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TSA administrator Kip Hawley said extensive screening of employees would drain resources from passenger checkpoints.
2008 - China asked the U.S. to release data on the shootdown of an ailing spy satellite, while the Communist Party's newspaper blasted what it called Washington's callous attitude toward the weaponization of space.
"China requests the U.S. ... provide to the international community necessary information and relevant data in a timely and prompt way," Liu said. In contrast, the overseas edition of People's Daily excoriated Washington for opposing a recent Russian-Chinese proposal on demilitarizing space. "One cannot but worry for the future of space when a great nation with such a massive advantage in space military technology categorically refuses a measure to prevent the militarization of space," the paper said. Washington has rejected the Russian-Chinese proposal for a global ban on space arms because it would prohibit an American missile interceptor system in the Czech Republic and Poland, while exempting Chinese and Russian ground-based missiles that can fire into space.
His comments came hours after Beijing complained the missile strike could cause harm to security in outer space and some countries. "We provided a lot of information ... before it took place," Gates told reporters during a visit to Hawaii. He said he is determined to be open about the U.S. operation and is "prepared to share whatever appropriately we can." The satellite and the kill vehicle collided at a combined speed of 22,000 mph about 130 miles above Earth's surface, and that the collision was confirmed at a space operations center.
2008 - A commercial airliner owned by Venezuelan airline Santa Barbara crashed taking off from the Alberto Carnevali Airport in Merida, Venezuela. All 46 people on board died.
The French-made ATR 42-300 twin-engine plane carrying 43 passengers and three crew members failed to contact control towers as expected after it took off from the airport located in a valley with 17,000-foot mountains and houses at the end off the runway en route to Simon Bolivar International Airport outside of Caracas. The area where it crashed lies about 400 miles southwest of Caracas. Flight 518 slammed into a rock face just 6 miles from MRD.
Below is a video showing a takeoff from the Alberto Carnevali Airport in Merida, Venezuela.
He was a career naval officer who became a rear admiral in 1956. He served as commander of the Pacific Missile Range from 1957-1961 before becoming the director of astronautics for the chief of naval operations from 1961-1963.
2003 - NATO announces that AWACS surveillance planes will fly to the Turkish airforce base in the next few days.
2002 - A U.S. CH-47E Chinook helicopter with 10 soldiers crashed into the Mindanao Sea in the Philippines. 3 bodies were found by local fishermen.
2001 - First flight Bombardier Aerospace commercial airliner, the CRJ900.
The CRJ900 was the latest addition to Bombardier's family of CRJ regional jets, joining the 50-passenger CRJ100/200 and 70-seat CRJ700 models. The aircraft is a minimum stretch derivative of the 70-seat, CRJ700 and allows Bombardier to retain full pilot commonality across the world-leading family of regional jets.
2001 - An RQ-1 Predator fired a Hellfire missile at a tank at Nellis AFB, Nevada. It became the first unmanned aerial vehicle to destroy a ground target.
2000 - U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Kenneth David Nichols died of respiratory failure at the Brighton Gardens retirement home in Bethesda, Maryland. He was 93.
General Nichols worked on the Manhattan Project in WW II and served in a variety of special weapons activities with the Department of Defense. In the early 1950s he was involved in directing the guided missile research and development effort for the Secretary of Defense. He also held posts with the Atomic Energy Commission and with industry.
1999 - U.S. and British warplanes attacked a missile base and 2 military communication sites.
The strikes were conducted near Al Amarah which is approximately 170 miles southeast of Baghdad and near Tallil which is also approximately 170 miles southeast of Baghdad in southern Iraq. The strikes were in response to a No-Fly Zone violation by two Iraqi aircraft earlier in the day.
1997 - The space shuttle Discovery returned to earth after a mission to upgrade the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
1992 - NASA Director (1960-1972) Milton B. Ames, Jr., died this date.
1991 - A C-141 Starlifter from the 438th Military Airlift Wing flew 55 tons of supplies to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to provide humanitarian assistance.
1991 - Marine AV-8Bs conduct bombing runs off the flight deck of USS Nassau (LHA 4).
This is the first time in history that Marine AV-8B jump jets have conducted combat missions from a helicopter assault ship.
1984 - Race car driver Henri Pescarolo and Air France pilot Patrick Fourticq land their Piper Malibu in Paris after a flight from New York, setting a speed record of 14 hours 2 minutes for a single-engined lift aircraft across the North Atlantic.
1979 - Former astronaut Neil Armstrong climbs to 50,000 feet in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in just over 12 minutes in a Gates Learjet Longhorn 28, breaking five world records for business jets.
