Hang gliding is an air sport or recreational activity in which a pilot flies a light, non-motorised, heavier-than-air aircraft called a hang glider. Most modern hang gliders are made of an aluminium alloy or composite frame covered with synthetic sailcloth to form a wing. Typically the pilot is in a harness suspended from the airframe, and controls the aircraft by shifting body weight in opposition to a control frame.
An autogyro, or gyroplane, is a class of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift. While similar to a helicopter rotor in appearance, the autogyro's unpowered rotor disc must have air flowing upward across it to make it rotate.
The Dam Busters is a 1955 British epic war film starring Richard Todd and Michael Redgrave. It was directed by Michael Anderson. The film recreates the true story of Operation Chastise when in 1943 the RAF's 617 Squadron attacked the Möhne, Eder, and Sorpe dams in Nazi Germany with Barnes Wallis's bouncing bomb.
Wing commander is a senior officer rank used by some air forces, with origins from the Royal Air Force. The rank is used by air forces of many countries that have historical British influence.
Number 617 Squadron is a Royal Air Force aircraft squadron, originally based at RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire and currently based at RAF Marham in Norfolk. It is commonly known as "The Dambusters", for its actions during Operation Chastise against German dams during the Second World War. In the early 21st century it operated the Panavia Tornado GR4 in the ground attack and reconnaissance role until being disbanded on 28 March 2014. The Dambusters reformed on 18 April 2018, and was equipped at RAF Marham in June 2018 with the Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning, becoming the first squadron to be based in the UK with this advanced V/STOL type. The unit is composed of both RAF and Royal Navy personnel, and operates from the Royal Navy's Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers.
Richard Glenn Rutan is a retired United States Air Force officer and fighter pilot, test pilot, and record-breaking aviator who in 1986 piloted the Voyager aircraft on the first non-stop, non-refueled around-the-world flight with co-pilot Jeana Yeager. Rutan was born and raised in Loma Linda, California, where he gained an interest in flying at a young age. He is the older brother of famed aerospace designer Burt Rutan, whose many earlier original designs Dick piloted on class record-breaking flights, including Voyager.
Leslie Everett Baynes, AFRAeS was an English aeronautical engineer.
Old Buckenham Airfield, formerly RAF Old Buckenham, is located 12 nautical miles southwest of Norwich, East Anglia, England.
Royal Air Force Tibenham or more simply RAF Tibenham is a former Royal Air Force station located 13.5 miles (21.7 km) southwest of Norwich and 5.8 miles (9.3 km) north of Diss, Norfolk, England.
The flight endurance record is the longest amount of time an aircraft of a particular category spent in flight without landing. It can be a solo event, or multiple people can take turns piloting the aircraft, as long as all pilots remain in the aircraft. The limit initially was the amount of fuel that could be stored for the flight, but aerial refueling extended that parameter. Due to safety concerns, the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) no longer recognizes new records for the duration of crewed airplane or glider flights and has never recognized any duration records for helicopters.
This listing of flight altitude records are the records set for the highest aeronautical flights conducted in the atmosphere, set since the age of ballooning.
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes allow helicopters to be used in congested or isolated areas where fixed-wing aircraft and many forms of short take-off and landing (STOL) or short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft cannot perform without a runway.
A glider is a fixed-wing aircraft that is supported in flight by the dynamic reaction of the air against its lifting surfaces, and whose free flight does not depend on an engine. Most gliders do not have an engine, although motor-gliders have small engines for extending their flight when necessary by sustaining the altitude with some being powerful enough to take off by self-launch.
Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sport in which pilots fly unpowered aircraft known as gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to remain airborne. The word soaring is also used for the sport.
Little Nellie 007 is a 1991 book by Bruce Barrymore Halpenny about the James Bond autogyro, Little Nellie, as featured in the film You Only Live Twice, and her creator, Wing Commander Retd. Ken Wallis.
The Little Wing Autogyro is a series of conventional one and two place autogyros with a tractor engine layout using modern engines and produced by Little Wing Autogyros, Inc. of Mayflower, Arkansas.
The Wallis WA-116 Agile is a British autogyro developed in the early 1960s by former Royal Air Force Wing Commander Ken Wallis. The aircraft was produced in a number of variants, one of which, nicknamed Little Nellie, was flown in the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice. Little Nellie is currently on static display at The Shuttleworth Collection, Old Warden, Bedfordshire in the UK.
The Norfolk and Suffolk Aviation Museum is a museum collection of aircraft and aviation-related artefacts, located near the former RAF Bungay airfield in Flixton in the north of the English county of Suffolk.
Jean Boulet was a French aviator. In 1957, Boulet was awarded the Aeronautical Medal; in 1983, he became one of the founding members of the French National Air and Space Academy. He died at the age of 90.
Group Captain Thomas Gilbert "Hamish" Mahaddie, was a Scotsman who served in the Royal Air Force (RAF). As a youth he was selected for an apprentice programme and was trained as an RAF ground crew "metal rigger". He had earned his wings and reached the rank of sergeant pilot by the outbreak of the Second World War. In his second tour he was selected to be a member of the newly formed "Pathfinder Force". At the end of his second combat tour he was brought onto Air Vice Marshal Don Bennett's Headquarter Staff in the position of "Group Training Inspector". In this position he selected, recruited and trained aircrews to serve in the Pathfinder Force. Within the span of two years from the start of the war Mahaddie had risen in rank from sergeant to group captain. Following the war he continued to serve in the RAF until 1958. Out of the service he worked as an electronics consultant for the Armed Services, and as an aircraft consultant for the film industry. His most remarkable accomplishment in the film industry was the procurement of aircraft, crews and service personnel for the film Battle of Britain (1969).
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