April 3, 1996
1996: A 76th Airlift Squadron CT-43 transport crashes near Dubrovnik, Croatia killing 35, including Commerce Secretary Ronald Brown. Brown was on an economic development mission to the former Yugoslavia.
April 2, 1915
1915: President Wilson appoints the first members to the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). In 1958, NACA becomes NASA.
March 29, 1972
1972: Prompted by a massive North Vietnamese invasion, US discards previous Rules of Engagement, thus ending previous restrictions on US air power and leading to Operations Linebacker I and II.
March 28, 1961
1961: President Kennedy asks Congress to: (1) put 50 % of SAC’s bombers on ground alert; (2) speed up B-47 phaseout; (3) produce Skybolt to replace the Hound Dog missile; (4) defer 3 Mobile Minuteman squadrons
March 27, 1945
1945: Gen Carl Spaatz sends Eighth Air Force against Berlin to destroy the Luftwaffe. Spaatz realizes the enemy would defend Berlin, so he sends bombers over the city with P-51 Mustang escorts. General Galland of
March 26, 1943
1943: The first Air Medal awarded to a woman goes to 2Lt Elsie S. Ott, Army Nursing Corps, who served as nurse for five patients evacuated from India to Washington DC.
March 23, 1951
1951: Operation TOMAHAWK. 120 USAF transports drop 3,400 troops and materiel behind enemy lines at Munsan, Korea.
March 22, 1944
1944: Thru 23 March, Mount Vesuvius erupts and buries Pompeii airdrome; some 88 B-25s are damaged/destroyed, perhaps worst single loss of aircraft in WWII.
March 21, 1958
1958: Holloman high-speed test track establishes new speed record of 2,704 MPH for rocket-propelled monorail sleds.