Jan. 14, 1936: Flying a Northrop Gamma 2G, serial number 11, which he had leased from Jackie Cochran, Howard Robard Hughes, Jr., set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale World Record for Speed Over a Recognized Course (Los Angeles to New York) in 9 hours, 26 minutes, 10 seconds, at an average speed of 259.1 miles per hour. Most of the flight was made at altitudes of  15,000-18,000 feet, and Hughes used supplemental breathing oxygen.

Jack Northrop had designed and built the Gamma as a long-range cargo and mail plane for Transcontinental and Western Air, Inc. The contract was cancelled, though, and several airplanes became available to other customers. Cochran purchased s/n 11, which had been completed Aug. 15, 1934, and had it modified by Northrop as a two-place long-distance racer for the 1934 MacRobertson London-to-Australia air race, which she planned to fly with her friend Ted Marshall.

Meanwhile, Hughes had seen the Gamma and wanted to buy it. In her autobiography, Cochran tells how Hughes acquired the airplane:

One night about 11:30 I was exhausted in my hotel room and the telephone rang. . .

“Jackie,” the voice says, “this is Howard.”

“Howard who?” I say, still sleepy and getting frustrated.

“Howard Hughes,” the man says.

“Howard who?” I ask again.

“Howard Hughes,” he repeats.

. . . We argued about who he was a bit more. Finally, he says, “I want to buy your airplane.”

I’m thinking that this is an incredible conversation. “It’s not for sale, Howard,” I reply. “I’m going to fly it in the Bendix.”

“I don’t want to fly it in the Bendix,” he answers. “I want to fly it cross-continental.”

“So do I,” I say.

Howard Hughes and I negotiated over the Northrop Gamma for about four weeks. . . Howard wanted my Northrop so badly, but it would break my heart to consider handing over my rights to it … when he offered to rent it, with an option to buy, I caved in …”

 

 

 

Jan. 14, 1942: Chief Test Pilot Charles “Les” Morris made the first flight of the Vought-Sikorsky VS-316A at Stratford, Conn. The first flight lasted approximately three minutes, and by the end of the day, Morris had made 6 flights totaling 25 minutes duration. The VS-316A established the single main rotor/anti-torque tail rotor configuration. It was a two-place helicopter with side-by-side seating and dual flight controls.

 

 

 

Jan. 14, 1943: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and French General Charles de Gaulle opened a wartime conference in Casablanca.

 

 

 

Jan. 14, 1953: During a high-speed taxi test on the San Diego Bay, Convair Chief Test Pilot Ellis “Sam” Shannon inadvertently made the first flight of the Convair F2Y Sea Dart. The Sea Dart was an American seaplane fighter aircraft that rode on twin hydro-skis during takeoff and landing. It flew only as a prototype, and never entered mass production. It is the only seaplane to have exceeded the speed of sound. It was created in the 1950s, to overcome the problems with supersonic planes taking off and landing on aircraft carriers. The program was canceled after a series of unsatisfactory results and a tragic accident on Nov. 4, 1954, in which test pilot Charles E. Richbourg was killed when the Sea Dart he was piloting disintegrated in midair. The four surviving planes were retired in 1957, but some were kept in reserve until 1962.

 

 

 

Jan. 14, 1957: The U.S. Air Force signed at $74 million contract for Convair F-102A “Delta Dagger” supersonic all-weather fighters.

 

 

 

Jan. 14, 1961: Lt. Col. Harold E. Confer, Lt. Col. Richard Weir and Maj. Howard Bialas, flying Convair B-58A-10-CF Hustler 59-2441, Roadrunner, obliterated the FAI closed-course speed records established only two days earlier by another B-58 crew. They averaged 1,284.73 miles per hour over a 1,000 kilometer closed circuit, more than 200 miles per hour faster, and set three Fédération Aéronautique Internationale records. They were awarded the Thompson Trophy. Roadrunner was sent to The Boneyard in 1970, and along with its sister aircraft, scrapped in 1977.

