Substitute. The C-32A and Donald Trump.

It's been revealed (leaked?) that Trump flew out of Turkey not an an older Air Force One, as he'd claimed, but on a C-32A .

The C-32A is a militarized 757.

This would indicate that the Iranian threat against Trump must have been deemed fairly serious, which would necessarily give rise to the question of whether or not the threat still exists.  

This behavior would suggest it does:

We didn’t have Avenger air defense missiles in Kuwait and Jordan and Saudi Arabia, but Trump has them at his Bedminster golf club

While I'm a frequent Trump critic, and don't even believe he's actually a legitimate President, I don't blame the efforts to sneak Trump out on another plane if the threats were deemed credible.  I do regard the stationing of AAA at a New Jersey golf course to be questionable while we're running out of AAA in the Middle East due to Trump's illegal war there.  He could just skip golfing or risk it.

Perhaps of more interest is who was put on the catering van to make the switch in aircraft with Trump. They were Dan Scavino, Walt Nauta and Natalie Harp.  The only one you may have heard of is Harp, whose a tall blond fitting into the general Trump harem appearance profile and who has some sort of flunky job with Trump.  The White House Press Corps rode the substituted Air Force One back as did some senior White House officials.

Now, I'm not saying everyone should have been on the 757.  I do find it interesting that the figures who were allowed to ride the substitute C-32A were not really important people.  I'm also not saying that Harp and Trump are doing anything illicit, although I do find Harp to be an odd figure.

I also wonder if every President would have taken this option.  I suspect not, but I suspect some would have.

I'm also noting how embarrassing this is. The claimed most powerful military in the world has been defeated by Iran, whose Air Force is so depleted it rarely gets anything in the air, although contrary to some claims, it has during this war, having put an F-14 in the skies on at least one occasion.

It's an existential defeat.

Thursday, August 8, 1946. First flight of the B-36.

B-36 (right) next to a B-29.

The Convair B-36 Peacemaker was flown by the United States Air Force for the first time. It had originally been conceived of as a bomber that could reach Japan from Hawaii.  It became the US's first dedicated nuclear strategic bomber.

An absolutely massive airplane, it would have a short service life, being retired in 1959 with the onset of the B-52.  It was never flown in combat.

Gen. Billy Mitchell received a posthumous Medal of Honor.  He was also posthumously promoted to Major General.

Missing a rather obvious upgrade. Was; The Aerodrome: Boeing VC-25B Bridge. A shameful flying monument.

The Aerodrome: Boeing VC-25B Bridge. A shameful flying monument.: This blog was never intended to be political, but in the age of Donald Trump, which will go down as the most corrupt political era in U.S. h...

So Trump went to the NATO summit in Turkey and, at some point, it dawned on somebody that this meant he was a stone's throw from Iran. . . and that maybe Air Force One made for a good target.

Frankly, the war in Iran has been very surprising in numerous ways, including htat much of what had always been predicted about such a war just did not occur, at least so far.  For instance, it had always been assumed that Iran would activate sleeper cells in the US if a war occured.  Right now, given that nothing occurred, we have to assume that Iran either has remarkable restraint, or it doesn't have sleeper cells  Nothing has happened.

Closing the Strait of Hormuz should have been no surprise at all, but what has been a surprise is Iran's resilience to attack.  People thinking that defeating Iran would be easy were always completely delusional, and indeed it won't happen unless the US commits troops the ground in very large numbers, but country's ability to just shrug off repeated attacks is really impressive.  It's engaged in some major missile offensives during the war and even now has only used a faction of what it has.  Early beliefs that all its launchers were taken out proved to be completely erroneous. 

Anyhow, while Trump was embarrassing the United States in Turkey the negotiations, such as they were, between Trump's son in law and the equally unqualified former lawyer and real estate figure that Trump has charged with this matter, fell apart.  J. D. Vance, occasionally saddled with trying to get the ink dry on some settlement, isn't working on it and is instead touring around the country making stupid statements in from of the Screw American Voters Act.  Trump used the opportunity, in addition to insulting Spain, to insult the Iranians, who were already pretty much ignoring him.

