On This Day in History

1991:        SECAF Donald B. Rice announces the winner of the Advanced Tactical Fighter competition. He selects the Lockheed/Boeing/General Dynamics F-22 with the Pratt and Whitney F-119 engine.

1981:        The 81st Tactical Fighter Wing, an A-10 Wing at RAF Bentwaters, UK,  sets a USAF record by generating 533 sorties in a single day.  

1948:        KEY WEST AGREEMENT. The SECDEF issues a memo to his Secretaries with a paper defining the functions of the services and the JCS, based on the National Security Act. The Air Force receives responsibility

1912:        The Secretary of War publishes the conditions of the Military Aviator Test in a report to the House of Representatives. Subsequently on July 5th Henry H. Arnold is the first to pass. Military Aviator

1943: Eighth Air Force makes its first 100-plane attack on a single target, the Focke-Wulf aircraft plant at Bremen, Germany. Nearly 20 aircraft are lost.

2004: MACKAY TROPHY. Near Kharbut, Iraq, in near-zero visibility, two USAF HH-60Gs assigned to Moody AFB rescue a U.S. Army CH-47 Chinook helicopter crew that had crashed in a sandstorm. All five Army crash survivors

  1945: First flight of the XP-82 (Twin Mustang).

1986: Operation EL DORADO CANYON. The US retaliates against Libya for its involvement in terrorism with an airstrike using 24 F-111s from RAF Lakenheath, five EF-111s from RAF Upper Heyford and Navy aircraft from the

1925: Henry Ford starts airplane freight operations between Detroit and Chicago. This is the first regularly scheduled commercial freight operation in the US.

  1931:        Lt Wilfred J. Paul demonstrates the airship subcloud observation car at Langley Field. (Car shown here in Scientific American 12-23-1916)