March 24

2012 -- As reported by The New York Times, the United States military has decided that no service members will face disciplinary charges for their involvement in a NATO airstrike, also known as the Salala incident,that occurred when U.S.-led NATO forces engaged Pakistani security forces at two Pakistani military checkposts along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border on November 26, 2011. Two NATO Apache helicopters, an AC-130 gunship, and two F-15E Eagle fighter jets entered by varying estimates as little as 200 meters (660 ft) to up to 2.5 kilometres (1.6 miles), into the Pakistani border area of Salala in the Baizai subdivision of Mohmand Agency, FATA at 2 a.m. local time, from across the border in Afghanistan and opened fire at two border patrol check-posts, killing up to 24 Pakistani soldiers and wounding 13 others. [pictures] The two Pakistan Army check-posts were codenamed "Boulder" and "Volcano" respectively. This attack resulted in a deterioration of relations between Pakistan and the United States. The Pakistani public reacted with protests all over the country and the government took measures adversely affecting the U.S. exit strategic from Afghanistan including the evacuation of Shamsi Airfield and closure of the NATO supply line.

2011 -- James Anderson was fired from Ryanair back in 2009 for passing out union recruitment leaflet to a member of his cabin crew. Anderson was a captain with Ryanair since March 2001. British Airline Pilots' Association (BALPA) secured a  of £40,000 settlement from Ryanair and Anderson has his job back.

2011 -- NASA's comet trekking spacecraft Stardust has officially ended operations. Stardust sent its last transmission to Earth today having traveled an incredible 3.54 billion miles (5.69 billion kilometers) over a 12 year period to become "NASA's most traveled comet hunter." Launched on Febuary 7, 1999, Stardust's prime mission was to travel past an asteroid named Annefrank and onwards to Jupiter to collect particle samples from the comet Wild 2. The mission was successfully completed in 2006 after the spacecraft traveled back to Earth to deliver its particle sample canister. With Stardust in great condition and with plenty of fuel onboard, NASA gave the spacecraft a new name, Stardust NExT, and a new directive to take images of the comet Tempel 1 which was struck by a probe during the Deep Impact mission in 2005. This marked the first time a comet has been visited twice, and the first spacecraft to visit two comets. Stardust's last undertaking was to burn the remaining fuel in its tanks and fuel lines. As there are no reliable fuel gauges in the weightless environment of space, mission planners use fuel consumption models to track fuel levels by calculating the vehicle's flight history with the amount and length of time rockets have fired. 

2010 -- New GAO Report. Joint Strike Fighter: Significant Challenges and Decisions Ahead, GAO-10-478T (pdf).

1999 -- The NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia Operation Allied Force began. The USAF portion was code named Noble Anvil. The air war began with 250 U.S. aircraft committed. Some 720 U.S.aircraft were eventually deployed, including 517 USAF types -- 40 A-10, 18 F-15C, 32 F-15E, 35 F-16CG, 64 F-16CJ, 25 F-117, 11 B-52, 5 B-1, 6 B-2, 151 KC-135, 24 KC-10, 25 various ISR, 38 Special Operations/CSAR/other and 43 transports.

1999 -- The Serbs launched at least a dozen of their best fighters, MiG-29s, to intercept NATO’s attacking airplanes. The MiGs emerged from the 127th Fighter Aviation Squadron’s field at Batajnica, and NATO’s airborne warning and control system (AWACS) airplanes detected them. The first shots of Allied Force were AGM-86C CALCM launches from six B-52s. There were 400 sorties flown the first night, a Royal Netherlands Air Force F-16AM (J-063) shot down a Serbian MiG-29 using an AIM-120B AMRAAM missile. This became the first air to air kill in Allied Force. Two USAF F–15C pilots, Colonel Cesar A. Rodriguez, Jr., and Captain Michael K. Shower, both of the 493d Expeditionary Fighter Squadron, each shot down one of the MiG–29s, also using AIM-120 missiles.

1999 -- Yugoslav Air Force pilots Iljio Arizanov, Nebojsa Nikolic, and Slobodan Peric each claimed to have shot down a USAF F-117A while flying a MiG-29s. Actually it was neither. The 3rd battery of the 250th Missile Brigade near Belgrade, equipped with 1960s era SA-3 SAMs, shot down the F-117.

1999 -- The B-2 made its combat debut during Operation Noble Anvil. Eventually, 49 B-2 combat sorties were launched from Whiteman AFB, Missouri. Forty-five of these sorties reached their target and 652 joint direct attack munitions and four GBU-37s were dropped. The round-trip missions lasted 28 to 32 hours, however, only six of the nine available B-2s were used.

1998 -- United States Air power panel recommends B-2 improvements. A group of former Air Force leaders, a senator and industry representatives recommend that funds for the B-2 bomber program be spent to improve bombers already flying, not to buy new aircraft.

1995 -- The last Atlas E missile launched a satellite from Vandenberg AFB, California, into a polar orbit.

1992 -- The last U.S. Air Force fighter aircraft to be stationed in Spain departs, ending a 26-year span of service in that country.
1986 -- The first Lockheed Tristar KC1 tanker-transport, ZD953, is delivered to the RAF in a ceremony at Marshalls of Cambridge, the company responsible for the conversion of the aircraft from civil airliners.

