On This Day in History

2007:    FIRST MQ-9 REAPER MISSION. The MQ-9 Reaper flies its first operational mission in Afghanistan for Operation ENDURING FREEDOM. (2009 photo)

1929:    Lt James H. Doolittle makes the first all-blind flight at Mitchel Field. Although a check pilot accompanies him, Doolittle takes off in a Consolidated NY-2 airplane with a completely covered cockpit, flies a short

  2004:    Operation PROVIDE HOPE. A C-17 from McChord AFB delivers medicines and medical supplies worth $15 million to Bishkek IAP in the Kyrgyz Republic. It was the largest humanitarian shipment to the republic since

  1957:    USAF Chief of Staff General Thomas D. White announces that radar units could detect ICBMs at 3,000 miles.

  1958:    The RAF receives its first Thor missile at Feltwell, England.

  1947:    Aboard the VC-54C “Sacred Cow,” which becomes Air Force-1, President Truman signs the National Security Act of 1947 separating the USAF from the US Army.

1944:    Operation MARKET GARDEN. 1,546 allied planes and 478 gliders carry 35,000 troops for an airborne assault between Eindhoven and Arnhem in Holland to secure the Rhine. MARKET GARDEN was the basis for the movie

  2005:    Travis AFB places the restored C-141A Starlifter (tail number 63-8088), nicknamed the Golden Bear, on permanent static display. It was the USAF’s first operational C-141A, the first to carry wounded troops from Vietnam

1943:    The 52nd Troop Carrier Wing uses 80+ troop transports to drop 1,200 paratroopers on Italy’s Salerno Beach, with no losses of planes or men.  The drop takes place within Allied lines and helps stem

1918:    Thru 15 Sep Colonel William “Billy” Mitchell leads 1,481 planes in the St. Mihiel offensive, the greatest air battle of World War I.