 

 

 

Jan. 15, 1915: Army Lt. Byron Quinby Jones of the U.S. Army Aviation Section, Signal Corps, set a flight endurance record of 8 hours, 53 minutes in San Diego, Calif. Jones was flying a Glenn L. Martin Company Martin T Army Tractor. The flight consumed 30 gallons of gasoline. Jones estimated that he had sufficient fuel remaining for another two hours in the air, but approaching darkness forced him to land. For this and other flights at San Diego, Jones was awarded the Mackay Trophy. The Mackay Army Aviation Cup was established in 1911 by Clarence Hungerford Mackay, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Postal Telegraph and Cable Corporation. Now known as the Mackay Trophy, it is awarded yearly for “the most meritorious flight of the year” by U.S. Air Force personnel. Jones was the sixth aviator to be awarded the trophy, and the trophy is kept at the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum. Additionally, was the first Army pilot to perform a loop, an intentional stall and recovery, and a “tail spin.”

 

 

 

Jan. 15, 1935: Maj. James Doolittle set a Fédération Aéronautique Internationale record for a transport flight across the United States, from Los Angeles to N.J., in 11 hours 59 minutes.  Flying an American Airlines’ Vultee V-1A Special, Doolittle lift Union Air Terminal in Burbank, Calif., on Jan. 14. Onboard with Doolittle was his wife, Josephine, and Robert Adamson, a Shell Oil Company executive. The flight broke a record set two months earlier by Eddie Rickenbacker. The Vultee V-1A was a large, all-metal, single-engine, low-wing monoplane. The aircraft was designed as a high-speed airliner. It could fly with one or two pilots, and had room for up to eight passengers.

 

 

 

Jan. 15, 1943: The first flight of the XP-54 took place flown by Vultee Aircraft Corporation test pilot Frank Davis. Informally nicknamed the Swoose Goose, the aircraft was a sleek twin-boom, inverted gull-wing aircraft with tricycle landing gear whose performance never lived up to its appearance.

 

 

 

Jan. 15, 1943: Work was completed on the Pentagon, the headquarters of the U.S. Department of War, now the Department of Defense.

 

 

 

Jan. 15, 1947: The Kaman K-225 made its first flight. The K-225 was an American experimental helicopter developed by Kaman Aircraft. One example was modified to become the world’s first gas turbine-powered helicopter.

 

 

 

Jan. 15, 1966: An F-111A arrived at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., from the General Dynamics factory for Category II testing.

 

 

 

Jan. 16, 1936: A delegation of officers from Headquarters, Pacific Coast Air Force, inspected the bombing and gunnery range at what is now Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. At that time, the housing facilities consisted of tents for up to 65 men and a permanent kitchen building. The bombing range west of the lakebed included outline targets of various aircraft types, a battleship, and several buildings. Some 3,000 practice bombs had been dropped during the preceding 20-day period.

 

 

 

Jan. 16, 1957: Five Boeing B-52B Stratofortress eight-engine jet bombers of the U.S. Air Force Strategic Air Command, 93rd Bombardment Wing (Heavy), departed Castle Air Force Base, Calif., on a non-stop around-the-world flight. Forty-five hours, 19 minutes later (on Jan. 18), three of the B-52s landed at March Air Force Base, Calif., completing the 24,325 miles at an average speed of 534 mph.

The lead Stratofortress, Lucky Lady III, was commanded by Lt. Col. James H. Morris. Morris had been co-pilot aboard Lucky Lady II, a Boeing B-50A Superfortress that flew around the world in 1949. Also aboard Morris’ bomber was Maj. Gen. Archie J. Old, Jr., commanding 15th Air Force. Three of the  bombers were considered primary, with two “spares.” Each B-52 carried a flight crew of nine men, including three pilots and two navigators. Four inflight refuelings from piston-engine Boeing KC-97 Stratotankers were required. More than 100 KC-97s participated in Operation Power Flite.

One of the primary B-52s, La Victoria, 53-0397, commanded by Maj. George Kalebaug, was unable to refuel in flight because of ice build-up in its refueling receptacle. The bomber diverted to Goose Bay, Canada. A second B-52, a spare, as planned, left the flight over North Africa, diverting to an air base in England.

All 27 crewmembers of the three bombers were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Gen. Curtis LeMay. The Mackay Trophy for “the most meritorious flight of the year” was awarded to the 93rd Bombardment Wing.