1977 Tactical Airlift Command's 552nd Airborne Warning and Control System Wing at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, received the first production E-3A air warning and control system aircraft.

1977 U.S. Air Force in Europe acquired Comiso Air Station, Italy, for the ground-launched cruise missile.

1971 -- In the first operational test of Minuteman III, missile crews and maintenance technicians assigned to the 91st Strategic Missile Wing, Minot AFB, North Dakota, launched a missile from Vandenberg AFB, California.

1971 -- As a result of votes in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, Boeing cancels its supersonic transport. The elaborate, full-size mock-up is eventually sold to a promotion specialist who puts it in a Florida amusement park.

1970 Tyndall AFB, Florida, completed the first launching of a BOMARC B guided missile, using the new backup interceptor control computerized command and control equipment.

1965 -- Chinese Naval Air Force pilot Xiangyi Wang claimed to have downed one U.S. Air Force drone.

1965 -- Millions watch space probe crash into Moon. A ground-breaking 15-minute live broadcast has shown what it feels like to be a space probe hurtling to destruction on the Moon.

1962 -- First man in the stratosphere, Swiss-Belgian physicist Auguste Piccard¹ died from heart failure at Lausanne, Switzerland. Piccard was notable for his exploration of both the upper stratosphere and the depths of the sea in ships of his own design.    To study the physics of the stratosphere, Auguste Piccard designed a hydrogen balloon carrying an pressurized cockpit, in which he soared to a then-record height of 51,775 feet in a 17-hour flight on May 27, 1931. The following year Piccard broke his own record, reaching 53,153 feet above sea level and gathering more detailed information about the earth's upper atmosphere. He also collaborated with Albert Einstein to design instruments that measured atmospheric radioactivity.

1957 -- Flying Saucers for Everyone. Prediction from the past about the future.

1956 -- First flight Piper PA-24 Commanche. A high-performance all-metal design with single Lycoming piston engine with two- or three-bladed propeller; retractable tricycle landing gear, swept fin, and laminar flow wing. Deliveries began in late 1957. Total delivered: 4,856.

1950 -- In the British Parliament, there is an announcement that the use of helicopters for carrying mail is far from economical at the present time.

1950 -- First successful ramjet research model flown at Wallops Island by NACA Langely's PARD.

1945 -- Allied forces began large-scale crossings of the Rhine as Operation Varsity, the operation involved 2,000 transport aircraft and gliders.

1945 -- In the longest mission in the history of the 15th Air Force B-17 bomber groups based in Italy flew 1,6000 miles to Berlin and bombed the Daimler-Benz tank factory. On the return trip escorting the B-17s, Roscoe Brown, a pilot who earned his wings at Tuskegee in March 1944, noticed unidentifiable "streaks" overhead. They turned out to be Messeerschmitt 262s, the first jet aircraft deployed in combat. Brown's P-51 couldn't climb fast enough to engage the jets on their own terms, so he dove. When a Me-262 followed. Brown was able to engage it from underneath, fire, and destroy it. He was one of the first American pilots to shoot down a jet.

1944 -- British Brigadier Orde Charles Wingate, leader of the Chindits flew to Imphal to confer with air force commanders.On the return journey, the USAAF B-25 bomber in which he was flying is believed to have flown into a thunderstorm and crashed in the jungle-covered mountains. All aboard were killed.

1939 -- Royal Hungarian Home Defense Air Force pilot Antol Bekassy claimed 2 Slovak Avia B.534 while flying Fiat CR.32.

1939 -- American woman air record-breaker Jacqueline Cochran achieves a woman's altitude record of 30,052 ft. 5 in. over Palm Spring, California in a Beechcraft Model 17.

1939 -- Royal Hungarian Home Defence Air Force pilots Matyas Pirithy, and Sandor Szajak claimed Slovak Avia B.534 while flying Fiat CR.32s.

1939 -- Royal Hungarian Home Defence Air Force pilots Bela Csekme, Arpad Kertesy, Alador Negro, and Laszlo Pongracy each claimed to have shot down 1 Slovak Letov S.328 while flying Fiat CR.32s.

1933 -- Airports modernize with huge clocks.

1932 -- 24-28: Jim Mollison, piloting a de Havilland Puss Moth, makes a solo flight from Lympne in Kent to Cape Town in South Africa in 4 days, 17 hours, and 30 minutes.

1929 -- Mexican Air Force pilot Jorge Llerenas claimed 1 rebel aircraft shot down during the short-lived, failed rebellion (March-April), led by general Gonzalo Escobar in Sonora.

1917 -- 67th victory for Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen.

1917 -- German-born American physicist; rocketry engineer and space-travel theorist Krafft Arnold Ehricke is born at Berlin, Germany. He was a key member of the famed  Peenemünde Rocket Development team, specializing in the propulsion system for the German V-2 rocket. He moved to the U.S. with Wernher von Braun's rocket team in 1945. Entering the U.S. private industry in 1953, he helping develop the Atlas missile at General Dynamics. Subsequently, he invented the first liquid hydrogen propelled upper stage launch vehicle, the Centaur which enabled the U.S. to explore the solar system by launching planetary probes. A vial of his cremated remains accompany those of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and others in space orbit, launched April 20 1997.

