December 21, 1944
1944: Gen Henry H. Arnold becomes General of the Army (5 stars), the first airman to hold this rank.
December 20, 1950
1950: KOREAN WAR/Operation CHRISTMAS KIDLIFT. The 61st Troop Carrier Group airlifts more than 800 endangered South Korean orphans on 12 C-54s from Kimpo to Cheju-do, an island off the South Korean coast.
December 17, 1903
1903: Orville Wright makes the first sustained, controlled power airplane flight in the Kill Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk. In the fourth and longest flight of the day, flown by Wilbur, the Wright Flyer
December 16, 1992
1992: At night, a B-52 from the 668th Bomb Squadron (Griffiss AFB) loses two engines in flight when one explodes and damages another. Two other engines on the same side of the aircraft flame out,
December 15, 1964
1964: In an FC-47, Capt Jack Harvey and his crew fly the first gunship mission in the Vietnam War. The FC-47 later becomes the AC-47 eventually equipped with Gatling guns in its cargo
December 14, 1988
1988: W. Stuart Symington, the first Secretary of the Air Force, dies at his home in New Canaan, Connecticut.
December 13, 1933
1933: President Franklin D. Roosevelt presents the first Air Mail Flyer’s Medal of Honor to Mal Bryan Freeburg.
December 10, 1954
1954: On a rocket-propelled sled run, Lt Col John P. Stapp attains 632 MPH (equal to Mach 1.7 at 35,000 feet) and decelerates to zero in 1.4 seconds. He experiences the greatest G-force ever
December 9, 1948
1948: MACKAY TROPHY. An arctic storm forces a C-47 Skytrain to land on the Greenland ice cap, stranding the crew of seven. In a rescue attempt using a B-17 and a towed glider, five more
December 8, 1987
1987: The US and Soviet Union sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to remove all intermediate range nuclear missiles (620 to 3,415 miles) from Europe. Following the agreement, the USAF inactivates six Ground Launched