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

February 18–22: The 129th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Group and the
41st Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron employed four H–3
Jolly Green Giant helicopters, two HH–53 helicopters, and three
C–130 Hercules aircraft to assist flood victims of the Russian and Yuba
Rivers of northern California. The airmen evacuated 520 flood victims,
saved 33 lives, and supplied over 3,000 sandbags to Army troops at the
disaster site.
March 4: During Exercise BRIGHT STAR, a combined U.S.-Egyptian training
operation, USAF tankers refueled foreign aircraft for the first time.
March 5: During a CORONET EAST deployment, Capt. Marc C. Felman
and his KC–10 Extender crew performed an emergency refueling of
Marine A–4M aircraft in the middle of the Atlantic, an action for
which they earned the Mackay Trophy for the most meritorious flight
of the year.
March 25: For the first time, an all-woman Minuteman missile crew served
on alert duty; the crew was assigned to the 351st Strategic Missile Wing,
Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri.
April 14–15: During Operation ELDORADO CANYON, 18 F–111 aircraft,
refueled by KC–10 and KC–135 tankers on a long flight from England
around France and Spain, bombed terrorist targets in Libya. USAF
EF–111s and Navy aircraft supported the F–111s, jamming enemy
radar and attacking Libyan air defenses and other targets. The air
raids forced Libya to stop sponsoring terrorism for years thereafter.
April 28–May 7: Air Weather Service units supported the efforts of the United
States to track the movement of radioactive contamination from the
Chernobyl nuclear-reactor accident in the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics. WC–130 Hercules aircraft flew air-sampling missions.
In order to fly into hurricanes to take meterological measurements, the
WC–130E has more powerful engines and greater range than the conventional
C–130 transport.
1986
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