Feb. 28, 2020 Global Positioning System and its Impact! Did you know GPS began as a military navigation tool in the early 1960s? Later the U.S. Air Force became the lead organization for developing this system. GPS benefits the world in many ways from cell phones to military weapons to work in ways that have changed our world since the 1970s.The
May 29, 2019 Gemini G4C Space Suit—1966 Gemini missions lasted up to 14 days and featured the first American spacewalks, where crewmen ventured outside their spacecraft. The Gemini program (1965–66) included 12 flights with two crewmen each, and eight Gemini astronauts were US Air Force officers.The G4C suit was the most common of three
May 17, 2018 Gunners US Army Air Forces gunners defended B-17 Flying Fortress and B-24 Liberator bombers against fighter attacks with machine guns aimed by hand (“flexible guns”) and electrically-powered gun turrets. Typically, gunners made up half of a bomber crew, manning a top turret, ball turret, two waist guns,
Aug. 9, 2016 German Ace and American Citizen Lt. Arthur Rahn Arthur Rahn was born in East Prussia in 1897. In January 1915, six months after World War I began, the seventeen-year-old Rahn volunteered to join the Imperial German Air Service. He began flying school in the spring of 1915 in the town of Koslin, near the Baltic Sea. During his combat flying career
April 4, 2016 Gemini Spacecraft Manned Orbiting Laboratory SpacecraftThis spacecraft was built for the U.S. Air Force’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) program, a top-secret effort to take extremely detailed reconnaissance photographs of Cold War adversaries’ territory from space. The MOL program planned to use astronauts to
March 14, 2016 GAMBIT 3 KH-8 Reconnaissance Satellite The GAMBIT 3 KH-8 photo reconnaissance satellite improved on the GAMBIT 1 KH-7 by providing much better image resolution. GAMBIT 3’s stereoscopic cameras focused on details in small target areas, while other satellites searched wide areas. GAMBIT 3 satellites completed 54 missions from 1966 to
March 14, 2016 GAMBIT 1 KH-7 Film Recovery Vehicle GAMBIT reconnaissance satellites returned exposed film to earth in re-entry vehicles or “buckets” that separated from the satellite, fell through the atmosphere, and descended by parachute. US Air Force aircraft plucked the buckets from the sky at around 15,000 feet. This GAMBIT 1 return capsule’s
March 14, 2016 GAMBIT 1 KH-7 Reconnaissance Satellite The GAMBIT 1 KH-7 satellite was the first American space reconnaissance system to consistently return high-resolution photographs. GAMBIT 1 vehicles flew from 1963-1967 and were the first satellites to feature stereo cameras. Their most significant targets included Soviet missile silos. Of 38 total
Feb. 22, 2016 Gulfstream Aerospace C-20B The C-20B (civilian designation Gulfstream III) provided executive airlift to thousands of senior American leaders for more than two decades. During its long service, this aircraft carried former Presidents James E. Carter, Gerald R. Ford, George H.W. Bush and William J. Clinton. It also carried
Feb. 18, 2016 George C. Kenny for Mess Officer Note: This item is currently in storage.Caption: "Election day at the 91st Aero Squadron Airdrome at Gondreville, France, in July 1918. There was an election and demonstration in an endeavor to appoint an officer in charge of the mess for officers. George C. Kenny, 1st Lieutenant, was the candidate
