India has excelled in practical applications of space technology and has been a model to many other countries".

The scientists gathered in IAC stressed the need for a global protocol, as the treat of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) hitting our planet Earth is not-so-distant in the future. A 400 meter asteroid, Apophis, is likely to hit the Earth in 2036. There are many other asteroids creating potential threat to the planet. Thus evolving a global protocol and policy framework for developing technologies useful for deflecting these objects from the earth’s orbit is very much in need in the years to come.

Chandrayaan in Shaastra

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:11:00 +0000

Chandrayaan, India's first moon mission is all set for launch in February next year. It is one of our Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam's visions. With successful launch of our satellite INSAT-4CR by Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F04), Chandrayaan project has gained momentum and gained lot of foreign participation and attention. This is the first time various agencies including National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA) work under a project headed by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

So, what does this mean for a developing country like ours? What information is this craft going to provide which its predecessors like 'The Ranger' haven’t? What is the effort that is going into it?

Shaastra, the annual technical festival of IIT Madras scheduled from October 3 to 7, has answers to all these questions. It is the only ISO 9001:2000 certified student-organised event in the world. Shaastra is organising Chandrayaan workshop featuring lectures on the making of Chandrayaan and its scientific implications. It also has a four-hour panel discussion which includes eminent space scientists such as K.Kasturirangan, Jayati Datta and Annadurai from ISRO, India's first cosmonaut Rakesh Sharma and writer Jayant Narlikar.

A Brief History

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:53:00 +0000

The modern age of aviation began with the first human lighter-than-air flight on November 21, 1783, in a hot air balloon designed by the Montgolfier brothers. Balloon flight became increasingly common over longer and longer distances throughout the 19th century, continuing to the present. On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers flew the first fully-documented, successful powered, heavier-than-air flight, though their aircraft was impractical to fly for more than a short distance because of control problems. The widespread adoption of ailerons made aircraft much easier to manage, and only a decade later, at the start of World War I, heavier-than-air powered aircraft had become practical for reconnaissance, artillery spotting, and even attacks against ground positions. Aircraft began to transport people and cargo as designs grew larger and more reliable. On June 21, 2004, SpaceShipOne became the first privately funded aircraft to make a spaceflight, opening the possibility of an aviation market outside the earth's atmosphere.

What is Aviation?

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 20:45:00 +0000

The wiktionary meaning of aviation is 'the art or science of flying'. The word 'aviation' came from Latin word 'aves' meaning birds. If you think aviation is just a dumb subject, then you have greatly mistaken, as the subject fascinates right from the day it was all started to current day. It’s endless frontier. Apart from just flying using aircraft, the term describes the activities, industries, and regulatory bodies associated with aircraft. Also, aviation just doesn’t limit itself to aircrafts even spacecrafts are dealt in it.

Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Akilan) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 04:37:00 +0000

My name is Akilan. I had finished masters in avionics this year. In India, general awareness about the aviation industry is very less. As I belong to the aviation industry, I thought I can share my ideas with my people. Thus, I created this blog for making a general awareness among the people. The latest happenings, careers and much more in the aviation industry will be dealt in this blog. Your comments are more valuable to me. So, I kindly request you to post your comments on all my post. Hope you enjoy the stay.