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StarLifter Chronology
By Jeff Rhodes

The complete history of the C-141 would fill a book, but this chronology is a fairly complete look at the career of the world's first turbofan-powered transport. The dates come from a variety of sources, including the Lockheed Martin and Air Mobility Command archives; the well-researched and illustrated book Lockheed C-141 StarLifter by Frederick A. Johnson (Specialty Press, North Branch, Minnesota, 2005); and the ultimate StarLifter fan website, C-141 Heaven (www.c141heaven.com), developed and maintained by Mike Novak, a former C-141 pilot living in Arizona.

1 December 1959 The Air Force refines its existing General Operational Requirement into a Specific Operational Requirement for a workhorse transport aircraft.
4 October 1960 Lockheed-Georgia Division Chief Engineer Art Flock tells a meeting of the Institute of Aerospace Sciences in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that the requirements of both the military services and commercial airlines for a new cargo transport can be met by the same design. This aircraft will likely be powered by four turbofan engines each with approximately 20,000 pounds of thrust and be capable of carrying a maximum payload of 70,000 pounds a distance of 5,500 nautical miles.
20 December 1960 The Air Force issues a call for bids to Boeing, Douglas, Convair, and Lockheed to design and build a transport aircraft. The program is know as Logistics Transport System 476L.
27 January 1961 Lockheed-Georgia Division delivers its proposal for the Air Force's Logistics Transport System 476L jet transport competition to Air Materiel Command headquarters at Wight-Patterson AFB, Ohio. Oral presentations by Lockheed Chairman and CEO Robert Gross, Georgia Division Vice President and General Manager Dick Pulver, and Georgia Division (also known as GELAC) Chief Advanced Design Engineer F.A. Cleveland are given to Air Force source selection officials on 31 January.
13 March 1961 The White House announces the Air Force has selected Lockheed Aircraft Corporation to develop and manufacture a new high-speed jet cargo and troop carrier transport for Military Air Transport Service. The release notes that Lockheed was substantially the lowest bidder among the four competitors and that the total cost of development and purchase of 100 aircraft will approximate one billion dollars. First delivery is scheduled in FY '65.
April 1961 Lockheed-Georgia appoints R.D. Gilson as project engineer for the C-141 program.
7 April 1961 Air Materiel Command executes the initial letter contract authorizing Lockheed to proceed with the C-141 program.
July 1961 Preliminary briefings to the Federal Aviation Administration and to commercial air freight companies tout the capabilities of the Lockheed Model 300, the commercial version of the C-141. The C-141 is to be FAA type-certificated and fully acceptable as a commercial cargo aircraft.
August 1961 Rohr Aircraft Corporation in Chula Vista, California, is approved as the first subcontractor for the C-141. Rohr will build the engine nacelles and pylons for the aircraft's Pratt & Whitney TF33-P-7 turbofan engines.
September 1961 To date, more than 1,200 engineering blueprint packages for the C-141 have been released. The C-141 is the first production aircraft to be completely designed and built by the newly renamed Lockheed-Georgia Company. Also, the C-141 full-scale engineering mockup is completed.
October 1961 Three major C-141 subcontracts are announced: Convair Division of General Dynamics Corporation, San Diego, California, will build the tail assembly; Bendix Products Aerospace Division, South Bend, Indiana will build the main landing gear; and Cleveland Pneumatic Industries in Cleveland, Ohio, will build the nose landing gear.
January 1962 During the month, the C-141 Functional Development and Subassembly Department is activated at Lockheed-Georgia; more than 100 military representatives from the Air Force, Army, and FAA participate in the first C-141 mockup review at Marietta; and Bendix-Pacific is chosen to build the anti-skid system for the C-141.
1 February 1962 A Name-the-Plane contest to give the C-141 a nickname begins at Lockheed-Georgia. First prize is a $500 US Savings Bond.
February 1962 The Air Force approves the selection of General Electric to build the electrical generating system for the C-141. Components will be fabricated in Lynn, Massachusetts; Erie, Pennsylvania; and Waynesboro, Virginia.
March 1962 The Air Force approves the Twin Coach Company of Buffalo, New York, to build the wing leading edge for the C-141.
