This Week In AFLCMC History - May 1 - 7, 2023 Published May 1, 2023 By Air Force Life Cycle Management Center History Office 1 May 1918 (Wright-Patterson AFB/Armament Dir.) On this date, 105 years ago, the Armorers’ School at Wilbur Wright Field (WPAFB Area A) began flight and ground testing of Marlin and Lewis machine guns. The only American-made aircraft to see combat during World War I was the De Havilland DH-4, adapted from a British design but improved by American engineers. 1,213 DH-4s were delivered to France by war’s end—mostly flying observation, artillery spotting, and early daytime bombing sorties—and each was equipped with two .30-cal. Marlin machine guns (in the nose) and two .30-cal. Lewis machine guns in the rear. Pictured is a diagram of the Lewis machine gun. 2 May 1957 (Fighters and Advanced Aircraft Dir.) A USAF C-47 Skytrain, equipped with skis and wheels, made the U.S.A.’s first successful North Pole landing. At the time, it was believed to be the world’s first North Pole landing (but Soviet pilots had made it there in 1948). Flown by Lt Cols William P. Benedict and Joseph O. Fletcher, the crew, accompanying officials, and scientists spent 3 hours and 10 minutes at the landing site taking measurements before flying back to Fletcher’s Island to report their success. Fletcher’s Island was an iceberg discovered earlier by the expedition’s co-pilot, Lt Col Fletcher, whereupon a weather station was established. The iceberg was later abandoned, and vanished at some point after 1983. It is believed it melted. 3 May 1952 (Mobility & Training Aircraft Dir.) The USAF accepted its first McDonnell F-101A Voodoo aircraft on May 2, 1957. Pictured is a photo of the assembly of the first production F-101, tail number 53-2418, in August 1954. Once finished, this aircraft was the one delivered on this date. With two Pratt & Whitney J57-P-55 engines, the F-101 was originally designed to be a long-range bomber escort. However, with the arrival of aircraft like the B-52, WWII-style escort fighters were no longer needed. The Air Force adapted the F-101 to new roles as a tactical and defensive fighter, as well as for tactical reconnaissance. The reconnaissance version (RF-101) flew 82 missions during the 1962 Cu-ban Missile Crisis, as well as many missions in Southeast Asia. 3 May 1952 (Mobility & Training Aircraft Dir.) A USAF C-47 Skytrain, equipped with skis and wheels, made the U.S.A.’s first successful North Pole landing. At the time, it was believed to be the world’s first North Pole landing (but Soviet pilots had made it there in 1948). Flown by Lt Cols William P. Benedict and Joseph O. Fletcher, the crew, accompanying officials, and scientists spent 3 hours and 10 minutes at the landing site taking measurements before flying back to Fletcher’s Island to report their success. Fletcher’s Island was an iceberg discovered earlier by the expedition’s co-pilot, Lt Col Fletcher, whereupon a weather station was established. The iceberg was later abandoned, and vanished at some point after 1983. It is believed it melted. 4 May 1994 (Hill AFB/Armament Dir.) On this date, the last AGM-69A Short-Range Attack Missile (SRAM) to receive depot maintenance at the Ogden Air Logistics Complex (Hill AFB) was packaged and shipped. The AGM-69A had its initial flight test in 1971, went into service in 1972, and was retired in 1993. It was 14 feet long, 18 inches across, and weighed approximately 2,230 pounds. Pictured is an SRAM being loaded into a B-1B bomb bay in the mid 1980s by mem-bers of the 96th Munitions Squadron. Meant as a re-placement for the AGM-28 Hound Dog, the AGM-69 was a nuclear air-to-surface missile with a range of up to 50 nautical miles. In addition to the B-1B, it was carried by FB-111s and B-52s as well. 6 May 1918 (AFLCMC) After several months of public speculation, President Woodrow Wilson authorized the Department of Justice to investigate charges of graft and mismanagement in the aircraft production program that was run by Daytonian Col Edward Deeds. The allegations were prompted by Gutzon Borglum, who was a nationally known artist—he later sculpted Mount Rushmore. In this case, he leveraged his connections to prosecute a personal grudge. As part of a Dayton committee in 1912, Deeds had engaged Borglum to construct a memorial to the Wright Brothers, but the 1913 flood devastation cancelled the plans and left Borglum feeling slighted. Five years later, Borglum proposed an aircraft de-signed after a fish to the Army Signal Corps. Deeds was then in charge of aircraft production and his experts rightly rejected the design. Borglum took it personally, blamed Deeds, and reacted by fabricating charges of corruption that he widely publicized. The resulting Justice Department report found no merit in the allegations and instead chastised Borglum. 7 May 1965 (Hanscom AFB/C3I & Networks Dir.) The first piece of major equipment, a Philco 212 Computer, was placed in the NORAD Combat Operations Center (COC) within Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado Springs, Colorado. Pictured is an artist’s conception in 1956 of what the COC might look like when finished, consisting of an above-ground headquarters, a basement, and a three-story underground COC. Instead, the COC was placed directly inside Cheyenne Mountain. The Cheyenne Mountain facility would become fully operational as NORAD’s Combat Operations Center on February 6, 1967. The Philco 212 was an early commercial computer designed for real-time data processing, but Philco was eventually outcompeted by IBM. 20 Years Ago This Week in USAF History: 5 May 2003 Twenty years ago, on May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush famously declared an end to major combat operations in Iraq while aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier. Although an insurgency war would keep Americans fighting in Iraq for eight more years (with the Iraq War formally ending on December 15, 2011), the 2003 televised speech was reflective of the fact that Saddam Hussein’s military had fallen apart and Hussein himself had lost control of the country—with U.S.-led coalition forces ousting him from power over the roughly previous six weeks (with the air invasion beginning on March 19, 2003, and ground forces moving in the next day). Hussein himself would be captured in hiding that December. One major force multiplier contributing to the success of the initial invasion was the Northrop Grumman RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aerial system - specifically Designated Air Vehicle-3 (or AV-3), a prototype hastily thrust into live operations. This aircraft landed at Edwards AFB on May 5, 2003, after flying 446.6 hours over Iraq across 19 sorties. Incredibly, this one UAV—which collected approximately 3,700 images and flew only 5 percent of the surveillance sorties for the invasion—was able to gather more than 55 percent of all of the data on time-sensitive targets. As a result, AV-3 was credited with helping to destroy hundreds of Iraq Republican Guard tanks (by one estimate 38 percent of Iraq’s armor) and accelerating the defeat of Saddam Hussein by several days. It was a major demonstration of the real-world, operational value of unmanned aerial vehicles in modern warfare. AV-3 was one of the first Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) platforms north of the 33rd parallel on the first night of the invasion. It was used to great effect guiding F-15E aircraft to designated target areas, known as “kill boxes.” AV-3 would take its pictures, sending them to analysts back in Nevada and to the in-theater Combat Air Operations Center (or CAOC). The data would be reviewed, and then, where useful, shared with the CAOC interdiction desk, after which it was communicated to the fighters for offensive sorties. As a result of the process, precise attacks could be made same-day - within hours - of target discovery, allowing coalition forces to more easily strike targets on the move. In total, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, AV-3 - a proto-type aircraft - assisted with the destruction of 300+ tanks, 13 Surface-to-Air Missile (SAM) batteries, 50+ SAM launchers, 300+ SAM canisters, and more than 70+ SAM transporters.