1976: Two groups of women pilot candidates begin flight screening at Hondo Municipal Airport, prior to entering undergraduate pilot training at Williams AFB on 19 September. The 77-08 class includes Captains Connie Engle, Mary Donahue, […]
1967: MEDAL OF HONOR. After shooting down his F-100 Super Sabre, the North Vietnamese capture Maj George E. Day. For his subsequent valorous service in escaping from and evading enemy forces and resistance while in
1952: Operation HAJJI BABA. Through 29 August, 13 C-54s airlift 3,763 Muslim pilgrims stranded in Beirut, Lebanon, to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The operation helps to restore America’s standing in the Middle East.
1989: The Voyager 2 Space Probe completes its tour of the solar system by flying within 3,000 miles of Neptune.
1954: Lockheed pilots Stanley Beltz and Roy Wimmer fly the Hercules YC-130 transport on its first flight from Lockheed’s plant in Burbank to Edwards AFB.
1975: Using a Titan III booster, NASA launches the Viking I mission to Mars from Cape Canaveral AFS. It soft lands on Mars 20 June 1976.
1960: Capt Harold E. Mitchell pilots a Fairchild C-119 to make the first aerial retrieval of an orbited capsule. Discoverer XIV, which had launched on 18 August, ejects the capsule. For this aerial recovery, the
1978: At McConnell AFB, A1C Tina M. Ponzer (381st SMW) becomes SAC’s first enlisted female to perform Titan II alert duty. (on the left, with Lt Patricia Fornes on the right)
1943: The Air Transport Command uses a C-87 Liberator (converted B-24) to carry Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt on a tour of the Pacific theater to boost morale, inspect Red Cross installations, and learn how women from
2002: GLOBAL WAR ON TERROR. The USAF extends the mobilization of over 14,000 Guardsmen and Reservists, mostly security forces, into a second year of this conflict.