19 April 1962 The Air Force and Lockheed jointly announce the nickname for the C-141 will be StarLifter. James T. Hinley, Jr. is chosen as the recipient of the $500 US Savings Bond top prize out of fifteen Lockheed-Georgia employees who also submitted the winning name. Among the other proposed nicknames: LiftStar, All Star, Skylifter, Stargo, Freedom Freighter, and SkyTruk.
May 1962 As of this date, forty percent of the subcontractors, representing ninety percent of the subcontract work for the C-141, have been selected.
2 May 1962 The FAA opens its preliminary type certification board meeting for the Lockheed Model 300/C-141A in Marietta. The meeting runs until 10 May.
June 1962 The largest forgings ever made by Wyman-Gordon Company in North Grafton, Massachusetts, are delivered to Lockheed-Georgia. The five forgings, which will be used to complete a main bulkhead assembly, have an area of 2,700 square inches and weigh 1,340 pounds.
June 1962 Several more C-141 subcontractors are approved: National Water Lift Division of PneudoDynamics Corporation in Kalamazoo, Michigan, will provide the primary flight control power system; Burns Aero Seat Company, Burbank, California, will provide crash-resistant seats for the pilot, copilot, flight engineer, navigator, as well as auxiliary crew seats; Steel Products Engineering Company's Kelsey-Hayes Division in Springfield, Ohio, will provide the flap actuation system; the Curtiss Division of Curtiss-Wright Corporation in Caldwell, New Jersey, will provide the petal and pressure door activation system; and Borg-Warner Corporation's Pesco Products Division in Bedford, Ohio, will provide the thrust reverser system.
19 June 1962 Structural assemblers Leonard Rudnikas and Marcus J. Castlebury load the first C-141 parts, the underfloor cockpit bulkhead assembly, into the tooling jig at the Lockheed facility in Marietta. The load comes two weeks ahead of schedule and the event was covered by local press, radio, and TV reporters.
July 1962 The nose landing gear well, the first major structural component on aircraft 6001, the first C-141, is completed. Beech Aircraft Corporation in Wichita, Kansas, is chosen to provide the wing spoilers for the C-141.
September 1962 The first subcontracted assemblies for the C-141 — cargo floor plates — are delivered from Bell Aerosystems in Buffalo, New York. More than sixty percent of the StarLifter by weight is subcontracted; suppliers are located in thirty-four US states.
October 1962 Pratt & Whitney reveals that flight testing of the TF33-P-7 turbofan engine for the C-141 has begun. A B-66 Destroyer medium bomber is used as the testbed aircraft. Flights are being conducted at Bradley Field near the P&W facility in East Hartford, Connecticut.
15 October 1962 The first C-141 mid fuselage barrel section is completed on schedule. The section, which will be installed just forward of the wing box, measures fourteen feet, two inches in diameter, is 100 inches long, and weighs 5,200 pounds.
14 December 1962 The complete forward fuselage of the first C-141 is lifted from its assembly jig one day ahead of schedule The thirty-eight foot, three-inch assembly was completed in only five-and-a-half months.
January 1963 The Air Force begins testing the Pratt & Whitney TF33 turbofan engine for the StarLifter in the Climatic Laboratory at Eglin AFB, Florida. The engine is subjected to temperatures ranging from sixty-five degrees below zero to 165 degrees above.
11 January 1963 The forward, center, and aft fuselage sections of aircraft 6001 are mated. The mate operation comes two days ahead of the schedule target date. The 125-foot-long fuselage (not including the radome or the tail) is five feet longer than the Wright Brothers' first sustained, controlled, powered flight in 1903.
16 February 1963 The first set of C-141 wings arrives at Lockheed-Georgia after being shipped by rail from Avco Corporation's Aerospace Structures Division in Nashville, Tennessee. The wings represent the largest structural subcontract on the C-141 and contain more than 90,000 parts and components.
30 March 1963 The first empennage for the first StarLifter is unloaded after arriving in Marietta from the Convair plant in San Diego, California. The vertical stabilizer features two internal ladders to allow mechanics to access the aircraft's fifty-foot-wide all-moving horizontal stabilizer.
1 April 1963 The wings are mated to the first aircraft 6001 using a unique air cushion tool. Each of the wings weighs 8.5 tons. Mechanics on day shift mated the right wing and swing shift technicians mated the left wing.
