Milestones of Flight: 5/2

2008 - Airlines slow down to cut fuel expenses. Some airlines are flying more slowly to reduce the amount of fuel they use.

Southwest Airlines, for example, predicts that extending each flight between one and three minutes will save $42 million in fuel costs this year. JetBlue says that reducing speeds is not a "dramatic change" but agrees that the difference adds up to millions of dollars every year in jet fuel savings.

2008 - Different recollection of events--in a report prepared for the DOT--American Airlines contends that massive flight disruptions that resulted recently from grounding its fleet of MD-80s would not have happened if a tentative agreement between the airline and the FAA had been honored.

American made the statements in a report prepared for the DOT. The FAA is expected to dispute American's claims. Well, yeah.

2007 - At least seven members of the Colombian military were killed in a helicopter crash in the south of the country.

The military could not rule out that the helicopter had been shot down by leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels, and the air force was awaiting an examination of the crash's cause.

FARC have been fighting the central government for over 40 years.

2007 - New Report - Transforming the Way DoD Looks at Energy. DoD Office of Force Transformation--Transforming the Way DoD Looks at Energy (138 pages, PDF): "In an environment of uncertainly about the price and availability of traditional energy sources, DoD is facing increasing energy demand and support requirements that it must meet it it is to acheive its broader strategic goals--notable, establishing of a more mobile and agile force."

2006 - Armenian airline Armavia Airbus A-320 Crashes in Russia With 100 Aboard.

2003 - White Knight Flight 23.

1999 - Serbian ground forces shot down an F-16 over Yugoslavia. It was the second and last U.S. aircraft lost in Operation Allied Force.

An MH-60 helicopter rescued the pilot.

1999 - NATO bombings struck the Obrenovac power plant in Belgrade and blacked out large areas of Serbia.

A soft bomb (KIT-18) sprayed graphite over the power station and shorted its circuits.

1990 - Cosmonaut (Air Force Group 3--1965) Oleg Anatolyevich Yakovlev dies after a heart attack during a tennis-match at 49-years-old.

1988 - Col. Philip J. Ford, the 384th Bomb Wing Commander and Lt. Gen. Ellie G. Buck Shuler Jr., the Eighth Air Force Commander, flew the last B-1B from the Rockwell International plant to McConnell AFB, Kansas.

1981 - In a first, an airborne laser destroyed an aerial target, when the Airborne Laser Laboratory, a modified KC-135 aircraft armed with a carbon dioxide laser, shot down a drone over White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico.

1981 - Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona received Tactical Air Command's first OA-37 Dragonfly. It replaced the O-2A in the forward air control role.

1980 - Second Lt. Mary L. Wittick is the first woman to enter the Air Force undergraduate helicopter pilot training program in Class 81-05.

1979 - Two E-3A Sentry aircraft flew the first airborne warning and control system training mission over the Central Region of Europe lasting through May 3.

1977 - Edward Cole, GM president and creator of the Corvair, was piloting Beagle 206S2 near Mendon, Michigan, when it crashed after he flew VFR into adverse weather conditions and suffered spatial disorientation.

1977 - First Lt. Christine E. Schott becomes the first woman undergraduate pilot training student to solo in the T-38 Talon.

1975 - Dorothy Marie Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger, American mission specialist astronaut (NASA Group 19 - 2004), is born in Colorado Springs, CO.

One of Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger's astronomy students at Hudson's Bay High School in Vancouver, Washington once wanted to know how astronauts use the bathroom in space.

Mrs. M.L., as she's known to her students, went to the NASA.gov Web site looking to answer her student's question, and what she found changed her life.

The educator astronaut position had just been posted, and she applied. She got the call in mid-April that she had been accepted to begin astronaut training that summer at NASA's Johnson Space Center. At 29-years-old, she was the youngest of the 2004 class of astronaut candidates.

1970 - Ground fire in Cambodia claimed an F-4, the first Pacific Air Forces aircraft to be lost in combat operations in that country.

1966 - British European Airways (BEA) opens the first jet service between London Heathrow and Glasgow, using de Havilland Comet 4Bs.

1958 - Roger Carpentier beats Watkin’s two-week-old world altitude record when he flies to 79,452 feet in a Sud-Ouest SO 9050 in Istres, France.

To develop its rocket engine capabilities, in 1944 France created SEPR - Société d'Etudes pour la Propulsion par Réaction, specialized in research on rocket propulsion for aircraft.

The Espadon, an aircraft powered by a jet engine plus an SEPR rocket engine for takeoff and combat, made its first flight in 1952.

Throughout the fifties, various SEPR engines were tested on a number of experimental planes, including the Trident I and II, Gerfaut, Mystère, Durandal, Mirage I, and others.

