Page 18 - Luke AFB Thunderbolt 5-6-16

May 2016 NEWS
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This monTh in Air Force hisTory
May 1, 2001
The Space Shuttle Endeavour
landed at Edwards Air Force
Base, California, after a mission
to the International Space Sta-
tion to deliver a robotic arm, a
multipurpose logistics module
and an UHF antenna.
May 2, 1977
First Lt. Christine Schott be-
came the first woman under-
graduate pilot student to solo in
the T-38 Talon.
May 3, 1930
Laura Ingalls completed 344
consecutive loops. Afterwards,
she tried again and accomplished
980 loops. In another ight later
in the year, she successfully com-
pleted 714 barrel rolls, giving her May 11, 1966
a pair of records no one has cared
to challenge.
May 4, 1979
The A-10B Thunderbolt ew its
rst ight at Edwards AFB.
May 5, 2003
Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.
Global Hawk (AV-3) landed at
Edwards AFB after flying 19 sor-
ties in 446.6 hours over Iraq to
collect some 3,700 surveillance
images. While only flying 5 per-
cent of the surveillance sorties
in the theater, the Global Hawk
gathered more than 55 percent
of the data on time-sensitive
targets. Subsequently, the Air
Staff credited the Global Hawk
with destroying scores of Iraqi
tanks and advancing the defeat
of the Republican Guard by sev-
eral days.
May 6, 1937
The German dirigible Hinden-
berg burned while moored at
Lakehurst, N.J. Thirty- ve people
died in the re.
May 7, 1945
Mass produced B-17s, B-24s,
B-25s, B-29s, P-38s, P-40s, P-51s,
and C-47s led to Victory Day in
Europe. On May 7, German High
Command surrendered uncondi-
tionally at Reims, effective May 9. in history took place at Kitty
With that surrender, ATC began
Projects Green and White, for per-
sonnel and aircraft, respectively,
to move 250,000 people and 5,900
aircraft from Europe and the
Mediterranean theaters to the
U.S. by September 1945.
May 8, 1995
Through 8 through 11, Air
National Guard units rescued
thousands of ood victims after
22 inches of rain fell on Louisiana a power plant.
within two days.
May 9, 1978
McDonnell Douglas delivered
the 5,000th F-4 Phantom built to
the Air Force.
May 10, 1911
Lt. George Kelly became the
first Army pilot to die in an
airplane, when he crashed his
Curtiss pusher at San Antonio
to avoid striking encamped sol-
diers. However, he was the second
Army of cer to die in a crash.
Lt. Thomas Selfridge, ying as
an observer with Orville Wright,
died on Sept. 17, 1908.
At Holloman AFB, New Mexico,
a Surveyor spacecraft made the
rst soft landing under its own
power to demonstrate its ability
to soft land on the moon.
May 12, 1968
Lt. Col. Joe Jackson volun-
teered to rescue a three-man
Air Force combat control team
at Kham Duc, Vietnam. Before
the rescue, enemy forces set the
camp a re, overran the forward
outpost, and established gun posi-
tions on the airstrip. Despite the
odds, Jackson and his crew, Maj.
Jesse Campbell, Tech. Sgt. Ed-
ward Trejo, and Staff Sgt. Manson
Grubbs, landed their C-123 under
intense hostile re, extracted the
combat controllers, and returned
to safety. For his valiant effort,
he received the Medal of Honor.
Campbell received the Air Force
Cross, while Trejo and Grubbs
earned Silver Stars.
May 13, 1967
For the second time, eight Tacti- they disappeared near Howland
cal Fighter Wing pilots shot down
seven MiGs in a single day’s ac-
tion over North Vietnam.
May 14, 1908
First airplane passenger ight
Hawk as the Wrights prepared
to deliver their “Flyer” to the
US government. Wilbur Wright
piloted the machine and Charles
Furnas, an employee, ew as pas-
senger.
May 15, 1952:
Fifth Air Force ghter-bombers
ew 265 sorties against a vehicle
repair factory at Tang-dong, north
of Pyongyang, North Korea, de-
stroying at least 39 buildings and
May 16, 1919:
Lt. Cmdr. Albert Read and his
ve-man crew left Trepassy Bay,
Newfoundland, in an NC-4. They
arrived at the Azores on May 17
and at Lisbon, Portugal, May 27,
thus completing the rst crossing
of the Atlantic by air.
May 17, 1998
An AFFTC pilot, Lt. Col. Steven
Rainey, became the rst U.S. Air
Force pilot to y the F-22 Raptor.
It was the aircraft’s third ight
and its first flight at Edwards
AFB.
May 18, 1953
Jacqueline Cochran, flying a
Canadian-built F-86 Sabre at
Edwards AFB, became the rst
woman to y faster than sound.
May 19, 1908:
Lt. Thomas Selfridge, the rst
U.S. Army of cer to y an air-
plane, flew the White Wing at
Hammondsport. It was Dr. Al-
exander Graham Bell’s second
Aerial Experiment Association
plane, and it had hinged ailerons. hit in the Atlantic Ocean near
May 20, 1927:
Capt. Charles Lindbergh, Mis-
souri National Guard 110th
Observation Squadron, landed
his Ryan Monoplane, the “Spirit
of St. Louis,” in Paris on May 21
after the rst nonstop solo ight
across the Atlantic.
May 21, 1937:
Amelia Earhart and Fred Noon-
an left San Francisco on a West
to East around-the-world ight.
Their trip ended on 2 July when
Island in the Paci c.
May 22, 2002:
The X-45A Unmanned Combat
Air Vehicle, designated Blue, ew
for the rst time at Edwards AFB
over an oval shaped track for 14
minutes at 7,500 feet and 195
knots. It was the rst unmanned
aircraft designed for autonomous
combat operations.
May 23, 1960:
The U.S. Air Force initiated a
large humanitarian airlift to aid
earthquake victims in Chile. In
the next month, airlifters carried
1,000 tons of relief supplies and
equipment to the stricken area.
Thunderbolt
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May 24, 1963:
A Titan II launched from Cape
Canaveral made a 6,500-mile
flight down the Atlantic Missile
Range and dropped the largest
nose cone ever carried within one
mile of the target.
May 25, 1910:
Orville and Wilbur Wright flew
together for the first time at
Dayton, Ohio.
May 26, 1942:
Vance Breese flew Northrop’s
prototype P-61 Black Widow, the
first American-designed night
fighter with radar guidance,
for the first time at Hawthorne,
California.
May 27, 1966:
The McDonnell Douglas F-4J
Phantom made its first public
flight.
May 28, 1959:
A Rhesus monkey, Able, and
a squirrel monkey, Miss Baker,
were the first primates to be
launched and recovered suc-
cessfully from space. They were
recovered after their nose cone
Antigua Island.
May 29, 1953:
Strategic Air command re-
ceived its first KC-97G Stra-
tofreighter, a flying boom-type
tanker that could dispense 8,513
gallons of aviation gasoline. Un-
like previous models, the KC-97G
could haul cargo without recon-
figuration or carry 96 troops or
heavy equipment without modi-
fication.
May 30, 1912
Wilbur Wright died of typhoid
fever at the age of 45 at Dayton,
Ohio.
May 31, 1908:
The Glenn H. Curtiss Manufac-
turing Company at Hammond-
sport, New York, announced that
it would accept orders for and
deliver flying machines in 60
days at $5,000 a plane.
Courtesy of airforcehistory.af.mil