April 1963 The Air Force and FAA announce that the Pratt & Whitney TF33-P-7 turbofan engine for the C-141 has been approved for both military and civil flight.
April 1963 Slick Airways becomes the first announced customer for the proposed stretched version of the L-300 commercial variant of the C-141, signing a $32 million contract for four L-300Bs with an option to purchase two more. Slick Airways expects to start service with the aircraft in 1967. The order is later cancelled.
12 May 1963 The Flying Tiger Line orders twelve L-300Bs in a $64 million deal. Deliveries are expected to begin in the second half of 1967. The order is later cancelled.
22 August 1963 President John F. Kennedy presses a golden telegraph key in the White House and a signal is sent to Marietta, Georgia, to open the B-1 Building hangar door and the first C-141A StarLifter (Air Force serial number 61-2775) rolls off the assembly line. A crowd of more than 600 distinguished civilian, government, company, and military leaders, including Air Force Secretary Eugene Zuckert, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, Representative L. Mendel Rivers of South Carolina, and Georgia Governor Carl Sanders are in attendance. Also present is a replica of the Wright 1909 Military Flyer flown in for the occasion by the Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
15 November1963 The Pratt & Whitney TF33-P-7 engines on the first C-141 are run up for the first time. The engines are run continuously for thirty-five minutes.
17 December 1963 On the sixtieth anniversary of the Wright Brothers' first powered flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Lockheed-Georgia Chief Test Pilot Leo Sullivan makes the first flight of the C-141A StarLifter. Taking off at 12:45 PM from Dobbins AFB, Marietta, Georgia, Sullivan, along with copilot Hank Dees (who would later be the pilot in command on the first flight of the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar airliner), flight engineer Bob Brennan, and flight test engineer Mitt Mittendorf, lift off in 2,500 feet. During the fifty-five minute flight, the crew reaches a top speed of 193 mph and an altitude of 7,800 feet. The crew lands and rolls out in less than 5,000 feet. The first flight comes just thirty-two months after contract award. A Lockheed T-33 trainer was used to fly safety chase.
29 February 1964 The second C-141 (61-2776) is flown for the first time. Also by this date, ground-based static testing is underway.
31 March 1964 The third aircraft (61-2777) is flown for the first time. As of this date, the three aircraft have been flown fourteen times for a total of thirty-five hours.
1 April 1964 The FAA issues a Type Inspection Authorization, pointing toward certification of the commercial L-300 variant of the C-141.
15 April 1964 The Air Force announces that Travis AFB, California, will be the first operational C-141 base. The first squadron is to begin conversion in the spring of 1965. It will be followed by one StarLifter squadron each at Dover AFB, Delaware, and Hunter AFB, Georgia. When Hunter later becomes an Army Air Field, the C-141 squadron it was supposed to get is shifted to Charleston AFB, South Carolina. Military Air Transport Service crew training will be conducted at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.
15 June 1964 Air Force Maj. Joe Schiele pilots the C-141 on its first transcontinental flight, flying from the Lockheed-Georgia plant to the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, California. The flight takes four hours and twenty-one minutes. Within two hours of landing at Edwards, the C-141 is flown on its first official Air Force test flight. Also on this date, Lockheed-Georgia Company receives a definitized contract from the Air Force for 127 additional C-141s. Value of the contract is $500 million.
19 June 1964 During a visit to Edwards AFB, President Lyndon Johnson receives a tour of the first C-141.
September 1964 A C-141 test aircraft is flown to Eglin AFB, Florida, to begin trials in the Air Force's Climatic Hangar.
17 September 1964 To date, the C-141s in the test program at Edwards AFB, California, and at Marietta, Georgia, have accumulated 1,000 flight hours.
19 October 1964 The first C-141 is delivered to the Air Force in ceremonies at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma. The aircraft (63-8078), christened The Spirit of Oklahoma City, is flown from Marietta by Maj. Gen. Charles H. Terhune, Jr., the commander of Air Force Systems Command's Aeronautical System Division at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. It is turned over to the 1707th Air Transport Wing to begin aircrew training.