The it dawned on somebody that the new Qatari Royal Coach lacks electronic countermeasures, unlike the other jets in the Air Force One stable.

Oops.

Given that, one of the old Presidential buses was flown over to haul Trump around and the new one was flown to RAF Mildenhall on the excuse that the airmen might want to see it.

Yeah, a big airplane. What a treat for airmen.

The real reason, of course, was that it dawned on somebody that given as the plane has no countermeasures if the Iranians took a shot at it, only luck and fancy maneuvers, maybe, would keep the giant plane in the air.  And as Donald Trump murdered the head of the Iranian state, worrying that the Iranians would figure that turn about was fair play isn't irrational.  For that matter, even if the Iranian state might not attempt that, there's plenty of irregular forces in the region that might not particularly love Donald.

So, the US has sunk $400,000,000 into this dubious gift and it isn't as capable as the older aircraft.

As earlier reported here, when Trump vacates the Oval Office, which he has no legal right to be in already, the new Air Force One is supposed to be going to a Trump Presidential Library.  What a joke.  And an expensive one on the American taxpayer.  

Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution states:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

Congress has so suspended its duties that getting anyone to enforce this clause seems like a lost cause right now, but maybe in a future presidency somebody will dust the document off, walk down to Congress, dope slap the whole body until the current deadwood leaves (John Barrasso, looking at you) and people who actually will do their job reappear.  Should that occur, this airplane should not leave the Air Force inventory.  But what to do with it is another question.  $400,000,000 have been spent on it. 

There are already two new Air Force One's being built.  Those ones will be properly equipped.  The existing Air Force Ones already are.  Hopefully not another dime is spent on this one.

But that, frankly, puts it in the domestic hauler category.  I suppose it could be used for that, save for the fact that it's a national embarrassment. 

Given that, my prediction is that it will be junked.  I don't think it'll ever go to a Trump presidential library, assuming one is every built  Trump's already 80 years old and every morning when he wakes up the Grim Reaper is there asking how he's feeling.  It won't be used by a future President, and it's not going to be used by the Air Force for anything.

It's just a waste.

Boneyard of the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Arizona.

It'll go to top men.  Top men.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, July 2, 1926. Air Corps established.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, July 2, 1926. Air Corps established.: Mexican President  Plutarco Elías Calles published the vile Calles Law, effective July 31, which banned religious education, foreign priests...

Friday, July 2, 1926. Air Corps established.

Mexican President  Plutarco Elías Calles published the vile Calles Law, effective July 31, which banned religious education, foreign priests and political commentary in religious publications, seizing church property and holding that worship could only be conducted inside of churches and under the supervision of local officials

I've written on Calles before, who in some ways got his just deserts, but the damage he did is still felt to this day.

The United States Army Air Corps was established as an expansion of the United States Army Air Service that had been created on May 24, 1918.  It was not, however, an independent service, nor did it enjoy the level of autonomy of the Navy's Marine Corps.  Nor should it have. . . even to the present day.

 M'eh.

Pentagon Report Documents Giant Potato-Shaped UFO Over Colorado Springs

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, May 20, 1946. Air disaster in Manhattan.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, May 20, 1946. Air disaster in Manhattan, W...: The House of Commons voted to nationalize the British coal industry.  The House of Lords would follow and Royal Assent would be received on ...

Monday, May 20, 1946. Air disaster in Manhattan, War in Iran, Nationalization of Coal in the UK.

The House of Commons voted to nationalize the British coal industry.  The House of Lords would follow and Royal Assent would be received on July l2.

C-45.  By LanceBarber at English Wikipedia - Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Liftarn using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12001474

A C-45 crashed into the 58th floor of the Bank of Manhattan building killing all five passengers but nobody else, given that it occurred at 8:00 p.m.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, March 21, 1946. The Strategic and Tactical Air Commands created.

