On This Day in History

1979: Skylab, after 38,981 orbits, reenters the atmosphere.

1935: Larry Bell founds Bell Aircraft, producer among other aircraft of the P-39 Airacobra and the X-1.  

  Flying a Lockheed Vega A-29 Hudson, Lt Harry J. Kane and crew of the 396th Bomb Squadron attack and sink German sub U-701 off Cherry Point, NC.

Operation KINDERLIFT. USAFE begins airlift of children from Berlin to West Germany for a summer in German and American homes.

Capt Charles DeForest Chandler, Lt Thomas DeWitt Milling, and Lt Henry H. Arnold became the first qualified “Military Aviators.” They receive their badges on 6 October.

  The Flying Tigers join the Army Air Forces as the 23rd Fighter Group, Col Robert L. Scott Jr commanding.

The USAF gives the B-29 Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, to the Smithsonian Institute.

1982: Rockwell International rolls out the Space Shuttle Challenger.

1965: Capt Joseph Engle qualifies as a military astronaut by flying the X-15 No. 3 to 280,600 feet at 3,432 MPH (Mach 4.94)

1950: Korean War. 1Lt Bryce Poe II, in an RF-80A, flies the USAF’s first jet combat reconnaissance mission, photographing the North Korean advance.