11 November 1964 An Air Force Flight Test Center crew flies a C-141 on a 6,535-mile nonstop sortie around the country in order to test the aircraft's range and navigational equipment. The flight takes fifteen hours.
December 1964 Capt. David W. Coville becomes the first student to complete C-141 pilot training at the StarLifter schoolhouse, the 1707th Air Transport Wing at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.
15 December 1964 The Air Force announces that the C-141 test fleet of six aircraft at Edwards AFB, California, has completed 1,000 flight hours of testing in just six months. The original time slated for this block of testing was a year. The test fleet is averaging fifteen flight hours per day.
29 January 1965 In ceremonies at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, DC, Najeeb Halaby, the FAA administrator, presents the type certificate for the C-141 to C.S. Wagoner, Lockheed-Georgia vice president and C-141 program director. The type certification authorizes the StarLifter to carry commercial freight. Certification comes three days ahead of the schedule set in 1962.
March 1965 In a test at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, the Army's newest weapon, the MGM-31 Pershing theater ballistic missile, is loaded on to a C-141. Also, it is announced that a squadron of StarLifters would be based at Norton AFB, California, starting in mid 1967.
23 April 1965 The first operational C-141A is delivered to the Air Force in ceremonies at Travis AFB, California. The aircraft, nicknamed Golden Bear (63-8088), is assigned to the 1501st Air Transport Wing and was flown to Travis by Gen. Howell M. Estes, Jr., commander of Military Air Transport Service.
25-31 April 1965 The StarLifter is flown to the Far East for the first time. Taking off from Travis AFB, California, the crew of Golden Bear flies to Hawaii, Wake Island, and Okinawa before landing at Yokota AB, Japan. The 5,200 mile return trip is flown nonstop from Yokota to Travis in nine hours and twenty minutes.
May 1965 MATS begins its Lead the Force program, in which six selected C-141s (63-8075, 63-8078, 63-8079, 63-8080, 63-8081, 63-8088) will be flown twice the operating hours as the rest of the StarLifter fleet. MATS hopes to pinpoint any potential structural fatigue problems while the aircraft production line is still running.
10 June 1965 A Travis-based C-141 is flown nonstop from Kelly AFB, Texas, to Le Bourget Airport in Paris, France, to participate in the biennial Paris Air Show. This marks the first appearance by the StarLifter in Europe. The aircraft carried a 36,000 pound Army medical hospital that was set up and demonstrated at the show.
July 1965 At Marietta, Georgia, a forty-three ton Air Force LGM-30 Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile is loaded aboard a C-141 (64-0609) for fit checks and stress testing. At NAS El Centro, California, a StarLifter crew drops two cargo pallets weighing a total of 64,630 pounds in one pass. Later in the month, seven pallets weighing a total of 70,195 pounds are dropped in one pass at El Centro.
3 August 1965 The 44th Air Transport Squadron at Travis begins continuously operating cargo and passenger runs to Tan Son Nhut AB, South Vietnam. By staging crews at Wake Island, Clark AB, Philippines, and Yokota AB, Japan, the squadron is completing one mission a day to Southeast Asia. On the return trip, StarLifter crews bring wounded and injured personnel back to the US.
5 August 1965 The first C-141 lands at Tan Son Nhut Airport near Saigon, inaugurating C-141 operations in South Vietnam. Flying time for this first mission is 18¼ hours as opposed to 30½ hours required by the C-130E for the same flight.
14 August 1965 The first C-141 is delivered to the 1608th Air Transport Wing at Charleston AFB, South Carolina, the second operational C-141 unit. Military Air Transport Service vice commander Maj. Gen. Glen R. Birchard, flies The City of Charleston (64-0624) from Marietta to its new home.
16 August 1965 Army paratroopers from the 18th Airborne Corps and the 82nd Airborne Division make a mass jump from a C-141 at Sicily Drop Zone at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This is the first mass jump from a jet-powered transport. Col. Joseph F. Ryneska, president of the Army's Airborne, Electronics, and Special Warfare Test Board, is the first of eighty-one jumpers to hit the silk.
17 August 1965 The first C-141 is delivered to the 1607th Air Transport Wing at Dover AFB, Delaware, the third operational StarLifter unit. Maj. Gen. Donald Graham, commander of Eastern Transport Air Force, flies First State StarLifter (64 0625) from Marietta to its new home.
