On 30 October:
1919, reversible pitch propeller tested at McCook Field. It allowed aircraft to slow down and stop quickly on short runways.
1994, a Lockheed C-141 Starlifter flew 20 tons of medical supplies and other relief items from Kadena AB to Valdivostok, Russia, for victims of a Siberian flood.
2003, an Air Force Flight Test Center (AFFTC) Rockwell B-1B Lancer aircrew dropped the first guided Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile Separation Test Vehicle (STV) at the China Lake Naval Test Station. The STV collected data to certify the new weapon for further testing.
On 31 October:
1961, a series of some 50 supersonic flights to analyze the characteristics, intensity, and air and ground effects of supersonic booms began at Edwards AFB, California, under the joint sponsorship of the Air Force, Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) and NASA.
1980, a cornerstone-laying ceremony was held at the Systems Management Engineering Facility I (SMEF-I), officiated by Under Secretary of the Air Force Antonia Handler Chayes (pictured below).
On 1 November:
1970, the Electronic Systems Division initiated a Space Environment Monitoring (SEM) study. A draft final report of this study was forwarded to Air Force Systems Command and the Air Weather Service on 7 June 1971.
1973, energy crisis had lasting effects on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Energy conservation, long a matter of concern at Wright-Patterson, suddenly intensified when Middle Eastern nations stopped oil shipments to the US in retaliation for US support of Israel during the Yom Kippur war. This embargo precipitated AFLC’s Pacer Energy fuel conservation program that continued through the end of fiscal year 1974.
1975, the 6555th Aerospace Test Group reorganized its ATLAS and TITAN III launch vehicle agencies under a new division, the Space Launch Vehicle Systems Division. On the same date, the ATLAS Satellite Launch Systems Branch and the TITAN III Space Satellite Systems Launch Operations Branch consolidated under the newly-created Satellite Systems Division. The changes, directed by the 6595th Aerospace Test Wing Commander to combine booster operations under one division chief and payload operations under another division chief.
1995, the Balkan Proximity Peace Talks officially began, the nine delegations were led by Richard C. Holbrooke, Ambassador, United States of America; Alija Izetbegovic, President, Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina; Slobodan Milosevic, President, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; Franjo Tudjman, President, Republic of Croatia; Carl Bildt, Ambassador, European Union; Jacques Blot, Ambassador, Republic of France; Wolfgang Ischinger, Ambassador, Federal Republic of Germany; Igor S. Ivanov, Ambassador, Russia; and Pauline Neville Jones, Ambassador, United Kingdom. Their goal was a comprehensive regional settlement that preserved Bosnia as a single state containing the Muslim-Croat Federation and a Bosnian Serb entity; resolved boundary issues between the Bosnian-Croat Federation and the Bosnian Serb entity; settled the status of Sarajevo; and set forth steps to separate the forces, end hostilities, and return refugees to their homes. The delegates met in the Hope Hotel at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. (Below: signing of agreements.)
On 2 November:
1959, Air Materiel Command's Electronic Systems Center activated at Hanscom Field as the AMC counterpart of the Air Force Command and Control Development Division (AFCCDD) in the Hanscom complex.
1968, the USAF ROLLING THUNDER air campaign in North Vietnam ended. The ROLLING THUNDER air campaign of Vietnam was the first truly modern air campaign of the jet era. Lasting more than three years, ROLLING THUNDER attacked enemy targets throughout Vietnam—the most dangerous of which was Route Package Six near Hanoi and Haiphong—the most hotly defended ground target complex in the world at the time. (Below: F-105s participating in ROLLING THUNDER.)
On 3 November:
1920, using the old battleship USS Indiana, the Army completed the third in a series of tests to determine the effectiveness of aerial bombs against ships. The tests began on 14 October at Tangier Sound in Chesapeake Bay. (Below: USS Indiana after being used in the tests.)
1972, Air Force weather observations for Hanscom Field were discontinued. The Federal Aviation Administration assumed weather watch duties.