 

 

 

Jan. 16, 1969: Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 docked, first-ever docking of two crewed spacecraft of any nation, and the first-ever transfer of crew from one space vehicle to another of any nation. Soyuz 4, piloted by pilot-cosmonaut Lt. Col. Vladimir A. Shatalov, was the first manned spacecraft to be launched by the U.S.S.R. during the winter and had an enhanced water-landing capability. During its 34th orbit on Jan. 16, Soyuz 4 began a docking exercise with Soyuz 5, which was on its 18th orbit. When the automatic system had brought the ships within 99 meters of one another, a manual approach of Soyuz 4 was completed. While docked, the ships completely interlocked controls, power, and telephones. On the 51st orbit of Soyuz 4, cosmonauts Ye. V. Khrunov and A. S. Yeliseyev of Soyuz 5 passed into the orbital work compartment of their ship, donned pressure suits, opened the outer hatch, and floated and climbed hand over hand using handrails from Soyuz 5 through the opened hatch and into Soyuz 4. TV cameras recorded coverage of the whole procedure, both inside and outside the ships. The two ships remained docked for 4 hours and 35 minutes. Soyuz 4 returned to earth after three days, carrying a crew of three men instead of one.

 

 

 

Jan. 16, 1975: Three U.S. Air Force pilots set five Fédération Aéronautique Internationale time-to-altitude records in one day. The pilots – Maj. Roger J. Smith, Maj. Willird R. MacFarlane and Maj. David W. Peterson were assigned to the F-15 Joint Test Force at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. They flew an unpainted McDonnell Douglas F-15-6-MC Streak Eagle.

Smith took the first record: from brake release to 9,843 feet in 27.571 seconds. The next three belonged to MacFarlane: 19,685 feet in 39.335 seconds; 29,528 feet in 48.863 seconds; and 39,370 feet in 59.383 seconds. The last record for the day went to Peterson, who reached 49,213 feet in 1 minute, 17.042 seconds. Streak Eagle is a very early production F-15A-6-MC Eagle, a single-seat, twin-engine air superiority fighter. In this photograph, from left: MacFarlane, Smith and Petersen.

 

 

 

Jan. 16, 2003: The Space Shuttle Columbia blasted off for what turned out to be its last flight; on board was Israel’s first astronaut, Ilan Ramon. The mission ended in tragedy on Feb. 1, when the shuttle broke up during its return descent, killing all seven crew members.

 

 

 

Jan. 17, 1932: Six Curtiss B-2 Condor bombers from the 11th Bombardment Squadron, U.S. Army Air Corps, and led by 1st Lt. Charles H. Howard, dropped food and supplies to the Navajo Reservation near Winslow, Ariz. The Condors were based at March Field in Southern California. The native community was isolated following a severe winter storm, and thousands of livestock had died. More than 30,000 pounds of food was dropped to the Navajo and Hopi nations. Howard and the 11th Bombardment Squadron won the Mackay Trophy for the year.

 

 

 

Jan. 17, 1961: President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered his farewell address in which he warned against “the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

 

 

 

Jan. 17, 1963: NASA test pilot Joe Walker reached an altitude of 41.4 miles, becoming the first civilian X-15 pilot to exceed an altitude of 50 miles.

 

 

 

Jan. 17, 1977: An A-10A performance test series began in order to obtain the quantitative data needed to prepare a performance supplement to the flight manual.

 

 

 

Jan. 17, 1990: NASA selected Maj. Eileen M. Collins, a student in Class 89-B of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., as a Space Shuttle pilot candidate. Collins was the first woman to be selected for the job. Learn more about her from this NASA factsheet at http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/htmlbios/collins.html

 

 

 

Jan. 17, 1991: U.S.-led forces attacked Iraq in a massive air assault after a United Nations deadline for the withdrawal of Iraqi troops from occupied Kuwait passes unheeded. The Gulf War was waged by coalition forces from 35 nations led by the United States against Iraq in response to Iraq’s invasion and annexation of Kuwait arising from oil pricing and production disputes. On Aug. 2, 1990, the Iraqi Army invaded and occupied Kuwait, which was met with international condemnation and brought immediate economic sanctions against Iraq by members of the UN Security Council. UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and U.S. president George H. W. Bush deployed forces into Saudi Arabia, and urged other countries to send their own forces to the scene. An array of nations joined the coalition, forming the largest military alliance since World War II. Most of the coalition’s military forces were from the U.S., with Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Egypt as leading contributors, in that order. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia paid around $32 billion of the $60 billion cost. The initial conflict to expel Iraqi troops from Kuwait began with an aerial and naval bombardment on Jan. 17, continuing for five weeks. During this period, Iraq launched Scud missiles against coalition targets in Saudi Arabia and Israel in an attempt to provoke a coalition-jeopardizing Israeli response, which failed to materialize. This was followed by a ground assault by coalition forces on Feb. 24. This was a decisive victory for the coalition forces, who liberated Kuwait and advanced into Iraqi territory. The coalition ceased its advance and declared a ceasefire 100 hours after the ground campaign started. Aerial and ground combat was confined to Iraq, Kuwait, and areas on Saudi Arabia’s border.