September 1965 The 44th Air Transport Squadron at Travis AFB, California, becomes the first unit to be fully equipped with the C-141 after receiving its sixteenth aircraft.
25 October 1965 A Travis-based C-141 is flown to Christchurch, New Zealand, bringing cargo and Air Force personnel assigned to Operation Deep Freeze. The C-141 is the largest aircraft to ever land in New Zealand and this is the first StarLifter mission in support of Operation Deep Freeze, the US military's effort supporting Antarctic scientific research.
18 December 1965 The 1965 Bob Hope Christmas Show begins its tour of Southeast Asia from Los Angeles, California, via a Travis AFB, California-based C-141 (64-0646). Smaller aircraft were used to airlift the troupe in theater. Another C-141 crew picks up the performers on 29 December in Guam for the return to the continental United States. The comedian would use C-141s on a number of his yearly holiday tours to Southeast Asia.
22 December 1965 Operation Blue Light begins. During the next thirty days, StarLifter crews move more than 4,600 tons of supplies and equipment and more than 3,000 troops of the Army's 3rd Infantry Brigade from Hickam AFB, Hawaii, to Pleiku, South Vietnam. Both C-141s and C-133s are used during the operation.
January 1966 An Air Force crew flies First State StarLifter (64-0625) nonstop from Yokota AB, Japan, to Dover AFB, Delaware. The 1607th Air Transport Wing crew averaged 520 mph on the 6,096 mile trip. Also, the newly renamed Military Airlift Command, or MAC, announces that C-141s will be based at McChord AFB, Washington, and Robins AFB, Georgia.
February 1966 The Air Force awards Lockheed-Georgia a contract to install, test, and obtain FAA certification for an all-weather landing system for the C-141.
March 1966 In a test at Charleston AFB, South Carolina, the 457th Aerial Port Squadron and the US Naval Supply Center at Charleston demonstrate the feasibility of transporting periscopes for Polaris nuclear submarines in a C-141.
1 April 1966 The first C-141 involved in the Air Force's Lead the Force program (63-8075) based at Travis AFB, California, reaches 3,500 career flight hours. Also on this date, C-141 crews initiate embassy run missions and start aeromedical evacuation missions from Europe.
7 April 1966 By diverting a C-141 from its scheduled Travis AFB, California, to Wake Island mission, a heart pacemaker device is delivered from Tripler General Hospital in Hawaii to the Air Force hospital at Clark AB, Philippines. Needed by a desperately ill patient, the pacemaker was delivered in less than six hours after the staff at Tripler asked that the device be delivered to Clark by the fastest possible means.
22 April 1966 The 100th C-141 built (64-0249) is delivered to Travis AFB, California. The aircraft was first flown from Marietta to Travis for a brief ceremony there and then on to South Vietnam where ceremonies mark the StarLifter's first year of operational service.
June 1966 The StarLifter fleet, currently 114 aircraft and growing in number, passes the 100,000 flight hour mark.
1 July 1966 A C-141 with thirty-four litter patients and twenty-seven ambulatory patients aboard is used to inaugurate direct aeromedical evacuation service from South Vietnam to the US.
3 August 1966 Military Airlift Command inaugurates a new StarLifter aeromedical evacuation route, flying from Saigon, South Vietnam, via Yokota AB, Japan, and Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, to Andrews AFB, Maryland, which moves casualties from the war zone to military hospitals in the Washington, DC, area three days faster than previous. Three of these evac flights are flown each week.
5 August 1966 The first C-141 is delivered to the 62nd Military Airlift Wing at McChord AFB, Washington, the fourth operational C-141 unit. Maj. Gen. Joseph Cunningham, 22nd Air Force commander, flies Tacoma StarLifter (65-0277) from Marietta to its new home.
20 August – 9 September 1966 A Lockheed-Georgia crew flies the lone L-300-50A, the civilian version of the C-141, on a 29,000 mile trip around the world to demonstrate the StarLifter to potential civilian and military customers. During the tour, the crew delivered helicopters from Texas to Germany and two stages of the huge Europa rocket from France and Germany to the launch site in Australia.
