One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University

1964–65
craft was a strategic bomber that could fly up to three times the speed
of sound and at altitudes above 70,000 feet, but advances in enemy surface-to-air-missile
technology prevented its production beyond the
prototype stage.
November 17: Operation DRAGON ROUGE began. C–130 Hercules aircrews
of the 464th Troop Carrier Wing carried paratroopers from Belgium
to rescue 1,400 hostages from captivity in Zaire, the former Belgian
Congo. They airlifted the refugees from there to France, an
action for which they received the Mackay Trophy.
December 15: Flying an FC–47, Capt. Jack Harvey and his crew conducted
the first gunship mission in Vietnam. The FC–47, later called the
AC–47, carried in its cargo bay a set of side-firing Gatling guns to strafe
ground targets.
December 22: Operation BIGLIFT began. By January 22, 1965, USAF cargo
aircraft had delivered more than 1,500 tons of food, clothing, bedding,
fuel, hay, grain, vehicles, pipe, and medical supplies to flood victims
in California and Oregon.
1965
January 1: The Air Force’s first SR–71 Blackbird unit, the 4200th Strategic
Reconnaissance Wing, activated at Beale Air Force Base, California. The
SR–71 could attain a speed of more than Mach 3 and altitudes beyond
70,000 feet, but it required special fuel and maintenance support.
The Lockheed SR–71 Blackbird, a strategic reconnaissance aircraft and the world’s
fastest and highest-flying production airplane, first flew in 1964.
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