PAGE 4 � S TA R S A N D S T R I P E S A D V E R T I S I N G S U P P L E M E N T � September 2009
July 27, 1909: Orville Wright, with Lt. Frank P. Lahm
as passenger, performed the first official Army flight
test at Fort Myer, Va. On August 2, the Army accept-
ed its first airplane from the Wright brothers, paying
$25,000 plus $5,000 extra for achieving speed in ex-
cess of 40 mph.
May 8, 1911: The
Navy ordered its
first airplane, an
A-1 amphibian,
from Glenn Cur-
tiss.
October 22,
1911: Capt. Carlo
Piazza of Italy,
piloting a Ble-
riot XI, conducted
the first wartime
military airplane
flight, reconnoi-
tering Turkish
positions in Libya.
That same day,
another Italian
airplane became
the first to be hit
by ground fire.
June 14, 1912:
After training
at the Army Air
School in the
Philippines, Cpl.
Vernon Burge be-
came the Army's
first enlisted pilot.
November 30,
1913: Phil Rader
and Dean Ivan
Lamb, flying for
opposing sides
in the Mexican
Revolution, en-
gaged in the first
aerial combat, fir-
ing pistols at each
other over Naca,
Mexico.
July 7, 1914: Dr. Robert H. Goddard was issued a
patent for a multistage rocket design. On July 14,
Goddard got another patent for a liquid-fueled rocket
design. Those breakthroughs laid the foundation for
future spaceflights.
July 18, 1914: Congress passed a law creating an
Aviation Section of the Army Signal Corps, which
replaced the Aeronautical Division. Lt. Col. Samuel
Reber was the first commander.
January 20, 1918: Then-Col. William "Billy" Mitchell
became chief of Air Service, I Army Corps, upon its
organization at Neufchateau, France.
May 27, 1919: Lt. Cmdr. Albert C. "Puffy" Read
and his five-man crew in a Navy Curtiss NC-4 Fly-
ing Boat completed the first crossing of the Atlantic
Ocean by air.
May 21, 1927: In his airplane -- Spirit of St. Louis
-- Charles A. Lindbergh, a captain in the Missouri
National Guard, completed the first solo nonstop
flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Lindbergh received
the Medal of Honor for this flight.
September 24, 1929: Lt. James H. "Jimmy" Doolittle
made the first instruments only flight, from takeoff to
landing. He flew over Mitchell Field, NY., in a Con-
solidated NY�2 airplane with a completely covered
cockpit, accompanied by a check pilot who moni-
tored the flight.
March1,1937:The2dBombardmentGroupatLangley
Field,Va.,acquireditsfirstYB-17A,theprototypeofthe
B-17 Flying Fortress. Equipped with mul-
tiple machine guns to defend itself against
fighters swift enough to catch it, the
B-17 was designed to fly unescorted to long-range
enemy targets.
June 20, 1941: The War Department established the
Army Air Forces under Maj. Gen. Henry H. Arnold.
December 16, 1941: Lt. Boyd D. "Buzz" Wagner be-
came the first U.S. ace of World War II after shooting
down five enemy aircraft in four days. He flew with
the 17th Pursuit Squadron against the Japanese in
the Philippines.
August 5, 1943: Jacqueline Cochran became direc-
tor of Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP), an
organization that merged her Women's Flying Train-
ing Detachment with the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying
Squadron (WAFS).
June 6, 1944: Allied forces based in the United
Kingdom crossed the English Channel and invad-
ed German-held Normandy in northern France to
begin Operation Overlord, the largest amphibious
attack in history. Previous Allied air attacks largely
preventedinterferencebytheLuftwaffeandcutGer-
man transportation arteries. On a day often called
"D-Day," Eighth and Ninth Air Forces and the Royal
Air Force supported the invasion with some 15,000
interdiction, close air support and airlift sorties.
December 26, 1944: Maj. Thomas B. McGuire, Jr.,
shot down four enemy planes to bring his total of 38,
making him the second-leading U.S. ace behind only
Maj. Richard I. Bong.
March 9�10, 1945: In a night air raid on Tokyo, more
than 300 B-29 Superfortresses bombed and de-
stroyed 16 square miles of the Japanese capital. In
terms of lives lost, this air raid was the most destruc-
tive in history. The airstrikes demonstrated a shift in
U.S. bombing policy from high-altitude targeted day-
light attacks to low-level area bombing at night.
August 6, 1945: Col. Paul W. Tibbets piloted a B-29
calledEnolaGaytoHiroshima,Japan,wheretheU.S.
droppedanatomicbombthatdestroyedthecity.Three
dayslater,Maj.CharlesW.Sweeneyandcrew,flyinga
B-29 called Bock's Car, bombed Nagasaki in the
second and last atomic bomb attack, largely destroy-
ing the city and killing at least 35,000 people.
July 26, 1947: President Harry S. Truman signed
the National Security Act, creating the Department
of the Air Force equal to the Army and Navy; the
National Military Establishment under the secretary
of defense; and the Air National Guard as a reserve
component of the Air
Force. Gen. Carl A.
Spaatz as the first
USAF chief of staff.
November 8, 1950:
In the first battle be-
tween jet aircraft, Lt.