Lex Anteinternet: Thursday, March 21, 1946. The Strategic and Tacti...: The Strategic Air Command and the Tactical Air Command were created. Shoulder patch of the United States Army Air Forces Strategic Air Comma...

Thursday, March 21, 1946. The Strategic and Tactical Air Commands created.

The Strategic Air Command and the Tactical Air Command were created.

Shoulder patch of the United States Army Air Forces Strategic Air Command.

SAC therefore predates the Air Force as an independent branch of the military.

And so does TAC, which has been inactive since 1992, when it was merged into SAC.

I've been meaning to do a post on reorganization of the U.S. military, which the illegal war on Venezuela and King Donny's War shows to be a desperate need, but I haven't gotten around to it..

Last edition:

Wednesday, March 20, 1946. Tule Lake closes but its residents struggles continue.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, 1960, 1960s, Aircraft, Disaster, Ethnicities, Internment of Japanese, law, Racism, U.S. Air Force

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, March 20, 1946. Crashes.

Lex Anteinternet: Wednesday, March 20, 1946. Tule Lake closes but i...: The final adjudication of the cases of Japanese internees who had renounced their citizenship during World War Two concluded, resulting in t...

Wednesday, March 20, 1946. Tule Lake closes but its residents struggles continue.

The final adjudication of the cases of Japanese internees who had renounced their citizenship during World War Two concluded, resulting in the closure of Tule Lake War Relocation Center.  The litigation reversed their loss of citizenship, but the Justice Department would reverse that.  It would take until the 1960s for their citizenship to be restored.

Almost all of those who had renounced their citizenship had recanted, and for that matter not all of the renunciations were genuine.

There were two air disasters in the news:

26 DIE IN C-47 CRASH; AB-29 FALLS WITH 7; Army Plane Explodes in Sierras, Lost 'Superfort' Is Found South of San Francisco

Last edition:

Saturday, March 16, 1946. Route 66. George Mikan turns pro.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, 1940s, 1946, 1960s, 1970s, basketball, Cartoons, Highways, J.R. Williams, Music, Personalities, Post War United States (and Canada), Swing Music, television, Transportation

Kuwaiti speaks to shot down U.S. pilot.

 

There's footage of this F-15 being shot down over Kuwait, which was a friendly fire incident.

I actually didn't know the F-15 was still in use by the US, but this very late model has only been in service since 2021.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, October 20, 1925. Coolidge orders Billy Mitchell Court Martialed.

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, October 20, 1925. Coolidge orders Billy ...: 

Tuesday, October 20, 1925. Coolidge orders Billy Mitchell Court Martialed.

President Coolidge directed the Department of War (the real one, not the one that "War Secretary" Pete Hegseth claims to run, to court marital Col. Billy Mitchell for insubordination.

Frankly, Mitchel was clearly insubordinate, albeit correct in his view.

It's admirable, though, that Mitchell was willing to go down for his views.  I wonder how many senior officers in the service today would be willing to do so?

Coolidge issued this statement, on this day:

