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

1968–69
December 31: The Tupolev Tu–144 flew for the first time in the Soviet
Union, marking the first flight of an airliner designed to operate at
sustained supersonic speed.
1969
January 1: The 71st Special Operations Squadron of the Air Force Reserve
flew the first AC–119 Shadow gunship combat mission in Vietnam.
The AC–119’s multiple machine guns could strafe the ground even
more effectively than those of its predecessor, the AC–47.
February 9: The Boeing Corporation flew its 747 “jumbo jet” aircraft for the
first time. The huge airliner could hold 347 passengers.
February 9: The free world’s first tactical communications satellite, the
1,600-pound TACSAT 1, blasted into geostationary orbit from the Air
Force Eastern Test Range, Florida, atop a Titan IIIC launch vehicle.
TACSAT was designed to relay communications among small landmobile,
airborne, or shipborne tactical stations.
February 24: An enemy mortar shell struck an AC–47 gunship on which
A1C John L. Levitow served as loadmaster during a night mission in
support of a South Vietnamese army post. Although seriously
wounded and stunned, Airman Levitow flung himself on a smoking
magnesium flare that was rolling in the cargo compartment, dragged
it to an open cargo door, and threw it out of the aircraft. Almost immediately
the flare ignited. For this selfless heroism, Levitow became the
fourth enlisted airman to win the Medal of Honor and the only
enlisted airman to win the nation’s highest military honor in Vietnam.
March 2: The Anglo-French Concorde—the first Western airliner designed
to fly at supersonic speed—flew for the first time from Toulouse,
France.
April 4–10: The 49th Tactical Fighter Wing redeployed its 72 F–4D aircraft
from Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, to Holloman Air Force Base,
New Mexico, conducting 504 successful aerial refuelings. For this feat,
the wing received the Mackay Trophy.
May 14: Operation COMBAT MOSQUITO began. During the operation,
two C–141 flights airlifted 50 tons of insecticide to Ecuador to combat
an encephalitis epidemic there, and two UC–123s sprayed the insecticide
over that country’s coastal marshes. By the end of May, the operation
had exterminated up to 95 percent of the area’s mosquitoes.
June 10: Air Force Systems Command presented its number-one X–15 hypersonic,
rocket-powered manned research aircraft to the Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, D.C., for display with other historic aircraft.
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