On This Day in History

1968: MEDAL OF HONOR. While flying a UH-1F helicopter, 1Lt James P. Fleming twice exposes his aircraft to intense hostile fire while rescuing a special forces reconnaissance patrol near Due Co, Vietnam, receiving the Medal […]

1940: First flight of the Martin B-26 Marauder.

1974: President Gerald R. Ford and General Secretary Leonid I. Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitation accord. This agreement limited the deployment of strategic delivery vehicles and Multiple Independently Targetable Reentry Vehicles (MIRVs).

1947: The XC-99, the world’s largest land plane at that time, makes its first flight at San Diego. https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-iry-fullyhosted_003&hsimp=yhs-fullyhosted_003&hspart=iry&p=xc-99+first+flight#id=1&vid=444cc882b30714afc233e585ff303b7f&action=click    

1962: CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS. President John F. Kennedy announces the end of the Cuban Missile Crisis after the Soviets remove all IRBMs from Cuba. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfjnfbw4rI4

  2007: WAR ON TERROR. Air Mobility Command passes a major milestone when one of its aircraft flies the command’s one millionth sortie since 11 September 2001. A C-17 from McChord AFB flies the landmark

1966: Lockheed delivers the first HC–130P to the Air Rescue and Recovery Service. The HC-130P included a drogue system to permit aerial refueling of helicopters. (1968 photo in SEA) https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-iry-fullyhosted_003&hsimp=yhs-fullyhosted_003&hspart=iry&p=hc-130P#id=6&vid=3382d9bcaacabf82b62fb96b09cbab6d&action=view

1967: Operation EAGLE THRUST. Through 29 December, MAC uses 413 C-141 and C-130 sor­ties to complete the longest distance airlift of combat troops from the US to a war zone to date. The planes move

2004: In its final flight, NASA’s B-52 #008 launch vehicle, the oldest plane in the USAF inventory, carries the X-43A mounted on a Pegasus booster into the air. The X-43A breaks its 4,780 MPH record

1971: Mariner IX, launched on 30 May 1971, goes into an elliptical orbit around Mars, and its first photographs are broadcast live by national television.