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

1992
replaced the recently dissolved Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
The humanitarian supplies, which came from North Atlantic Treaty
Organization stockpiles in Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, and the
United Kingdom, relieved people suffering from a collapsed Communist
economic system.
March 4: Two B–52 Stratofortresses landed in Russia on a friendship mission.
This was the first landing by U.S. bombers in Russia since World War II.
March 24: The United States joined 24 other nations in signing the Open
Skies Treaty, which allowed any one of them to fly unarmed aerialreconnaissance
missions over any other signatory nation.
April 24: Two Peruvian fighters attacked and heavily damaged an unarmed
USAF C–130 Hercules aircraft flying in international airspace off Peru.
For making a safe emergency landing, the C–130 crew earned the
Mackay Trophy.
June 1: In a major reorganization, the Air Force inactivated Strategic Air
Command, Tactical Air Command, and Military Airlift Command; it
then activated Air Combat Command and Air Mobility Command. Air
Combat Command received Strategic Air Command’s bombers and
missiles and Tactical Air Command’s fighters, while Air Mobility Command
inherited Military Airlift Command’s transports and Strategic
Air Command’s tankers. Air Force Space Command assumed management
responsibility for the Air Force Satellite Communications System,
formerly managed by Strategic Air Command.
June 1: The Department of Defense activated United States Strategic Command,
which assumed wartime responsibility for U.S. nuclear forces
and their long-range delivery systems. The last commander of Strategic
Air Command, Gen. George L. Butler, USAF, became the first commander
of United States Strategic Command.
July 1: Continuing its reorganization, the Air Force inactivated Air Force
Logistics Command and Air Force Systems Command; it then activated
Air Force Materiel Command to replace them.
July 2: Operation PROVIDE PROMISE began, delivering food, medical supplies,
and other relief cargo to Sarajevo and other communities in
newly independent Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was suffering a civil
war in the wake of its independence from Serbia. PROVIDE PROMISE
became the longest sustained relief operation in USAF history. By
early January 1996, when the operation ended, it had delivered nearly
160,000 tons of relief supplies, some of them by airdrop and some by
landing on airfields under hostile gunfire.
August 14: To save victims of drought and civil war in Somalia from starvation,
the United States launched Operation PROVIDE RELIEF. By the time it
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