Page 7 - Aerotech News and Review, January 21, 2022

On this date ...

Jan. 23, 2007: The Lockheed Martin CATBird
made its first flight at the Mojave Air and Space
Port. The CATBird is a highly modified Boeing
737-330 designed as an avionics flight testbed
aircraft. The name is an adaptive acronym, from
Cooperative Avionics Test Bed. Coincidentally, Jan. 27. 1967: During a simulation aboard the Apollo spacecraft
CATBIRD is Lockheed’s ICAO designated callsign. on the launchpad at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, a flash
fire ignited in the pure oxygen atmosphere of the capsule,
killing astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.
It was the first fatal accident directly attributed to the U.S. space Jan. 28, 1986: During a launch viewed by millions of people around the
program, and it led to a redesign of the spacecraft. The Apollo world, the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all seven members
mission of sending astronauts to the moon was resumed in of its crew — Francis R. (Dick) Scobee, Michael J. Smith, Judith A. Resnik,
October 1968. Ronald E. McNair, Ellison S. Onizuka, Gregory B. Jarvis, and teacher Christa
McAuliffe. The explosion occurred 73 seconds into the flight because of
a leak in one of the rocket boosters that ignited the main liquid fuel tank.
Following the tragedy, the shuttle program was suspended until September
1988.

Jan. 27, 1973: A U. S. Navy F-4 Phantom II from USS Enterprise (CVA(N)-65) piloted by Lt. Cmdr. Harley
Hall and with Lt. Cmdr. Philip Kientzler as radar intercept officer, is shot down over South Vietnam near the
Demilitarized Zone. Both Hall and Kienttzler ejected at 4,000 feet and were seen to land on an island in the Dam
Jan. 27, 1939: The Lockheed XP-38 Lightning Cho Chua and Chua Viet Rivers. Only Kientzler was released at Operation Homecoming in 1973. He reported
made its first flight at March Field, Calif. The P-38 that during parachute descent they received heavy ground fire, at which time he was hit in the leg. He last saw
Lightning was one of the most successful combat Hall as they touched the ground. When he asked his guards about his pilot, he was told that he had been killed.
aircraft of World War II. By the end of the war, This was the last American fixed-wing aircraft lost in the Vietnam War. Hall had previously commanded the U.S.
Lockheed had built 10,037 Lightnings. Navy Blue Angels aerial demonstration team.

January 21, 2022 Aerotech News and Review 7
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