21 August 1966 A C-141 from the 437th Military Airlift Wing, scheduled to fly from Rhein-Main AB, Germany, to Charleston AFB, South Carolina, is pressed into service as an aeromedical aircraft when the crew airlifts an airman who had been critically injured in an auto accident in Germany and flies him to San Antonio, Texas. Within twelve hours after taking off from Rhein-Main, the airman was operated on successfully at the Fort Sam Houston Medical Facility in San Antonio.
7 September 1966 The C-141 fleet suffers its first hull loss as 65-0281 is destroyed in a ground accident at McChord AFB, Washington. The aircraft had only been delivered a week before and had just fifty-three hours of flight time.
September 1966 The StarLifter fleet, currently 144 aircraft (with one attrition), passes the 150,000 flight hour mark.
November 1966 The StarLifter fleet passes the 200,000 flight hour mark.
14 November 1966 Capt. Howard Geddes, a StarLifter pilot assigned to Travis AFB, California, lands C-141 65-0229 on the ice runway at Williams Field near McMurdo Station, Antarctica, marking the first time an all-jet powered aircraft touches down on the ice continent. The flight from Christchurch, New Zealand, covered 2,100 miles and took five hours and twenty-five minutes. The StarLifter carried twenty-eight passengers and 12.5 tons of cargo.
January 1967 The StarLifter fleet, currently 181 aircraft (with one attrition), passes the 250,000 flight hour mark.
9 January 1967 The first C-141, nicknamed The Peach State (66-0149), is delivered to the 58th Military Airlift Squadron at Robins AFB, Georgia, the fifth C-141 operating location. The parent unit of the 58th MAS is the 436th Military Airlift Wing at Dover AFB, Delaware.
April 1967 Retired Gen. Jimmy Doolittle and the surviving members of the 1942 Doolittle Raid on Japan are flown back to their reunion site in Alameda, California, on a C-141 after a tour of nearby Travis AFB.
1 April 1967 C-141 air evacuation flights begin at both Da Nang and Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam. Two C-141 flights per week are scheduled from Cam Ranh Bay to Andrews AFB, Maryland. Three C-141 flights per week are scheduled from Da Nang, two to Travis AFB, California, and one to Andrews. Previously, all Military Airlift Command air evacuation flights from Vietnam departed from Tan Son Nhut AB in Saigon.
8 April 1967 The first two C-141s are delivered to the 63rd Military Airlift Wing at Norton AFB, California, the fifth operational StarLifter wing and the sixth operating location. City of San Bernardino (66-0177) is flown from Marietta by Maj. Gen. Joseph Cunningham, the 22nd Air Force commander, while Inland Empire (66 0178) is flown to Norton by Brig. Gen. Gilbert Curtis, the 63rd MAW commander.
1 May 1967 Military Airlift Command flies its 1,000th Red Ball Express mission as a C-141 crew carries thirty tons of priority cargo from Travis AFB, California, to Vietnam. Since December 1965, C-141s have been used to airlift more than15,000 short tons of urgently needed spare parts and supplies to Army units in Vietnam.
13 June 1967 A C-141 from the 436th Military Airlift Wing at Dover AFB, Delaware, airlifts the remains of nine crewmembers of the USS Liberty (AGTR-5) from Rota, Spain, to the Air Force mortuary at Dover. The sailors were killed on 8 June when Israeli aircraft attacked the Liberty off the coast of the Sinai Peninsula during the Arab-Israeli war.
8 August 1967 The first C-141 is delivered to the 438th Military Airlift Wing at McGuire AFB, New Jersey, the sixth operational StarLifter wing and the seventh operating location. Brig. Gen. Pinkham Smith, vice commander of 21st Air Force, flies The Garden State Airlifter (66-7947) from Marietta to its new home.
25 August 1967 A StarLifter crew on a routine flight from McChord AFB, Washington, makes the 10,000th C-141 landing at Yokota AB, Japan. In July, the 610th Military Airlift Support Squadron at Yokota processed 1,000 StarLifter flights, a new record.
August 1967 The StarLifter fleet, currently 269 aircraft (with three attritions), passes the 500,000 flight hour mark.