1987, Northrop’s Tacit Rainbow, a loitering antiradar missile, completed its first flight test. (Below: AGM-136, Tacit Rainbow.)
From the weekend:
On 28 October:
Additional information on William L. Mitchell verbatim from https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/honorary-promotions/.
“Col. William “Billy” Mitchell is an outsized figure among air power theorists, simultaneously “the most prominent American to advocate a vision of strategic air power” and “the single most … controversial figure in the history of American air power,” according to Air Force historian Roger Miller. In 1925, Mitchell was convicted by court-martial for charging that aviation accidents were “the result of the incompetency, the criminal negligence, and the most treasonable negligence of our national defense by the Navy and War Departments.” He was sentenced to five years suspension and half pay, but resigned rather than accept the punishment.
Mitchell had already held the temporary rank of brigadier general as Assistant Chief of the Air Service, but reverted to his permanent rank of colonel in 1925 after that appointment concluded. To the public, it appeared he had been demoted. In 1930, Congress authorized some former WWI officers to be advanced to the highest temporary rank they held during the war—a blanket tombstone promotion. This act did not promote Mitchell, as it required he be “retired according to law,” and Mitchell resigned, rather than retire. Instead, it permitted him to use the title of his highest wartime rank, enabling Mitchell to call himself a brigadier general even though he was a former colonel on official records.
Efforts to restore Mitchell’s rank or retirement began after his death in 1936, when Congress considered restoring him to the Army’s retired list. The proposal failed, however, when lawmakers could not square Mitchell’s strategic vision with his insubordination. This same problem repeatedly scuttled proposed legislation in the years that followed.
Perhaps the strongest push to restore Mitchell’s rank came in the 1940s. Two bills sought to make Mitchell whole; they specified that “his rank in War Department records should appear as that of brigadier general,” or that “William Mitchell was a brigadier general … at the time of his death.” Another bill added that “no pay, allowances, or other financial benefit” would flow from the promotion. None of the measures became law.
Efforts to promote Mitchell continued in vain into the late 1950s, when the director of the Air Force Records Center added a document to Mitchell’s personnel file claiming that “on 18 July 1947, a special bill was passed by Congress promoting General Mitchell to the rank of major general.” In fact, however, the bill only passed in the Senate on July 16, 1947; it never gained the consent of the House.
Mitchell’s promotion to major general was finally authorized in 2004, when Rep. Perkins Bass (R-N.H.), a relative of Mitchell’s, successfully inserted a provision into the FY05 defense bill. However, the promotion reportedly did not occur; congressional authorization merely permitted the action and could not require it be carried out. Air Force Lt. Col. William Ott reflected in the Air & Space Power Journal that the promotion would be “a pyrrhic victory,” since it would not “erase the questionable actions that proceeded from [Mitchell’s] passionate advocacy of air power’s independence.”
There is no dispute that Mitchell was never posthumously promoted. However, at this writing, the mistaken promotion claim still appears on the official Air Force website for Medal of Honor recipients. The website incorrectly claims that in 1947, “a special bill of Congress promoted him to major general.” Indeed, the claim that Mitchell is a Medal of Honor recipient is also untrue. Congress recognized Mitchell with a Congressional Gold Medal in 1946, not a Medal of Honor. The bill’s sponsor did not understand the difference, leading to the measure’s original language that would have authorized a Medal of Honor. The House Committee on Military Affairs discovered the error and amended the bill to remove all substantive references to the Medal of Honor, and clarified that “the legislation under consideration does not authorize an award of the Congressional Medal of Honor.” Nevertheless, the title of the bill—Authorizing the President of the United States to award posthumously in the name of Congress a Medal of Honor to William Mitchell—was never corrected, which understandably misled many readers.
The Air Force presumably advanced mistaken claims about Mitchell in good faith, but with many historical and legislative resources at their disposal, it is difficult to explain why these errors remain uncorrected.”
On 29 October:
Regards,
JACK G. WAID
Director, Command Heritage Programs, AFMC/HO