1978 - First flight of the Mil' Mi-26 heavy helicopter.
1973 - The U.S. halted air strikes in Laos. The 30-year civil war ended and a ceasefire prevailed.
1973 - While flying from Benghazi Libya to Cairo Egypt as Flight 114, a Libyan Arab Airlines Boeing 727-224 (5A-DAH) strayed off course in cloudy weather after passing Sidi Barrani and continued past Cairo.
Over the Israeli-controlled Sinai desert the aircraft was intercepted by two F-4E Phantom II fighters of the Israel Air Force 201 Squadron. The fighter pilots tried to get the airliner to land at the Israeli air base at Bir Gifgafa by exchanging hand signals with the airliner's pilots, rocking their wings and finally firing across the nose of the Libyan plane. The airliner lowered its wheels but raised them again and banked in an apparent attempt to escape. The fighter pilots then attacked the 727, hitting the right hand wingtip with cannon fire. A fire erupted and the airliner crew attempted to make a belly landing in the desert, but crashed. Of the 9 crew members and 104 passengers on board, 8 crew members and 100 passengers were killed. The Israel government later issued an apology and paid $3 million in compensation for this incident.
1971 - Twelve hundred USAF Air National Guard members assisted in disaster relief operations in six states hit by tornadoes, snowstorms and earthquakes through February 25. Oklahoma Air National Guard C-124s dropped 300 tons of hay to snowbound cattle.
1966 - Donald D. Williams committed suicide.
was instrumental in the development of the Early Bird and Syncom communications satellites. He was employed by the Hughes Aircraft Company and was named one of America's ten outstanding young men of 1965 by the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce.
1964 - Scott Joseph Kelly, astronaut, NASA Group 16--1996, is born in Orange, New Jersey, U.S.A.
1964 - Mark Edward Kelly, astronaut, NASA Group 16--1996, is born in Orange, New Jersey, U.S.A.
Twin brother of astronaut Scott Kelly.
1964 - Internation air route opens for Il-18 between Moscow and Algiers.
1962 - A McDonnell Phantom II establishes new time-to-climb records to 3,000 and 6,000 meters in 34.52 and 48.78 seconds, respectively.
1961 - Final training for the first Mercury flights began with the naming of Alan B. Shepard Jr, Virgil I. Gus Grissom and John H. Glenn Jr., as candidates for an early ballistic flight.
1958 - First flight of the P.O. Sukhoy PT-8-4 experimental interceptor, pilot V.S. Il'yushin.
1953 - First powered flight of the Bell X-1A research airplane was completed, Jean Skip Ziegler as pilot.
1951 - An English Electric Canberra becomes the first jet to make an unrefuelled crossing of the Atlantic, taking 4 hours 37 minutes.
1947 - A U.S. Air Force B-29 Superfortress (45-21768), Kee Bird, of the 46th Reconnaissance Squadron, crash landed on a frozen lake in northern Greenland after having gotten lost in the Arctic, while on a reconnaissance mission.
The airplane had departed Ladd Field Alaska the day before. The crew of eleven, Howard R. Adams, Vernon H. Arnett, Burl Cowan, Talbert M. Gates, Russell S. Jordan, Robert Leader, John G. Lesman, Robert L. Luedke, Paul R. McNamara, Ernest C. Stewart and Lawrence L. Yarbrough, spent three days on the frozen lake, enduring temperatures of less than 50 degrees below zero, before being rescued by a USAF C-54.
In 1994 an effort was begun by Darryl Greenamyer to recover the aircraft. In May 1995 he and his team had the aircraft ready for flight. Moving the aircraft under its own power on May 22, 1995, the fuel supply for the APU spilled onto the APU, starting a fire that destroyed the aircraft.
1946 - Peenenmüende team arrives in White Sands, New Mexico.
1945 - Japanese aircraft sank the U.S. Carrier Bismark Sea during Kamikaze attack.
The Bismarck Sea was the last U.S. Navy aircraft carrier to be sunk in combat during WW II. The escort carrier Bismarck Sea was supporting the invasion of Iwo Jima, when about 50 kamikazes attacked the U.S. Navy Task Groups 58.2 and 58.3. Fleet carrier Saratoga was struck by three suicide planes and so badly damaged that the war ended before she returned to service. At 6:45 p.m., two Mitsubishi A6M5 Zeros approached Bismarck Sea, which opened fire with her anti-aircraft guns. One Zero was set on fire, but its suicidal pilot pressed home his attack and crashed into the carrier abreast of the aft elevator, which fell into the hangar deck below. Two minutes later, an internal explosion devastated the ship, and at 7:05 p.m., Captain J.L. Pratt ordered Abandon Ship. Ravaged by further explosions over the next three hours, Bismarck Sea sank at 10 p.m., the last U.S. Navy carrier to go down as a result of enemy action during WWII. Of her crew of 943, 218 officers and men lost their lives.