 

 

 

Jan. 18, 1911: The first landing of an aircraft on a ship took place as pilot Eugene B. Ely brought his Curtiss biplane in for a safe landing on the deck of the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Harbor.

 

 

 

Jan. 18, 1957: A trio of B-52s completed the first non-stop, round-the-world flight by jet planes, landing at March Air Force Base, Calif., after more than 45 hours aloft.

Led by Maj. Gen. Archie J. Old, Jr. as flight commander, five B-52B aircraft of the 93rd Bombardment Wing of the 15th Air Force took off from Castle Air Force Base, Calif., on Jan. 16, 1957, at 1 p.m., with two of the planes flying as spares. Old was aboard Lucky Lady III (serial number 53-0394) which was commanded by Lt. Col. James H. Morris, who had flown as the co-pilot aboard the Lucky Lady II when it made the world’s first non-stop circumnavigation in 1949. Heading east, one of the planes was unable to refuel successfully from a Boeing KC-97 Stratofreighter and was forced to land at Goose Bay Air Base in Labrador. The second spare refueled with the rest of the planes over Casablanca, Morocco and then split off as planned to land at RAF Brize Norton in England.

After a mid-air refueling rendezvous over Saudi Arabia, the planes followed the coast of India to Sri Lanka and then made a simulated bombing drop south of the Malay Peninsula before heading towards the next air refueling rendezvous over Manila and Guam. The three planes continued across the Pacific Ocean and landed at March AFB at 10:19 a.m., Jan. 18, after flying for a total of 45 hours and 19 minutes.  The 24,325 miles flight was completed at an average speed of 525 miles per hour and was completed in less than half the time required by Lucky Lady II when it made the first non-stop circumnavigation in 1949. Gen. Curtis LeMay was among the 1,000 on hand to greet the three planes, and he awarded all 27 crew members the Distinguished Flying Cross. Though Old called the flight “a routine training mission,” the Air Force emphasized that the mission demonstrated its “capability to drop a hydrogen bomb anywhere in the world.”

The National Aeronautic Association recognized the 93rd Bombardment Wing as recipient of the Mackay Trophy for 1957.

 

 

 

Jan. 18, 1982: Thunderbirds Indian Springs Diamond Crash: The worst accident in U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds Demonstration Team history involving show aircraft occured when four Northrop T-38A Talons, Numbers 1-4, 68-8156, -8175, -8176 and -8184, crashed during pre-season training on Range 65 at Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field, Nev., now Creech Air Force Base. While practicing the four-plane line abreast loop, the formation impacted the ground at high speed, instantly killing all four pilots: Maj. Norm Lowry, leader, Capt. Willie Mays, Capt. Pete Peterson and Capt. Mark Melancon. The cause of the crash was officially listed by the USAF as the result of a mechanical problem with the #1 aircraft’s control stick actuator. During formation flight, the wing and slot pilots visually cue off the #1 lead aircraft, completely disregarding their positions in relation to the ground. The crash of a team support Fairchild C-123 Provider on Oct. 10, 1958, killed 19.

 

 

 

 

