On This Day in History

  1954: USAF directs the Air Research Development Center to create a Western Development Division under Brig Gen Ber­nard A. Schriever to accelerate the Atlas ICBM program.

  1965: The 1st Air Commando Squadron, 34th Tactical Group, Bien Hoa AB receives the Presidential Unit Citation. This is the first USAF unit so honored since the Korean War.

  1993: At Minot AFB, Lt Col Patricia Fornes becomes the 740th Missile Squadron commander. She is the first woman to command a combat missile unit. Her father, Lt Col Glenn L. Fornes, also commanded

1936: Seversky Aircraft Company receives a contract to build P-35s for the Army. It was the Army’s first single-seat fighter with a closed cockpit and retractable landing gear.

1971: The first Titan III-D space booster launches from Vandenberg AFB. It is a two-stage liq­uid-fueled, core vehicle with two additional outboard strap-on thrust pods of solid propellant.

1912: Corporal Vernon L. Burge becomes the Army’s first enlisted pilot after training in the Army’s Air School, Philippines.

1956:   Chrysler Corporation receives the Jupiter IRBM contract.

  1967: Project TURNKEY. The USAF completes a $52 million airbase at Tuy Hoa, Vietnam, in one year. It was the first base to be designed and built completely under Air Force supervision.

1989: MAC units fly four tons of medical supplies to aid the victims of a rail disaster at Ufa on the Trans-Siberian Railroad about 750 miles southeast of Moscow. A liquid-gas pipeline explodes on 3

1980: In the first all-woman airlift mission, Capt Susan R. Regele flies a C-9 from Scott AFB. The crew includes two other pilots, two flight nurses, three aeromedical technicians, and a flight en­gineer.