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

1979–80
March 31: Maj. James E. McArdle, Jr., USAF, and his four-man crew in an H–3
helicopter hoisted 28 Taiwanese seamen shipwrecked in the Yellow Sea
after their ship ran aground, earning Major McArdle the Mackay Trophy.
March 31: After a nuclear power-plant accident at Pennsylvania’s Three-Mile
Island on March 28, C–5, C–141, and C–130 aircraft airlifted testing
equipment, lead-shielding materiel, and chemicals to the area.
May 2–3: Two E–3A Sentry aircraft flew the first airborne warning and control
system training mission over central Europe.
June 12: Cyclist Bryan Allen made the first human-powered flight across the
English Channel in the aircraft Gossamer Albatross.
July 9: Voyager 2, an unmanned space probe launched in 1977, reached the
vicinity of the planet Jupiter and began sending back photographs.
August 31: The Air Force began flying relief missions to victims of Hurricanes
David and Frederic, which hit several islands in the West Indies
before striking the United States. By November 21, C–5, C–141, and
C–130 cargo airplanes had delivered more than 2,900 tons of disasterrelief
cargo to the Caribbean.
September 15–22: In one of the largest aerial fire-fighting operations on
record, eight C–130s from the Air Force Reserve and from Air
National Guard units in California and Wyoming flew 254 sorties to
drop 732,000 gallons of fire-suppressant liquid over fires in southern
California.
October 19–21: Two C–141 Starlifter aircraft equipped for aeromedical
evacuation transported 38 severely burned U.S. marines from Yokota
Air Base, Japan, to Kelly Air Force Base, Texas, following a fire that
swept through an enlisted men’s barracks at a Marine Corps base at
Mount Fuji, Japan.
November 4: More than 3,000 Iranian militants stormed the U.S. Embassy
in Tehran, Iran, and took 66 U.S. citizens hostage. President James E.
“Jimmy” Carter decided to exhaust diplomatic options before resorting
to a military response.
December 27: The Soviet Union led a coup in Afghanistan that set up a new
puppet regime, provoking a civil war and the entrance of thousands of
Soviet troops, many of them by airlift, into the country.
1980
March 12–14: Two B–52 crews from the 644th Bombardment Squadron and
the 410th Bombardment Wing flew nonstop around the world in 43.55
hours, averaging 488 miles per hour over 21,256 statute miles, to
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