I have several questions here relating to an Arms Conference, rather a Limitation of Arms Conference. These are hypothetical questions and I don’t want to undertake to commit the Government in any way in advance of specific questions. I think I can repeat what I said at the last conference – that it was exceedingly gratifying to have the European nations make the agreements which they made at Locarno. The Department was expecting to receive the text today – I think they are published. I have conferred with Secretary Kellogg about them and he will make, or have made, a careful analysis and study of them in the Department. At the time the Dawes plan was entered into it was thought necessary to secure the active cooperation of American citizens in order to reach an agreement, but the great outstanding fact there was that an agreement was finally made. This Locarno agreement is a step in advance of that, and aside from the details of the agreement it seems to me that the great outstanding and satisfying fact is that it is a very clear indication that public opinion in Europe has become sufficiently settled that the suspicions and hatreds that were generated by the war have been sufficiently dissipated so that the actual political representatives of the governments were able to get together and make an important agreement of this kind. I should perhaps have said when I was speaking of the Dawes agreement that one of the fundamental things about that was that it was not made by the political representatives of the governments at that time, but was made by experts that were called in that didn’t have any political considerations at stake. It seems to me the present agreement is exceedingly encouraging on account of that feature. Of course I regard it also as encouraging on account of what it has done. It has been well said that it is perhaps the most important action taken in Europe since the signing of the Armistice. Now, I had been waiting for something of that kind before taking any active steps about considering the calling of a Disarmament Conference at Washington. I think I told the newspaper conference some time ago that a very large part of the considerations that have come before a Disarmament Conference relate peculiarly and almost entirely to Europe. That would be so in relation to any land disarmament. We have reduced our land forces so that that isn’t an American question, and while I would like to have an Arms Conference here because it could include both land and naval forces, yet I wouldn’t want to take any step that would be construed or in effect embarrass the European nations in solving their own problems of land disarmament. I wouldn’ t want to make the slightest criticism of any action they were taking that pointed in that direction, or have our Government say or do anything that would in the slightest way embarrass the bringing of that proposal to a successful conclusion. Now that is about the only attitude I can express at the present time. It is possible for the European nations to hold a Disarmament Conference that to my mind would be exceedingly useful, and which might make agreements that would be of great benefit not only to the European nations but to all the world. If they can do that I hope very much that they will. If the question of naval limitations is to be considered, then I suppose it would be necessary to include America, and it was for that special reason that I thought there would be greater hope of reaching a successful conclusion if an Arms Conference was held in this country. But I can’t answer those questions in advance of whether we are going to have a conference here, whether we would attend a conference abroad, until specific proposals have been made. When they are made, why then we will see whether it is best to accept them. Nor can I say whether we should want to call a conference here until there has been a preliminary sounding out of nations it would be proposed to invite, in order to find out whether such a proposal was agreeable to them. I might restate too the well known and what I hope is becoming the historic attitude of our Government, of desiring to do everything that we can, without jeopardizing our own interests, to help the European situation. We have realized all along that it would be useless to have any thought over there that there must be a constant reliance on us. I think I have stated in some of my addresses that we couldn’t help people very much until they showed a disposition to help themselves. I think that disposition is becoming more and more apparent abroad every day, and it is a rising of a condition that is exceedingly gratifying to those that want to help and those that want to see the European situation progressively developed.

I haven’t any information about any proposed action by the War Department in relation to Colonel Mitchell, and any information that is to be given out about that would come from them.

I haven’t made any statement or taken any action relative to a further extension of leave to General Butler. I think you are all familiar with the letter that I sent to the Mayor about a year ago and its contents. I don’t feel called on to make any statement about it or take any further action until the Mayor has acted.

These inquiries seem to be pretty much all in relation to the situation abroad which I have discussed, and the leave of General Butler which I think I have covered. If you want to have any more information about that why consult my letter which was made public about a year ago.

Last edition:

Friday, October 16, 1925. The Locarno conference ended with several agreements in place and an atmosphere of optimism.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Diplomacy, Europe, Locarno Conference

Space Force HQ to move to Alabama.

The United States Space Force, the most junior, least needed, and most stupid branch of the American military, is moving to Huntsville, Alabama, in part because Donald Trump is demented vengeful twit.

Trump is responsible for the Space Farce in the first place, creating a new branch of the military for no sensible reason, by taking the Air Force Strategic Command, which did make sense, and making it its own branch of the military.  At least initially, it's enlisted members were reassigned from the Air Force to the Farce.  Officers may have been as well, but those officers in this role above the very senior level would have had little choice in any event.

The relocation from Colorado Springs will be expensive and may impair the ability of the Farce to perform its mission for a time.

President Biden really missed his chance and should have reassigned the Space Farce to the Air Force.  Frankly, if I was President, at this point I'd reassign it to the Coast Guard and put the Coast Guard back in the Department of the Treasury, where it belongs.  After commissioned Space Cadets resigned I might move it back to the Air Force.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, August 5, 1945. Enola Gay and Necessary Evil

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, August 5, 1945. Enola Gay and Necessary E...: 

Sunday, August 5, 1945. Enola Gay and Necessary Evil.

