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

1961–62
June 1: At Kincheloe Air Force Base, Michigan, the first Bomarc-B pilotless
interceptor site was declared operational.
June 9: Delivery of the first C–135 Stratolifter introduced jet cargo aircraft
into the fleet of the Military Air Transport Service.
July 1: North American Air Defense Command began systematically detecting,
tracking, and cataloging man-made objects in space.
July 21: Capt. Virgil I. Grissom became the second U.S. and the first USAF
astronaut in space. He attained an altitude of 118 miles and a speed of
5,310 miles per hour in a 303-mile suborbital spaceflight.
August 1: Five Air Force Reserve C–124 groups and more than 15,000
reservists were mobilized as part of the administration’s response to
the Communists’ construction of the Berlin Wall.
August 8: The Air Force launched an Atlas F missile from Cape Canaveral,
Florida, for the first time. The Atlas F, designed for long-term storage
of liquid fuels and for shortened countdown, was the only Atlas model
destined for emplacement in hardened, underground silos.
October 30: As part of Operation STAIR STEP, the first of 216 Air National
Guard fighters from units mobilized on October 1 during the Berlin
crisis began deploying across the Atlantic Ocean to European bases.
November 15: The 2d Advanced Echelon, Thirteenth Air Force, activated in
Saigon, Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam), marking the official
entry of the Air Force into the Vietnam War. In an operation called
FARM GATE, a detachment of the 4400th Combat Crew Training
Squadron began deployment to South Vietnam with special-operations
aircraft.
December 15: The North American Air Defense Command semiautomatic
ground-environment system became fully operational with completion
of its 21st and last control center at Sioux City, Iowa.
1962
February 2: A C–123 Provider aircraft crashed in South Vietnam while spraying
defoliant during Operation RANCH HAND, marking the first
USAF aircraft loss in South Vietnam.
February 20: Lt. Col. John H. Glenn, Jr., United States Marine Corps,
became the first U.S. astronaut to orbit Earth. He flew for nearly five
hours in Mercury capsule Friendship 7.
March 5: The crew of a B–58 Hustler bomber assigned to the 43d Bombardment
Wing set three speed records in a round-trip flight between New
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