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From: jem3@pyuxf.cc.bellcore.com (John E McKillop)
Newsgroups: soc.veterans,sci.aeronautics,sci.military
Subject: Aviation Anniversaries
Message-ID: <1991Jun12.012223.24449@amd.com>
Date: 10 Jun 91 11:54:08 GMT
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From: jem3@pyuxf.cc.bellcore.com (John E McKillop)


              

                SELECTED JUNE AVIATION ANNIVERSARIES

The following is reprinted without permission from AIR FORCE MAGAZINE 
published by the Air Force Association.

Jun 3, 1966: NASA launches Gemini 9 with Lieutenant Colonel Thomas
Stafford, USAF, and Lieutenant Commander Eugene Cernan, USN, on board. 
Commander Cernan perfomrs a two-hour spacewalk during the three-day 
mission.

June 7, 1981: Eight Israeli Air Force General Dynamics F-16s escorted by
McDonnell F-15s, attack the Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad, Iraq, 
disabling its core. As a result, the US imposes a temporary embargo on 
the supply of new F-16s to Israel.

June 9, 1961: The first Boeing C-135A Stratolifter is delivered to the 
Military Air Transport Service (MATS, now MAC), marking the start of a 
modernization program to eliminate its all-propeller fleet of 
transports.

June 11, 1926: The protoype Ford 4-AT TriMotor, an eleven passenger
airliner, makes its first flight.

June 18, 1911: H. Clyde Balsey of the Lafayette Escadrille is shot
down near Verdun, Framce, the first American-born aviator shot down
in World War I

June 19, 1911: The second U.S. Army aircraft, a Wright Model B, arrives 
at College Park, Maryland from the Wright factory.

June 20:
  1941: The U.S. Army Air Corps (USAAC) is redesignated U.S. Army Air 
    Forces (USAAF) with Major General Henry H "Hap" Arnold as its chief.
  1951: First flight of two Bell X-5 research aircraft. Based on the 
    Messerschmitt P.1101, they are used to investigate variable wing 
    sweepback.
  1956: The US Navy commissions its first helicopter assault carrier, 
    USS Thetis Bay (CVHA-1).

June 22, 1946: Two U.S. Army Air Forces Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star
fighters carry the first US airmail to travel by turbojet-powered
aircraft from Schenectady, New York to Washington, DC and Chicago,
Illinois.

June 23, 1931: Wiley Post and Harold Gatty begin their around-the-world 
flight in the Lockheed Vega WINNIE MAE. They complete the New York to 
New York trip July 1, having flown for 8 days, 15 hours and 51 minutes.

June 26:
  1946: The US Army Air Forces and the US Navy officially adopt the knot
    and nautical mile as standard aeronautical units of speed and 
    distance.
  1981: The first production Grumman/General Dynamics EF-111A Raven (aka
    Sparkvark), a specially developed ECM tactical jamming aircraft, 
    makes its first flight.

June 28, 1946: The first V-2 rocket is launched from White Sands
Proving Grounds, New Mexico. It rises to an altitude of 67 miles.

June 29, 1961: The US Navy's Transit IV satellite is launched, the
first known to carry a nuclear power source in the form of a 
radioisoltope battery.