On This Day in History

1943: Operation FLAX. Northwest African Air Forces starts a concentrated attack on the Axis air transport service between Italy via Sicily to Tunisia. The operation claims 201 enemy aircraft destroyed. #Fighter Pilot

1924: 1ST AROUND-THE-WORLD FLIGHT/MACKAY TROPHY. Four Army Douglas Biplanes take off from Seattle on the first global flight. Only two crews complete the 26,345-mile flight after 363 hours flying time in an elapsed time of

          1983: Through 1 May, the Air Force transfers 31 SAC units and four bases to AFSPACE, which assumes control over missile warning and space surveillance systems. #Spaceman #Guardian

1979:      THREE-MILE ISLAND DISASTER. Thru 15 Apr MAC flies 15 support missions. The aircraft deliver a 40,000-pound rawindsonde station (a radiosonde is tracked by a radio direction-finding device to determine the velocity of winds aloft),

            1953:      A Convair XC-99 establishes a new, world’s load-lifting record of 104,000 pounds. #Airlift

2003: By this date, to support the Global War on Terrorism, the ANG had flown 72 % of the fighter sorties, 52 % of the tanker sorties, and 35 % of the airlift sorties for

  1946:      Northrop Aircraft received development contracts for the Snark surface-to-surface, subsonic, intercontinental nuclear cruise missile and the Boojum medium- to long-range (1,500-to 5,000-mile) surface-to-surface supersonic cruise missile. #Cruise missiles

2004: MACKAY TROPHY. Five C-17 airmen from the 62 AW at McChord AFB won the 2003 Mackay Trophy for serving as the lead aircrew for a 26 March 2003 C-17 airdrop over northern Iraq. #Airlift

1970: Tyndall AFB completed the first launching of a BOMARC B guided missile, using the new BUIC computerized command and control equipment. #Missiles