On May 2, 1958, test pilot Roger Carpentier set a new world altitude record, flying his Trident II to 24,217 meters. But by the end of the decade, the concept behind the Trident II - a main rocket engine combined with low-thrust jet engines - had made a U-turn: the Mirage III featured a main jet engine and a booster rocket for interception.

While the Trident II never made it into production, the Mirage IIIC, powered by the Snecma Atar 9B plus a SEPR 844, would be chosen by six air forces and over 300 would be built. First deployed in 1959, the Mirage III remained in service until the 1980s.

1958 - FAR (Fuerza Aérea Rebelde)later to be Fuerza Aérea Revolucionaria on January 1, 1959) was formed by Fidel Castro.

Some historians maintain that April 12, 1958 Raúl Castro signed the orders creating the Fuerza Aerea Rebelde. First Lieutenant Orestes del Rio, a civilian pilot with 500 hours of flight time, was named at the head of the FAR. Del Rio started gathering the personnel and material needed to organize an effective air force.

1952 - The world’s first regularly scheduled, fare-paying, jet passenger service opens with the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) Comet 1 flight from London to Johannesburg.

1957 - Dominic Lee Pudwill Gorie, American pilot astronaut (NASA Group 15--1995), is born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, U.S.A.

1957 - The U.S. Air Force accepted its first F-101A Voodoo.
1951 - Fighter Attack Squadron (VFA) 195 from USS Princeton attack Hwachon Dam using aerial torpedoes, only use of this weapon in Korean War.

The Hwachon Dam. Located almost 50 miles northeast of Seoul, was 250-foot-high and impounded the waters of the Pukhan River, which were high due to the spring thaw. If the North Koreans they blew the dam's sluice gates, the released waters would flood the valley and stop further UN advances. If they held back the water by closing the gates, the river would be lowered to fordable depths and enable communist infiltration across the river against the exposed allied flanks. Either way, the dam had to go.

The attempts to blow up this dam rank as some of the most determined of the war. The Air Force was the first to try, using Boeing B-29s to bomb the dam, but they barely dented the thick gates. This bombing spooked the enemy, who promptly blew most of the vital Pukhan bridges and opened some of the gates, flooding the lower river. Since the 20-foot-high and 40-foot-wide gates made a vulnerable target for aircraft, the enemy strengthened the dam with rocks. The 4,000-foot ridges surrounding the reservoir limited access to only two aircraft at a time, making their runs against such a tiny target even more difficult. From this single raid by USS Princeton aircraft the enemy was denied control of the reservoir's waters for the rest of the war.

1945 - Final RAF Bomber Command sortie of WW II--deHavilland Mosquitos attack Kiel, Germany.

1945 - Peenemuende rocket team contacts American forces.

English-speaker Magnus Von Braun is sent to contact U.S. forces in order to surrender the German rocket team to the Americans.

The war was over, but as yet there was no peace. Hitler was dead and Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz, commander in chief of the Navy, was the new führer. The French First Army was known to be approaching and they might arrive before the Americans. SS were in the area in large numbers. Extremists among them, shot anyone they thought would surrender to the Allies. And there was the possibility that the scientists could all be shot to prevent their knowledge falling into the hands of the enemy.

Magnus Von Braun on a bike encountered Private Fred Schneiker from Wisconsin and told him the needed to see Ike (Eisenhower). He then revealed that he was a messenger representing a group of rocket scientists who were staying at a nearby hotel. They were responsible for making the V-2 and they wanted to surrender. Would the private please come with his tanks and rescue them as they were in danger from the SS Obergruppenführer Hans Kammler, who was in the mountains somewhere nearby and had orders to shoot the scientists rather than allow them to be captured by the Allies.

1935 - First flight of the V.F. Bolkhovitinov-designed DB-A bomber.

1934 - LT Akers demonstrates blind landing system at College Park, Maryland in OJ-2 aircraft

1925 - The Douglas C-1 biplane makes its first flight at Santa Monica, California and during the month completes trials at McCook Field.

The C-1 was a single-engine biplane military transport. It had one 435 hp Liberty V-1650-1 water-cooled engine. Best known for participation in early mid-air refuelling experiments (1929). 26 were built. It was the standard USAAC transport until 1929 and was the first military aircraft given the "C" designation for cargo transport.

1924 - A U.S. Navy DT plane, carrying a dummy torpedo, was launched by catapult from Langley, at anchor in Pensacola Bay.

The plane was piloted by Lieutenant W. M. Dillion and also carried Lieutenant S. H. Wooster as gunnery officer.

1923 - First non-stop transcontinental flight from New York to San Diego began.

1910 - First demonstration flight by S.I. Utochkin in Moscow.

1902 - Polar aviator S.A. Levanevskiy is born.

1899 - Royal Flying Corps fighter ace (10 victories) George Stacey Hodson is born in Belmont, Surrey, England.

1897 - WW I Australian Flying Corps Ace (12 victories) Capt. Thomas Charles Richmond Baker is born Smithfield, Australia.