The 20th Air Force dropped 720,000 leaflets over twelve Japanese cities.  Conventional bombing raids continued.

Gen. LeMay officially confirmed the atomic mission for the next day.

Paul Tibbets named the lead plane in the Hiroshima bombing mission the Enola Gay, after his mother.  This was done over the objection of the planes normal designated pilot, Robert Lewis, who wanted to name the plane  "The Pearl Harbor," "The Avenger," or "The USS Indianapolis".  Lewis also wasn't happy about being moved to the co-pilot's seat for the mission.

Lewis would return to civilian life after the war, and died in 1983 at age 65.

The B-29 that would take photos on the mission would be named Necessary Evil.  It featured, as many plans did, a buxom woman, albeit one clothed in a bikini, as nose art.

The Chinese 13th Army captured the town of Tanchuk. The Chinese 58th Division took Hsinning (Changchun).

Paul Ferdonet, the "Radio Traitor" of Stuttgart, was executed in France.

His pro Nazi broadcast had actually dwindled after 1942.

Oddly enough, today would have been Loni Anderson' birthday.  She passed away yesterday.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 4, 1945. Tibbets briefs his crew.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, British Army, Burma, Espionage, Imperial Japanese Army, Music, Operation Silverplate, Railroads, Swing Music, U.S. Air Force, USSR, War Crimes, Weapons, World War Two

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: The Aerodrome: Air Force One.

Lex Anteinternet: Lex Anteinternet: The Aerodrome: Air Force One.:

Lex Anteinternet: The Aerodrome: Air Force One.

Lex Anteinternet: The Aerodrome: Air Force One.: The Aerodrome: Air Force One. :  Air Force One. Air Force One has been in the news a lot recently, and it  started before the Qatari proposa...

So the US has in fact accepted the Qatari 747. 

Simply embarrassing.

Air Force One.

Air Force One has been in the news a lot recently, and it  started before the Qatari proposal to give the United States, or Donald Trump (it isn't clear which) a luxury outfitted Boeing 747.

Technically "Air Force One" is a call sign, and merely denotes an airplane the Chief Executive is a passenger in.  If a President rode in an Air Force Cessna, that would be Air Force One.  But everyone knows that it refers to one of two Boeing VC-25s, militarized 747s, that are designated for the Presidents use.

RD-2

Interestingly, the first aircraft designated for Presidential use was a Navy airplane, an amphibious Douglas Dolphin RD-2 that was luxury outfitted for use by President Roosevelt.  It was used from 1933 to 1939, and obviously not for transglobal flight.  The President didn't really do extensive travel until World War Two.

Roosevelt's once used VC-54C.

In spite of concerns over commercial aviation being used to carry the President during the war, it was in fact used and it wasn 't until 1945 that a new designated Presidential aircraft was acquired, that being a  Secret Service reconfigured a Douglas C-54 Skymaster (VC-54C) which was named the Sacred Cow.  It contained a sleeping area, radiotelephone, and retractable battery-powered elevator to lift Roosevelt in his wheelchair. It's only use by Roosevelt was to fly the then dying President to Yalta.  Truman used it thereafter, but it was replaced by military DC-6 (VC-118) thereafter.

Truman's VC-118.

President Eisenhower, who of course knew planes well, to Lockheed C-121 Constellations, Columbine II and Columbine III. The Constellation was a very popular airplane at the time, and Douglas MacArthur also had one, that one spending many years after its service at the Natrona County International Airport on an abandoned runway.

Columbine II was the first Presidential aircraft to receive the designation Air Force One.

At the end of Eisenhower's Presidency Boeing 707s came in, in part because the Soviets were using a jet to transport their Premier.  707s remained through the Nixon era, giving good service in this role.

747s, as VC-25s, entered specialized manufacture for use as Air Force One during Reagan's administration, although the first one would enter service after that.  They've been used ever since.