1945 - Heinz-Wolfgang Schnaufer, The Night Ghost Of Saint-Trond, flying a radar-equipped Bf110 with nose-mounted armament and Schrage Musik (the upward firing cannons), added 9 RAF bombers to his victories.
By the end of WW II the 23-year old Schnaufer was NJG-1 Kommandeur with several medals having flown 164 missions and 121 victories making him the top scoring Nachtjager pilot.
1944 - Vladimir Yemeliyanovich Mosolov, cosmonaut, Buran Group 1--1978, is born in Kaliningrad, Russia.
1931 - Winkler HW-1 rocket - first liquid-fuel rocket in Europe.
Funded by a Mr Hueckel, Winkler flies the first European liquid propellant rocket at Dessau, Germany. The rocket consists of three tanks - one for the fuel, one for the oxygen, and one for the nitrogen gas that pressure-feeds the motor. The motor is a simple 18-inch long cylinder, housed at the centre of the prismatic rocket. The rocket reaches only 3 m in the first test due to a malfunction.
Johannes Winkler was so inspired by a book "The Rocket into Planetary Space" by Herman Oberth that in 1927 he formed the Society for Space Travel, of which Oberth later became president. Also known in German as the "Verein fur Raumschiffahrt," this society became the spawning ground for the most significant breakthroughs in space technology. Members of the or- ganization would later include rocket pioneers such as Dr. Von Braun.
1923 - In recognition of the fact that the newer aircraft engines offered advantages of longer life and lower cost, the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics issued guidelines that severely restricted the repair and reuse of engines over two years old.
Through this means, the Navy was able to expend promptly its residual stocks of WWI engines and equip most new aircraft with newer engines. More importantly, freed of the millstone of stocks of obsolescent engines, the Navy could aggressively sponsor the development of improved aircraft engines to meet its various requirements.
1930 - German WW I ace (33 victories) Oberleutnant Heinrich Claudius Kroll died at Hamburg, Germany.
1923 - Tests of aircraft handling were made aboard USS Langley with Aeromarines operating in groups of three.
Results showed that it required two minutes to prepare the deck after each landing; and in the best time for the day three planes were landed in seven minutes.
1922 - Airship Roma exploded at Hampton Roads, Virginia, and 34 died.
1921 - Lt. William D. Coney, of the U.S. Army Air Service, completed a solo flight from Rockwell Field, San Diego, California, to Jacksonville, Florida.
He covered 2,180 miles in 22 hours and 27 minutes flying time.
1920 - Robert S. Johnson, American WW II fighter ace who shot down 27 German planes in an 11-month span, is born in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Protecting Flying Fortress bombers on their missions deep into Germany in his barrel-nosed P-47 Thunderbolt fighters, Johnson was the second fighter pilot of the USAAF - United State Army Air Force - to supplant the 26 victories that Eddie Rickenbacker got in WW I. He accomplished that feat when he knocked down two Luftwaffe fighters near Brunswick, Germany, on May 8, 1944, on his final mission. His squadron commander in the 56th Fighter Group, Lt. Col. Francis Gabreski, was the only U.S. fighter pilot in Europe with more "kills," having shot down 28 German planes and destroyed three more on the ground. Maj. Richard Bong of the Army Air Forces, the first pilot to break Rickenbacker's mark, was the leading American ace of the entire war, downing 40 Japanese planes.
1919 - First flight of the prototype of the first U.S.-designed fighter to enter large-scale production, the Thomas-Morse MB-3 (to be made by Boeing).
1918 - Flying the Hanriot HD.1 Belgian ace Lieutenant Andre Emile Alfons de Meulemeester scores his 7th of 11 victories.
1918 - Royal Flying Corps. ace Major James Thomas Byford Mac McCudden achieved his 55th victory.
1918 - SVA-5s¹ of the 1a Sezione Autonoma SVA, based at Sovizzo, flew non-stop from Ponte S. Pietro, in the northern Italy, to Innsbruck, to bomb railway plants.
They all returned safely to base after a 3 hour flight.
