One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University
One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University
One Hundred Years of Flight USAF Chronology ... - The Air University
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1976–77<br />
earthquake. <strong>The</strong> aircraft also transported 696 medical, engineering,<br />
and communications personnel. <strong>The</strong> effort was called Operation<br />
EARTHQUAKE.<br />
March 22: <strong>The</strong> first A–10 Thunderbolt was delivered to Davis-Monthan <strong>Air</strong><br />
Force Base, Arizona, for test and evaluation. <strong>The</strong> heavily armored jet<br />
attack aircraft, armed with a heavy Gatling gun in the nose and<br />
equipped with straight wings able to carry a variety <strong>of</strong> air-to-ground<br />
munitions, was designed for close air support missions.<br />
May 23–June 9: After Typhoon Pamela hit Guam, C–5s, C–141s, and one<br />
C–130 airlifted 2,652 tons <strong>of</strong> relief equipment and supplies to the<br />
island.<br />
June 28: Joan Olsen became the first woman cadet to enter the <strong>Air</strong> Force<br />
Academy and the first woman to enter any <strong>of</strong> the three Department <strong>of</strong><br />
Defense service academies.<br />
July 3: Using C–130 aircraft, Israeli commandos led an assault on Entebbe<br />
airport in Uganda, rescuing 105 hostages held by pro-Palestinian terrorists.<br />
July 15: Consolidated interservice aerial-navigation training began for Navy<br />
and Marine Corps personnel at Mather <strong>Air</strong> Force Base, California.<br />
July 20: <strong>The</strong> Viking I space probe landed successfully on the surface <strong>of</strong> the<br />
planet Mars and began transmitting television photographs <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Martian landscape.<br />
September 6: A Soviet pilot landed his MiG–25 Foxbat jet fighter in<br />
Hokkaido, Japan, and asked for asylum in the United States. Japanese<br />
and U.S. <strong>of</strong>ficials closely examined the aircraft and on November 15,<br />
returned it, dismantled, to the Soviet Union.<br />
September 16: <strong>The</strong> United States <strong>of</strong>ficially returned Eniwetok Atoll, site <strong>of</strong><br />
the first U.S. hydrogen bomb explosion, to its former inhabitants.<br />
September 29: <strong>The</strong> first <strong>of</strong> two groups <strong>of</strong> 10 women pilot candidates entered<br />
undergraduate pilot training at Williams <strong>Air</strong> Force Base, Arizona—the<br />
first time since World War II that women could train to become pilots<br />
<strong>of</strong> U.S. military aircraft.<br />
1977<br />
January 8: <strong>The</strong> first YC–141B (stretched C–141 Starlifter) rolled out <strong>of</strong> the<br />
Lockheed-Georgia Marietta plant. Equipped with in-flight refueling<br />
capability, it was 23.3 feet longer than the original C–141A, enabling it<br />
to carry more troops and cargo.<br />
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