These aren't normal 747s.  They are packed with communications and electronic warfare equipment in order to have combat survivability.  

Replacing the current two aircraft that are used as Air Force One is a topic that the Air Force started looking at quite a few years ago.  The 747 variant which the VC-25 isn't made anymore.  Production of 747s stopped in 2023 in favor of more modern aircraft.  Still, the airframe remains useful in this role, and after the Air Force started to look into options, updating a 747-8 appeared to be the best option.  Only Boeing was interested in the project anyway, and it will take a massive financial loss to do it.  

The aircraft that are being retrofitted for this role was built, originally, as a commercial airliner. The projected is a massive one, and the delivery date will be in 2027.

What the new Air Force Ones will look like.

Enter Qatar.

Qatar has offered to give the US (I guess) a luxury Boeing 747-8 for use as Air Force One until the other 747-8s are complete.  But here's the thing.  Boeing has been working on the complicated task fo converting the two existing 747-8s for this use for several years. After all, it's basically a combat aircraft.  All accepting the plane would do is give Boeing a third one to convert, which wouldn't be ready for years.

Trump is being childish about this, as he is about a lot of things.  He doesn't seem to grasp the nature of the aircraft, and likely a lot of other people don't as well.  In his case, this is inexcusable.  It's a combat airplane.

Frankly, it's a Cold War combat airplane.

Which gets to this.

The 747 was a big massive airliner in an era in which it was the queen of the sky. That era is over and airlines have moved on to more modern aircraft.  The world in which Ronald Reagan ordered 747s is gone as well.  It's still useful to have an aircraft that can be used in a global thermonuclear war, which is what it is, but that's not going to happen and it makes no sense to use it to go on weekend golfing trips to Florida.

But that's what Trump tends to use it for.

That raises an entire series of other questions, many of which have little to do with aircraft, but some of which do.  It's notable that other Presidents have used lighter aircraft for more mundane trips.  In November 1999, President Bill Clinton flew from Ankara, Turkey, to Cengiz Topel Naval Air Station outside Izmit, Turkey, aboard a marked C-20C.  In 2000, President Clinton flew to Pakistan aboard an unmarked Gulfstream III.  In 2003, President George W. Bush flew in the co-pilot seat of a Sea Control Squadron Thirty-Five (VS-35) S-3B Viking from Naval Air Station North Island, California to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, with that latter obviously being an exception. Barack Obama used a Gulfstream C-37 variant on a personal trip in 2009.

Trump can use something else than a 747 for what he uses Air Force One for in almost every single instance.

Indeed, the entire topic brings up a lot of things about the risks of having an airplane like this, a luxury airliner inside, which is really a combat aircraft.  It makes it easy to forget what it really is, and it makes a President feel like an Emperor, which he is not.

Blog Mirror: Laying Telephone Wire by Air, 1945

 

Laying Telephone Wire by Air, 1945

Wyoming Air National Guard C-130, The City of Riverton.

 

Lex Anteinternet: Space National Guard? Spare us.

Lex Anteinternet: Space National Guard? Spare us.: 

Space National Guard? Spare us.

The time has come to create a Space National Guard as the primary combat reserve of the U.S. Space Force.  So as president, I will sign historic legislation creating a space National Guard.

Donald Trump, yesterday, at the National Guard Association Convention.

The Space Force is frankly absurd and ought to be abolished, with its enlisted men folded back into the Air Force and its officers assigned permanent duty at Tasty Freeze drive up windows. 

But a Space Force National Guard?

Please, no.

Of course, if a bill like that passes through Congress, and as goofy as Congress has been in recent years, it probably would, no State Governor is going to turn down the chance to have the Mos Eisley Space Guard station put in their state, so every state will end up with a squadron of "Guardians".

The Space Force is flat out dumb.  It's duties belong in the Air Force.  One of the unfortunate legacies of the Trump administration, however, is this absurd new branch of the service.