Russell J. Brown in
anF-80ShootingStar
shotdownaNorthKo-
rean MiG-15. Also, 70
B-29 Superfortresses
conducted the largest
incendiary raid of the
68 Korean War, drop-
pingsome580tonsof
firebombs on Sinuiju,
North Korea.
April 1, 1954: Presi-
dent Dwight D. Eisen-
hower signed a bill
creating the Air Force
Academy.
May 5, 1961: Mak-
ing a suborbital flight
in Mercury capsule
Freedom 7, Cmdr.
Alan B. Shepard, Jr.,
United States Navy,
became the first U.S.
astronaut in space.
February 24, 1969:
An enemy mortar
shell struck an AC-
47 gunship on which A1C John L. Levitow served
as loadmaster during a night mission in support of
a South Vietnamese army post. Seriously wounded
and stunned, Levitow flung himself on a smoking
magnesium flare that was rolling in the cargo com-
partment, dragged it to an open cargo door, and
threw it out of the aircraft. Almost immediately the
flare ignited. For this act, Levitow became the only
enlisted airman to receive the Medal of Honor in Viet-
nam.
September 1, 1975: Gen. Daniel "Chappie" James,
Jr., USAF, became the first black four-star general.
January 9, 1976: The first operational F-15 Eagle, a
new air-superiority fighter aircraft, arrived at the 1st
Tactical Fighter Wing, Langley Air Force Base, Va.
The F-15 was the first fighter to have a thrust greater
than its weight, allowing it to accelerate while going
straight up.
June 18, 1981: The F-117 Nighthawk -- the world's
first stealth combat aircraft -- made its first flight. Hal
Farley piloted the plane, which presented very little
radar image, at Tonopah Test Range, Nev.
June 18, 1983: Sally K. Ride became the first U.S.
woman to journey into outer space. She was a Chal-
lenger crew member of the seventh space-shuttle
mission.
December 8, 1987: The United States and the So-
viet Union signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces Treaty, agreeing to remove all intermediate-
range missiles from Europe. The agreement resulted
in the inactivation of six USAF tactical missile wings
equipped with ground-launched cruise missiles.
December 17�February 14, 1990: In Operation
Just Cause, USAF aircraft hit military targets, airlifted
troops and flew special operations to restore de-
mocracy in Panama. F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter
bombers flew in combat for the first time. In the larg-
est night-combat airdrop since World War II, Military
Airlift Command aircraft transported 9,500 airborne
troops from Pope Air Force Base, N.C., to Panama in
fewer than 36 hours.
August 7, 1990: The United States launched Op-
eration Desert Shield to defend Saudi Arabia from
a possible Iraqi invasion. Among the first deploy-
ments was a 15-hour, 8,000-mile flight of 24 F-15C
Eagles from Langley
Air Force Base, Va.,
to Dhahran, Saudi
Arabia, with 12 inflight
refuelings.
January17,1991:Op-
eration Desert Storm,
the liberation of Ku-
wait from Iraqi military
occupation, opened
with a massive bar-
rage of missile strikes
against targets in Iraq
and Kuwait.
July 2, 1992: Opera-
tion Provide Promise
began, delivering
food, medical sup-
plies, and other relief
cargo to Sarajevo and
other communities in
newly independent
Bosnia-Herzegovina,
which was suffering a
civil war in the wake of
itsindependencefrom
Serbia. It became the
longest sustained re-
lief operation in USAF
history.
February 3, 1995: Lt.
Col. Eileen M. Collins,
USAF, became the
first woman pilot of a
space shuttle.
October 7, 2001: Operation Enduring Freedom
started with air strikes against Taliban targets in Af-
ghanistan. B-2 Spirit bombers of the 509th Bomb
Wing flew round-trip from Whiteman Air Force Base,
Missouri, to Afghanistan on the longest bombing
missions in aviation history. Other committed USAF
aircraft included B-1 and B-52 bombers; F-15E strike
fighters and AC-130 gunships; KC-10 and KC-135
tankers; E-3 airborne warning and control system
airplanes; EC-130 electronic-combat aircraft; and
AC-130, MC-130, and MH-53 special-operations
airplanes. Navy F-14, F/A-18, and AV-8 aircraft from
three carriers in the Indian Ocean also took part in
the operation.
March 20, 2003: The United States invades Iraq in
Operation Iraqi Liberation, later becoming Operation
Iraqi Freedom.
MILESTONES
Flight logs
Looking back on a century
of military flight
July 20, 1969: Four days after
launching from the Kennedy Space
Center, Apollo 11 crew members
Neil Armstrong and Air Force
Col. Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin,
pictured, became the first men
to walk on the Moon.
September 12�15,
1918: Brig. Gen.,
William "Billy"
Mitchell commands
what was at that
point the largest air
armada ever as-
sembled --1,481
Allied airplanes --
during the first
major U.S.
offensive of the
World War I
at Saint-Mihiel,
France.
October 14, 1947: Capt. Charles
E. "Chuck" Yeager made the
first faster-than sound flight at
Muroc Air Base, Calif., in a
rocket-powered USAF
research plane -- Bell XS�1.

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