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

1999–2000
Treaty of 1977. The United States had operated the base in the Canal
Zone for 82 years.
November 20–21: China launched, monitored, controlled, and landed
Shenzhou—its first unmanned spaceship.
December 20–28: At least six C–130s, one C–5, and two MH–60 aircraft of
the Air Force took part in a humanitarian operation to Venezuela to
relieve the victims of a flood that left an estimated 200,000 people
homeless.
2000
March 2: After floods in Mozambique that left an estimated million people
homeless, Operation ATLAS RESPONSE commenced. C–5s and
C–17s flew 4,600 miles from a base in Germany to southern Africa,
where C–130s and MH–53 and HH–60 helicopters distributed food,
water, medicine, and tents. Maj. Gen. Joseph H. Wehrle, Jr., USAF,
served as the joint task force commander.
May 3: Gen. Joseph W. Ralston became the first USAF officer in 37 years to
serve as supreme allied commander, Europe—head of all North
Atlantic Treaty Organization forces.
May 23: The first production-model T–6A Texan II aircraft arrived at Randolph
Air Force Base, Texas. As a primary training aircraft, it would
replace both the Air Force T–37, which had been in service for 38
years, and the Navy T–34, which had been in service for 23 years.
July 15: The final B–2 arrived at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri. The Air
Force planned to add no more new bombers to its inventory for 35
years.
September 18: The first USAF CV–22 Osprey arrived at Edwards Air Force
Base, California. Designed originally for the Navy, the tilt-wing Osprey
could take off like a helicopter and fly like an airplane.
October 15: Crews from the 75th Airlift Squadron and the 86th Aeromedical
Evacuation Squadron earned the 2000 Mackay Trophy for evacuating
survivors of a terrorist attack from Europe across the Atlantic
Ocean to Norfolk, Virginia. The 28 victims were injured in a terrorist
attack on the Navy warship USS Cole on October 12, when it was
docked at Aden in Yemen. The attack left six dead and a 20x40-foot
hole in the ship’s hull.
October 31: Two Russian cosmonauts and one U.S. astronaut blasted off
from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan into space to become the
first residents of the International Space Station.
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