Military Archives - Page 114 of 180

Marine Pilot Recalls Grenada Invasion

Thirty years ago, U.S. Marine Corps Lt. Michael Mattie expected to spend a month with his helicopter squadron undergoing winter training in Norway. Instead, the 26-year-old helicopter pilot found himself in two of the world’s hot spots, dodging enemy fire. Mattie, now 56 and a father of five, related his involvement as the nation this week […]

Blue Angels to Fly Again in 2014

The return of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels for their 2014 air show season, including Florida’s Sun ‘n Fun Fly-In, has been funded by the Pentagon. The team been grounded since April, and thus through most of their 2013 schedule, due to the federal spending cuts known as sequestration. “We’re excited to be out there again for […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1880 – Death of Charles-Alphonse Pénaud, French pioneer of aviation and inventor of the rubber band-powered model airplane. 1922 – Amelia Mary Earhart with her yellow Kinner Airster biplane nicknamed “The Canary” reaches an altitude of 14,000 feet, setting a world record for female pilots. 1933 – Birth of Donald Herod Peterson, U.S. Air Force […]

USAF Pilots Train in Small World

Imagine graduating from college and commissioning through the U.S. Air Force ROTC as a brand-new officer, assigned to pilot training at an air force base 1,300 miles from home. Then imagine discovering that in the same squadron, in the same class and in the same flight is someone from your small hometown nestled among the […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1893 – Birth of Alexander Mikhailovich Pishvanov, Russian World War I flying ace, engineer at Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. and Seversky Aircraft. 1908 – Louis Blériot, in a Blériot VIII, flew a distance of 4.3 miles. 1942 – On a flight from Hawaii to Canton Island, a Boeing B-17D Flying Fortress, carrying top-scoring U.S. World War […]

Honor Held Up Among WWI Airmen

It stands out of as a glimmer of humanity amid the horror of the First World War. Two British airmen failed to return from a patrol over enemy territory, their fate unknown, until a German aircraft took a perilous mission over the British lines to drop a note conforming their deaths. But that was not the […]

October Historic Month for Louisiana Crashes

Oct. 20 was a bad day in the life of Louisiana military flying crews, Shreveport (La.) Times readers learned to their sorrow many times over past decades as they read the news the next morning. Crashes in 1942 and 1944 claimed several lives and three airframes at Barksdale Field, near Bossier City, and 50 years […]

Texas Tech to Open Vietnam Museum

The Texas Aviation Heritage Foundation Inc. has announced the kickoff of a fundraising campaign to establish a Vietnam War museum at Texas Tech in Lubbock. At a luncheon hosted by the Hillcrest Country Club honoring local pilots who flew in the Vietnam war, U.S. Air Force Col. David Lewis, president of TAFHI, said the goal […]

On This Day in Aviation History

1905 – Birth of Andrea Zotti, Spanish War Italian flying ace. 1927 – Four Supermarine Southampton flying boats of the Royal Air Force Far East Flight, under the command of Group Capt. H.M. Cave-Browne-Cave, leave Plymouth, England, for a 27,000-mile cruise to Egypt, India, Australia, Japan and Singapore. 1951 – The Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck (shown above), the […]

USAF Museum Reopens

The National Museum of the U.S. Air Force, located at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, reopened at 9 a.m. today. “We greatly appreciate the ability to reopen the museum and apologize for the inconvenience the closure caused our national and international visitors,” said Museum Director Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Jack Hudson. “We are excited to […]