Would that sanity would reign and it would go away.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, July 18, 1914. The sort of birth of the Air Force.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, July 18, 1914. The sort of birth of the...:   

Saturday, July 18, 1914. The sort of birth of the Air Force.

 

Congress created the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps, effectively creating what would become the Air Force.

Monday, June 23, 1924. First dawn to dusk transcontinental flight.

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, June 23, 1924. First dawn to dusk transco...:

Monday, June 23, 1924. First dawn to dusk transcontinental flight.

Protype of the excellent Curtiss P-1.   The P-1 was the first of a series of "hawk" biplane fighter aircraft manufactured by Curtiss that would serve right up until the eve of World War Two.

1st Lt. Russell Maughan made the first dawn-to-dusk transcontinental flight across the United States.

Landing at Crissy Field in San Francisco one minute before technical sundown, he had started the day off at Mitchel Field, Long Island and had flown his Curtiss P-1 across the country with stops in Dayton, Ohio; St. Joseph, Missouri; North Platte, Nebraska; Cheyenne, Wyoming and the Bonneville Salt Flats at Salduro

Maughan was a significant early military aviation pioneer who has appeared on this site before.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, June 18, 1924. The Cummins Incident.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Denmark, Diplomacy, Mexico, United Kingdom, USSR

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, June 13, 1924. Macready jumps into the dark.

Lex Anteinternet: Friday, June 13, 1924. Macready jumps into the dark.: 

Friday, June 13, 1924. Macready jumps into the dark.

Lt. John A Macready, already famous for this; 

The Aerodrome: First "Crop Dusting". August 3, 1921.:

First "Crop Dusting". August 3, 1921.

On this day in 1921, crop dusting, spraying pesticides by air, was performed for the first time in an experiment involving the U.S. Army and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

First crop dusting being conducted.

The first flight featured Army Air Corps pilot John A. Macready and aircraft engineer Etienne Dormoy who performed the test with a Curtiss JN4 over a field outside of Troy, Ohio.  Lead arsenate was sprayed to attack caterpillars.

Dormay left, Macready right.

Macready would complete an Army career prior to World War Two, leaving the service in 1926, but was recalled to serve in the Second World War.  He retired from the Army Air Force in 1948.  He was a legendary pilot at the time and had many firsts while in the service, including being the first Air Corps pilot to parachute from a stricken aircraft at night.

made his aforementioned night jump.

He landed in a tree, which saved his life.

Which, in an odd way, brings up this item:

Mosquito Control Notification: Aerial Granular Larvicide Scheduled for June 13

Laramie, Wyoming – City of Laramie Mosquito Control has scheduled the application of granular larvicide to control larval mosquitoes in rural areas adjacent to the city.  The application is scheduled for Thursday, June 13th beginning at daylight.   The product is a granular form of Bacillus thuringensis israelensis (Bti) that is designed to penetrate heavy grasses and brushy foliage to reach water sources, especially in maturing hay fields, where larvae are present. The application is targeting both nuisance and vector mosquito larva. The product is environmentally friendly and will not harm fish, amphibians, livestock, or other aquatic invertebrates. If weather conditions are not favorable for the application, it will be postponed until weather conditions allow for the application. 

Treatment areas include irrigated acreages along the Big Laramie River southwest of the city, flooded riparian zones in the Big Laramie flood plain southwest and north of the city, and acreages north and west of the city that are irrigated by the North Canal and the Pioneer Canal.  

Schedules regarding Mosquito Control, Parks, and Cemetery chemical applications for control of weeds and insect pests are available daily through the Mosquito Control and Integrated Pest Management Hotline at 721-5056. The schedule is updated at approximately 4pm daily. Spraying information is also available on the city website. Look for the daily mosquito and chemical application hotline tab on the home page at www.cityoflaramie.org.   For further information contact Hunter Deerman, Mosquito/IPM Supervisor at 721-5258; hdeerman@cityoflaramie.org or Scott Hunter, Parks Manager at 721-5257 SHunter@cityoflaramie.org.

Silent Cal had a brief statement for the Press: