Hickam Air Force Base is a United States Air Force installation, named in honor of aviation pioneer Lieutenant Colonel Horace Meek Hickam. The installation merged in 2010 with Naval Station Pearl Harbor to become part of the newly formed Joint Base Pearl Harbor–Hickam, on the island of Oʻahu in the State of Hawaiʻi. The base neighbors Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and currently shares runways with the airport for its activities and operations.
The Douglas C-54 Skymaster is a four-engined transport aircraft used by the United States Army Air Forces in World War II and the Korean War. Like the Douglas C-47 Skytrain derived from the DC-3, the C-54 Skymaster was derived from a civilian airliner, the Douglas DC-4. Besides transport of cargo, the C-54 also carried presidents, prime ministers, and military staff. Dozens of variants of the C-54 were employed in a wide variety of non-combat roles such as air-sea rescue, scientific and military research, and missile tracking and recovery. During the Berlin Airlift it hauled coal and food supplies to West Berlin. After the Korean War it continued to be used for military and civilian uses by more than 30 countries. It was one of the first aircraft to carry the President of the United States, the first being President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.
The Douglas DC-6 is a piston-powered airliner and cargo aircraft built by the Douglas Aircraft Company from 1946 to 1958. Originally intended as a military transport near the end of World War II, it was reworked after the war to compete with the Lockheed Constellation in the long-range commercial transport market. More than 700 were built and many still fly today in cargo, military, and wildfire control roles.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1950:
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1951:
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1952:
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1955:
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1956:
Royal Air Force Lakenheath or RAF Lakenheath is a Royal Air Force station near the village of Lakenheath in Suffolk, England, UK, 4.7 miles (7.6 km) north-east of Mildenhall and 8.3 miles (13.4 km) west of Thetford. The base also sits close to Brandon.
The Martin PBM Mariner was an American patrol bomber flying boat of World War II and the early Cold War era. It was designed to complement the Consolidated PBY Catalina and PB2Y Coronado in service. A total of 1,366 were built, with the first example flying on 18 February 1939 and the type entering service in September 1940.
Lajes Field or Lajes Air Base, officially designated Air Base No. 4, is a multi-use airfield near Lajes and 15 km (9.3 mi) northeast of Angra do Heroísmo on Terceira Island in the Azores, Portugal. It is home to the Portuguese Air Force Base Aérea N º4 and Azores Air Zone Command, a United States Air Force detachment unit, and a regional air passenger terminal. Located about 3,680 km (2,290 mi) east of New York City and about 1,600 km (990 mi) west of Lisbon, Portugal; the base sits in a strategic location midway between North America and Europe in the north Atlantic Ocean.
United Air Lines Flight 409 was a scheduled flight which originated in New York City, New York. The final flight destination was San Francisco, California, with stops in Chicago, Denver and Salt Lake City. The aircraft operating the service, a Douglas DC-4 propliner, registration N30062, crashed into Medicine Bow Peak, near Laramie, Wyoming, on October 6, 1955, killing all 66 people on board. The victims included five female members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and military personnel. At the time, this was the deadliest airline crash in the history of American commercial aviation. Another 66 lives had been lost earlier that year in the March 22 crash in Hawaii of a United States Navy Douglas R6D-1 Liftmaster military transport aircraft, and 66 had also died in the mid-air collision of two United States Air Force C-119G Flying Boxcars over West Germany on August 11, placing the three crashes in a three-way tie as the deadliest aviation incidents in 1955.
The 305th Air Mobility Wing is a United States Air Force strategic airlift and air refueling wing under the operational control of the Air Mobility Command. It generates, mobilizes and deploys C-17 Globemaster III and KC-10 Extender aircraft. The 305th AMW is a tenant unit at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst in central New Jersey. It also controls one of the Air Force's busiest aerial ports, and the air operations at both McGuire Air Force Base and Naval Support Activity Lakehurst.
The Military Air Transport Service (MATS) is an inactive Department of Defense Unified Command. Activated on 1 June 1948, MATS was a consolidation of the United States Navy's Naval Air Transport Service (NATS) and the United States Air Force's Air Transport Command (ATC) into a single joint command. It was inactivated and discontinued on 8 January 1966, superseded by the Air Force's Military Airlift Command (MAC) as a separate strategic airlift command, and it returned shore-based Navy cargo aircraft to Navy control as operational support airlift (OSA) aircraft.
The Interstate XBDR was a design for an assault drone - an early television-guided missile - powered by two jet engines, that was designed by the Interstate Aircraft and Engineering Corporation during the latter stages of the Second World War for use by the United States Navy. Wind tunnel tests of a scale model were conducted, however no full-scale examples of the aircraft were built before the project was cancelled.
Antarctic Development Squadron Six was a United States Navy air test and evaluation squadron based at Naval Air Station Point Mugu, California with forward operating bases at Christchurch, New Zealand and McMurdo Station, Antarctica.
Rear Admiral Edward Lewis Feightner was a United States Navy officer who fought in a number of significant battles in the World War II Pacific Theater of Operations. During two combat tours, he shot down nine enemy aircraft to become a flying ace.
The 1955 Hawaii R6D-1 crash was an accident involving a Douglas R6D-1 Liftmaster of the United States Navy which crashed into a mountain peak in Hawaii on 22 March 1955, killing all 66 people on board. At the time, it was the worst crash involving any variant of the Douglas DC-6 airliner the second-worst aviation accident in U.S. history, and one of the worst air accidents anywhere in history, and it equalled the 11 August mid-air collision of two United States Air Force C-119G Flying Boxcars over West Germany and the 6 October United Airlines Flight 409 crash as the deadliest air accident of 1955. It remains the worst air disaster in the history of Hawaii and the deadliest accident involving a heavier-than-air aircraft in the history of United States naval aviation.
Marine Transport Squadron 153 (VMR-153) was a United States Marine Corps transport squadron that provided logistical support, including cargo and personnel transport and aeromedical evacuation, to forward units during World War II. The squadron was under the command of Marine Aircraft Group 25 and the South Pacific Combat Air Transport Command (SCAT). During World War II, VMR-153 delivered approximately 15,000,000 pounds of supplies and equipment, evacuated more than 20,000 casualties, and moved an additional 8,000 personnel throughout the Pacific Theater.