1917 - The fourth highest scoring flying ace of all time Otto Kittel was born in Kronsdorf (Korunov) in Silesia, Austria-Hungary (now Krasov, Czech Republic).
o Kittel flew 583 combat missions and scored 267 kills, many of them Il-2's, making him the fourth highest scoring ace of all time. He started the war as an Unteroffizier and died as Staffelkapitan of 2./JG 54.
1914 - Born at Lieksa, Finnish Carelia, Illu Juutilanen, the top Finnish ace of WW II, with 74 victories.
As a boy Juutilainen read the book by Manfred von Richthofen, "The Red Fihter Pilot" which made him dream about becoming a pilot.
Illu shared von Richthofen's view: the task of a fighter pilot is to take his guns to an advantageous position in relation to the enemy and shoot him down. For Illu a fighter plane was a flying gun platform, nothing else.
He always looked back before opening fire, and if the enemy was approaching, he abandoned the target and prepared to meet the new challenge. Never was Juutilainen's fighter hit by enemy fighter fire during his 437 missions.
1911 - A new 1910 Wright Type B Flyer owned by Collier’s magazine publisher Robert F. Collier, arrives at San Antonio, Texas on rent to the U.S. Army for $1.00 per month to supplement the aging Wright biplane first accepted on August 2, 1909. in Orange, New Jersey, USA.
1893 - Royal Air Force ace who scored 16 victories flying the Sopwith Camel, Capt. Owen Morgan Baldwin is born in Twyford, Berkshire, England.
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¹ An exceptional aircraft for its time, the Ansaldo S.V.A.5 was preceeded by the S.V.A.4 which was designed in 1917 by Umberto Savoia and Rodolfo Verduzio with Celestino Rosatelli. The principal difference between the S.V.A.4 and the S.V.A.5 was fuel capacity. With a larger fuel tank, the S.V.A.5 could remain in the air two hours longer than the S.V.A.4. In air trials these aircraft were fast and sturdy but lacked the manoeuvrability necessary in a good fighter plane. As a result, the S.V.A.5 entered service as a long range reconnaissance plane. Six squadrons of the Italian Air Service were equipped with the S.V.A.5 beginning in February 1918.
Cut and Paste Aviation Archive
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The successful U.S. effort to destroy an orbiting spy satellite Wednesday night could send a powerful message to potential U.S. adversaries, such as North Korea and China, that their missiles and spacecraft could be vulnerable, the Los Angeles Times reported today.
The destruction of the ailing satellite by a modified missile interceptor launched from a U.S. naval vessel demonstrated the flexibility and reliability of U.S. defensive systems, according to the Times.
I hope so.
I'm with you Donna but we've got some d**n democrats that don't agree.
U.S. Representative Ed Markey (D-Mass.) criticized the antisatellite activity.
“The geopolitical fallout of this intercept could be far greater than any chemical fallout that would have resulted from the wayward satellite,” he said in a statement. “The Bush administration’s decision to use a missile to destroy the satellite based on a questionable ‘safety’ justification poses a great danger of signaling an ‘open season’ for other nations to test weapons for use against our satellites. Russia and China are sure to view this intercept as proof that the United States is already pursuing an arms race in space, and that they need to catch up” (Markey release, Feb. 21).
I ask you, did this Markey say anything when the Chinese Commies destroyed their satellite?
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday that the successful shoot-down of a rogue US spy satellite demonstrated that America's missile defense system works.
"I think the operation speaks for itself in that respect," Gates told reporters here after touring one of the warships that supported the operation in the Pacific ocean.
"I think the question over whether this capability works has been settled," he said. "The question is what kind of threat, how large a threat, how sophisticated a threat (the United States faces)."
Late Wednesday, the USS Lake Erie fired a single modified tactical SM-3 missile that hit the schoolbus-sized satellite some 250 kilometers (150 miles) over the Pacific as it traveled at more than 7,000 miles (11,265 kilometers) per hour, the Pentagon said.
"We've had a number of successful tests and the fact that the Congress in recent years overwhelmingly has voted billions of dollar to continue with the missile defense program is testament to the fact that issue over whether it will work is behind us," Gates said.
Asked about China's request that Washington provide information about the satellite strike, Gates said: "We're prepared to share whatever, appropriately, we can."
He said the US governments approach has been one of "complete transparency and letting everybody know what was going on and the purpose of the activity."
The US military has denied that the strike had been planned as a show of force, insisting that its aim was to protect people from an out-of-control satellite loaded with dangerous toxic fuel.
What a joke. First they say they shoot down the thing for public safety and then when they succeed they can't help but brag about how it shows just how tough they are even though they didn't do it to show that, but just in case you missed it, they are so damn tough that you don't want to be messing with them! ROTFLOL
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