1954:    Lockheed pilots Stanley Beltz and Roy Wimmer fly the Hercules YC-130 transport on its first flight.  

  1923:    Lt Harold R. Harris (pilot) and Lt Muir Fairchild (copilot) fly the XNBL-1 Barling Bomber, the Army’s first long-range night bomber, in its […]

1972:    The 4th and last Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO), named Copernicus, launches to observe interstellar gases, young hot stars, X-ray stars and other phenomena.

  1975: Using a Titan III booster, NASA launches the Viking I mission to Mars from Cape Canaveral AFS. It soft lands on Mars 20 […]

  1960:    MACKAY TROPHY. Capt Harold E. Mitchell pilots a Fairchild C-119 to make the first aerial retrieval of an orbited capsule. Discoverer XIV, which […]

  1922:    Elmer Ambrose Sperry demonstrates the Sperry airway light beacon at McCook Field. (Photo at right shows a beacon at Omaha, NE during the […]

  1945:    VICTORY DAY–JAPAN. The Japanese government announces its intention to surrender “unconditionally.”

1942:       When Lt Elza Shahan ferries his P-38 to England, he spots a German FW-200 Condor near Iceland. Shahan turns and shoots the Condor down, […]

  1917:    The First Aero Squadron, which departed Columbus, NM on 5 August, sails for Europe under command of Maj Ralph Royce. It is the […]

1962:    ECHO I satellite launches from the Air Force Cape Canaveral launch Complex 17 aboard a Thor-Delta rocket. After two years in orbit, the […]