Jan. 19, 1911: Lt. Paul Ward Beck dropped sandbag “bombs” over Los Angeles from an aeroplane piloted by Louis Paulhan. After completing the Signal Corps School in 1906, Beck was detached on Feb. 2, 1907, for commissioning and service in that branch with assignment to duty at the Benicia Barracks in California. Between Jan. 10 and 20 1910, he was assigned to observe the 1910 Los Angeles International Air Meet at Dominguez Field in California for the army. On Jan. 14, 1911, Glenn Curtiss made an unsuccessful attempt to take Lt. Beck on a bombing demonstration during this event. The plan was for Beck to drop a bag of ammunition from an altitude of 250 feet into a measured space to show that it was possible to use an airplane to drop bombs into gun pits during a time of war. Engine trouble precluded a successful demonstration that day, however. On Jan. 19, he went up in a Farman III biplane flown by renowned French aviator Louis Paulhan to drop two-pound sandbags in a demonstration of the feasibility of aerial bombing. Using an improvised bombsight of Beck’s design, they made three drops from 250 feet at 40 mph. The drops were highly inaccurate because the bombsight was adjusted for a much higher rate of speed, but the concept was shown to be sound. Beck, the son of a cavalry officer, was one of four students in the first class of U.S. Army and U.S. Navy pilot trainees taught by Glen Curtiss beginning in January 1911, and commanded the “provisional aero company” at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. Following service as a field grade infantry officer in World War I, Beck returned to aviation as part of the Air Service in 1920. He was assigned as commandant of the Air Service Observation School and assistant post commander of Post Field at Fort Sill, Okla.

 

 

 

Jan. 19, 1937: Millionaire Howard Hughes set a transcontinental air record by flying his monoplane from Los Angeles to Newark, N.J., in 7 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.

 

 

 

Jan. 19, 1942: The bombing range’s new 6,500-foot concrete runway, apron and four taxiways were completed at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. This allowed year-round use of the facility, especially during the winter months when the dry lakebed was likely to be flooded.

 

 

 

Jan. 19, 1965: Gemini 2 was the second spaceflight of the American human spaceflight program Project Gemini, and was launched and recovered on Jan. 19, 1965. Gemini 2, like Gemini 1, was an uncrewed mission intended as a test flight of the Gemini spacecraft. Unlike Gemini 1, which was placed into orbit, Gemini 2 made a suborbital flight, primarily intended to test the spacecraft’s heat shield. It was launched on a Titan II GLV rocket. The spacecraft used for the Gemini 2 mission was later refurbished into the Gemini B configuration, and was subsequently launched on another suborbital flight, along with OPS 0855, as a test for the U.S. Air Force Manned Orbital Laboratory. Gemini spacecraft no. 2 was the first craft to make more than one spaceflight since the X-15, and the only one until Space Shuttle Columbia flew its second mission in 1981; it would also be the only space capsule to be reused until Crew Dragon Endeavour was launched a second time in 2021. This photograph is an enlargement of a frame from a 16mm motion picture film which was mounted within the Gemini 2 spacecraft to take film through the hatch window. This photograph shows the spacecraft during reentry.

 

 

 

Jan. 19, 1968: Maj. William J. “Pete” Knight was awarded senior pilot Astronaut Wings and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his Oct. 17, 1967, flight in the X-15. It was then that he flew the aircraft to an altitude of 280,000 feet (more than 53 miles).

 

 

 

Jan. 20, 1934: The Boeing P-29 made its first flight. The P-29 was an attempt to produce a more advanced version of the highly successful P-26. Although slight gains were made in performance, the U.S. Army Air Corps and U.S. Navy did not order the aircraft.

 

 

 

Jan. 20, 1974: The General Dynamics YF-16 Fighting Falcon made its ‘accidental’ first flight. While gathering speed, a roll-control oscillation caused a fin of the port-side wingtip-mounted missile and then the starboard stabilator to scrape the ground, and the aircraft then began to veer off the runway. The General Dynamics test pilot, Phil Oestricher, decided to lift off to avoid crashing the machine, and safely landed it six minutes later at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. The aircraft’s first ‘official’ flight was on Feb. 2, 1974. The F-16 is a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft developed for the U.S. Air Force as part of theLightweight Fighter Program. As part of the program, the F-16 went up against Northrop’s YF-17. . During the fly off, the YF-16s completed 330 sorties for a total of 417 flight hours; the YF-17s flew 288 sorties, covering 345 hours. The YF-16 evolved into a successful all-weather multirole aircraft. More than 4,600 aircraft have been built since production was approved in 1976. Although no longer being purchased by the U.S. Air Force, improved versions are being built for export customers. In 1993, General Dynamics sold its aircraft manufacturing business to the Lockheed Corporation, which in turn became part of Lockheed Martin after a 1995 merger with Martin Marietta.

 

 

 

Jan. 20, 1993: The B-2 Spirit bomber successfully completed its first weapon separation flights. In this photograph, a B-2 is dropping a B-83 nuclear weapon shape.