January 12

2012 -- Jordan's Captain Bassmah Bani Ahmad, the Arab world's first female aerobatic pilot, former instructor with Ayla aviation academy and chief pilot at the Royal Aero Sports Club married His Royal Highness Prince Hamzah Al Hussain.

Princess Bassmah is an active member of the Arab chapter of the Ninety Nines and promoted the case for women pilots during the Dubai Airshow in November where she was part of the Ayla team.
2012 - The U.S. Marine Corps will deploy AAI RQ-7 Shadows to Afghanistan armed with classified new gravity bombs in a demonstration that could pave the way for a dramatic expansion in the numbers of  unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) with weapons.

If the demonstration is successful, thousands of RQ-7s could join the hundreds of Northrop Grumman RQ-5 Hunters and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems MQ-1B Predators, MQ-1C Gray Eagles and MQ-9A Reapers already cleared to carry weapons in combat.

2012 -- Marine Corps Sgt. Christopher Lemke’s diligence as a helicopter mechanic paid off recently when he discovered a potentially deadly flaw in a UH-1Y Huey aircraft.

2011 -- News Release [pdf]: A federal court granted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s motion to conclude one of EPIC’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits.

The decision stems from a 2009 lawsuit brought by EPIC, a leading privacy organization to obtain information about the controversial airport body scanners. EPIC was seeking more than 2,000 images generated by airport body scanners held by the TSA.

1999 -- The last three of ten C-27 Spartans flew from the 301st Airlift Squadron at Howard AFB, Panama, to Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz., for retirement.

1997 -- A non-stop, round-the-world balloon flight by Bertrand Piccard and Vim (Wim) Verstraeten ends in failure when a fuel leak forces the balloonists to ditch in the Mediterranean shortly after take-off.

1990 -- Military Air Command announced that it would allow female aircrew members to participate in C-130 and C-141 airdrop missions.

1986 -- The shuttle Columbia 7 blasted off with a crew that included the first Hispanic American in space, Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz and U.S. Rep. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. It was the 24th space shuttle mission.

1977 -  Air Canada suspends regular flights to Moscow, Prague, and Brussels, cuts domestic schedule; to offset 1976 operating losses.

1977 --   Federal Court of Canada upholds restriction on use of French in Canadian airspace.

1975 -- British Airways begins Europe's first no-booking shuttle service, between London and Glasgow.

1973 -- VF-161, flying off USS Midway, shot down a NVN MiG-17.

This would be the last MiG kill of the Vietnam conflict.

1971 -- The Air Force contracted the Boeing Company to produce the short range attack missile for the FB-111, B-52 and proposed B-1.

1970 -- A Pan Am Boeing 747, on a proving flight from New York, is the first wide-bodied airliner to make a landing at Heathrow Airport in London. 

1968 -- Captain Theodore H. Moore and Flight Mechanic Glenn R. Woods, on an Air America mission delivering artillery ammunition, a formation of North Vietnamese Air Force AN-2 Colt biplanes attacked a secret radar station; Site 85.¹ 

 The two Russian built biplanes dropped mortars, fired rockets and strafed the radar station with machine gun fire. Moore radioed a warning to the agents on the ground; however the attack killed several Hmong guerrillas defending the base. Moores helicopter, a civilian version of the UH-1 Huey was unarmed except for a contraband AK-47.  Woods fired from the door of the Huey. One of the planes crashed immediately, while the second plane, also hit, flew on for several miles before crashing into a ridge. The shooting down of fixed wing aircraft from a helicopter was a singular aerial victory in the entire history of the Vietnam war.

1965 -- U.S. scientists conducted what they called a "controlled excursion."

A rocket took off from Jackass Flats at the Nevada Test Site and burned off part of its radioactive core in a spectacle that scientists said "resembled a Roman candle." Prevailing winds pushed the resulting cloud of radioactive debris Southwest from the test site, over Death Valley, and then onward over "the Los Angeles area," according to the documents. Aircraft stopped tracking the cloud when it drifted over the Pacific Ocean.

1962 -- The United States Air Force launches Operation Ranch Hand, a "modern technological area-denial technique" designed to expose the roads and trails used by the Viet Cong.

Flying C-123 Providers, U.S. personnel dumped an estimated 19 million gallons of defoliating herbicides over 10-20 percent of Vietnam and parts of Laos between 1962-1971. Agent Orange--named for the color of its metal containers--was the most frequently used defoliating herbicide. The operation succeeded inn killing vegetation, but not in stopping the Viet Cong. The use of these agents was controversial, both during and after the war, because of the questions about long-term ecological impacts and the effect on humans who either handled or were sprayed by the chemicals.

1961 -- Maj. Henry J. Deutschendorf Jr., flew a B-58 Hustler from Carswell AFB, Texas, to six international speed and payload records in a single flight.

1953 -- A U.S. Air Force B-29 Superfortress on a leaflet-dropping mission over Manchuria was shot down by 12 enemy fighters.

The plane was assigned to the 581st Air Resupply and Communications Wing and carried a crew of 14. After the attack, B-29 aircraft commander, John K. Arnold, ordered the crew to bail out. Unfortunately, three men died during the attack, but the other 11 parachuted to the ground, were captured and taken to China for interrogation and imprisonment. These men were not released until 1956.

1945 -- Warplanes from the U.S. Navy’s carrier Task Force 38 under the command of Vice Adm. John Sidney McCain Sr. (father of Adm. John S. McCain Jr. and grandfather of Sen. John S. McCain III), attack enemy convoys and bases along the coast of Japanese-held French Indochina (Vietnam) in the Battle of the South China Sea.

Codenamed Operation Gratitude, the attacks are wildly successful. Despite rough seas and high winds from a dangerously close typhoon, Japanese bases at Saigon, Cape Saint Jacques (Vung Tau), Cam Ranh Bay, Qui Nhon, and Tourane Bay (Da Nang) are hit hard, resulting in the destruction of docks, barracks, weapons depots, hangars, and scores of Japanese seaplanes and other aircraft, as well as the sinking of more than 40 enemy ships.

1929 -- First U.S. air mail stamped envelopes are available for sale.

1907 -- Soviet designer of guided missiles, rockets, and spacecraft Sergey Pavlovich Korolev is born.

1866 -- The Aeronautical Society of Great Britain is founded in London (later to become the Royal Aeronautical Society) and is still in existence today.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

¹  During the Vietnam War the Americans operated a secret radar station; Site 85, situated 15 miles from the North Vietnamese border atop one of the highest mountains in Laos. Crucially it gave American bombers the ability to attack in all weather, a critical capability during the Rolling Thunder bombing campaign.

Two months after Air America Bell 205 vs Attacking North Vietnamese Air Force An-2 Colts,  Site 85 was destroyed by North Vietnamese Commandos, 12 U.S. Air Force personnel were killed, the largest single loss of USAF personnel during the war.