1917 -- German Ace Leutnant Renatus Theiller was killed in action when his Albatros D.III was shot down by a Sopwith 1½ Strutter of 70 Squadron.

1917 -- Argentine Army Lt. Benjamín Matienzo obtained the title of Flying Pilot Nº 111.

1911 -- Roger Sommer flies the world’s first flight with 12 passengers a distance of 800 meters (2,625 feet) in his Sommer biplane.

1910 -- Orville Wright and Charlie Taylor arrive in Montgomery, AL with five students and an airplane in tow. They open a flight school at a location that will become Maxwell Air Force Base. The Wright's first civilian students are Walter Brookins, Arch Hoxsey, A. L. Welsh, Spencer Crane, and J. W. Davis. Only Brookins, Hoxsey, and Welsh made it as pilots.

1909 -- The Wright brothers found a school in the U.S.A. to train pilots for exhibition flights. The first pupil is a childhood friend, Walter Brookins, 21, from Dayton. Because Dayton's weather is not good enough, Orville Wright sets up the school at Montgomery, Alabama, where winds are generally light.

1907 -- Janet Harmon Waterford Bragg nee Janet Nettie Harmon is born at Griffin,  Georgia.  Bragg was a registered nurse inspired to fly by the exploits of Bessie Coleman, the first licensed black pilot in the United States.  In 1933. Janet (then Waterford) enrolled at Aeronautical University, a segregated black aviation school managed by John C. Robinson and Cornelius Coffey. She was the only woman in a class with 24 black men. In 1934 because she was one of the few black pilots still employed during the Depression, Bragg provided $600 of her own money to buy the school's first airplane, and helped in building the school's own airfield in Robbins, Illinois. In the summer she obtained her private pilot's license. In 1943 she applied to join the Women Airforce Service Pilots program. When she went in for an interview, Ethel Sheehy, assistant to the head of WASP, denied her an interview because she was black. A few weeks later, she received a rejection letter from Jacqueline Cochran, head of WASP, for the same reason. Her application to the military nurse corps was rejected, also on racial grounds. She then traveled to a flight school in Tuskegee, Alabama and completed the Civilian Pilot Training Program. She was denied a pilot's license in Alabama, for being a "colored girl", but managed to receive a license at Pal-Waukee Field, Illinois. After the war, Bragg married and ran two nursing homes until she retired in Tucson, Arizona.

1904 -- The Wrights apply for a German patent for their airplane. Two days ago they applied for a French one.

1899 -- Arthur Emmons Raymond the aeronautical engineer who led the team that designed the DC-3 is born in Boston Massachusetts.
"The DC-3 was the first practical passenger plane, and Arthur Raymond," according to aviation historian Harry Gann, "was the unrecognized genius behind it." Raymond later helped found the Rand Corp., the renowned Santa Monica-based think tank, which began in 1946 as an offshoot of Douglas.² But he was best known for his accomplishments in the aviation world. In 1932, Raymond led the design of the prototype of the DC-3--the DC-1--which Douglas developed for the airline that later became TWA. That prototype launched a series of DC aircraft in the 1930s that made commercial flight safer, more comfortable and more economical. The DC-3 is legendary among aircraft. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Allied commander during WW II, once singled out the DC-3 as one of his four most important weapons. (The Jeep, the bazooka and the atomic bomb were the other three.) It was instrumental in the Berlin Airlift. Lore abounds about its amazing durability, such as the time in 1957 a Frontier Airlines DC-3 enroute from Prescott, Arizona to Phoenix encounters the side of a mountain. After struggling with the controls in the clouds upon climbing out they realized around 12 feet of the left wing is no longer on the aircraft.³ Wobbling on to Phoenix the flight lands safely, and just two minutes late, the airplane had been flown missing part of the wing for half of the flight. "It was an airplane built in a time when product life was designed to be indefinite," Raymond told The Los Angeles Times in 1985, on the DC-3's 50th anniversary.

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¹ Piccard's twin brother, Jean Piccard, was a noted balloonist who investigated cosmic rays at high altitudes. Auguste Piccard's grandson, Bertrand Piccard (b. 1958), was the first balloonist to circle the globe non-stop, accomplishing the feat in 19 days in 1999. Auguste Piccard's nephew and Jean Piccard's son, Don Piccard (b. 1926), is a well-known balloonist and a leading American manufacturer of high-altitude balloons.
² Raymond remained with Douglas for 35 years in a career that stretched from the earliest days of commercial flight to the space age. Many of his engineering colleagues at Douglas in the 1930s became aviation legends themselves, including John Northrop, who later founded the Northrop Corp.; Jerry Vultee, who formed Vultee Aircraft, which later became Convair; and J.H. Dutch Kindelberger and J. Leland Atwood, who both later became presidents of North American Aviation.


³  Nearly 50 years after this experience a team of people recovered the missing part of the wing in 2005.