September 1967 The Federal Aviation Administration certifies the C-141 All Weather Landing System. This certification marks the first time a military airlifter has been cleared to make fully automatic landings. The system can bring a StarLifter to a landing twelve feet on either side of the runway center line and within 300 feet forward or aft of a determined touchdown point.
9 November 1967 C-141 missions flown in support of the Apollo space program begin.
17 November 1967 Operation Eagle Thrust begins. StarLifter crews airlift most of the 10,356 men and 5,118 tons of supplies of the Army's 101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, directly to South Vietnam. The flights take thirty hours.
23 January 1968 C-141 crews participate in the buildup of US troops in South Korea in response to North Korea's seizure of the USS Pueblo (AGER-2) in international waters.
February 1968 Lockheed-Georgia Company begins using C-141 aircraft 61-2776, which has been modified with a larger radome, to conduct airborne tests of the avionics systems for the C-5A Galaxy transport.
28 February 1968 The 285th and last StarLifter to come off the assembly line is delivered to the Air Force at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma. Gen. Howell M. Estes, Jr., commander of Military Airlift Command, pilots 67-0166 from Marietta. The 284 C-141s and the lone L-300 commercial variant were all built, flown, and delivered in five years and eight months. The Air Force has fourteen C-141 squadrons.
February 1968 The StarLifter fleet, which currently stands at 282 aircraft (with three attritions), passes the 800,000 flight hour mark.
March 1968 One of the six Lead the Force program C-141s (63-8079) at Dover AFB, Delaware, is flown for an average of 21.5 hours per day during the month.
4 April 1968 The Reserve Associate program becomes a reality as TSgt. John P. Stappler of the 944th Military Airlift Group (Associate) at Norton AFB, California, becomes the first Reservist to serve as an aircrew member on a C-141 operational mission. Under the Reserve Associate program, Air Force Reserve units share aircraft owned by collocated active duty Air Force units.
6 April 1968 The first C-141 mission with an all-Reserve Associate crew is flown from Norton AFB, California, to Tinker AFB, Oklahoma.
May 1968 The StarLifter fleet of 282 aircraft passes the 1,000,000 flight hour mark just four years and five months after the first flight of the first aircraft.
14 August 1968 A crew from the 944th Military Airlift Group (Associate) at Norton AFB, California, becomes the first all-Reserve C-141 crew to fly an operational mission to South Vietnam.
15-25 August 1968 Military Airlift Command crews participate in the NATO exercise Deep Furrow '68 in northern Greece. C-141 crews deliver 140 short tons of cargo on twelve missions. One dozen C-141s airdrop heavy equipment during the employment phase of the exercise while StarLifter crews redeploy 623 troops and forty-eight short tons of cargo on another twelve missions. The exercise marks the first time the C-141 has been used in an employment role in a European exercise.
28 August 1968 A series of tests demonstrating the ability of the C-141 to operate continuously from a steel mat runway is completed at Dyess AFB, Texas. Aircraft 61-2777 is then flown to Edwards AFB, California, for a series of tests from a dirt runway at Harper's Dry Lake.
November 1968 A 62nd Military Airlift Wing C-141 is used to transport two killer whales from McChord AFB, Washington, to NAS Point Mugu, California. The whales are owned by the US Navy and are used in underwater research.
December 1968 The crew of Apollo 8, the first astronauts to orbit the moon, is flown from Hickam AFB, Hawaii to Ellington AFB, near Houston, Texas, aboard a C-141.
January 1969 The crew of the USS Pueblo (AGER-2), which had been seized by North Korea in 1968, is flown from South Korea to NAS Miramar, California, on a StarLifter after being released from captivity by the North Koreans.
20 February 1969 A C-141 crew flies thirteen VIPs — Very Important Porpoises — from NAS Key West, Florida, to NAS Point Mugu, California, as part of the Navy's marine mammal program. The porpoises were suspended in slings and were wearing form fitting sweaters that kept them wet.
18 April 1969 C-141 aircrew training moves from Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, to Altus AFB, Oklahoma, as the first seven aircraft arrive at their new home.
14 May 1969 Operation Combat Mosquito begins. Two C-141 crews airlift fifty tons of insecticide to Ecuador to fight an encephalitis epidemic.
8 July 1969 The first 900 of 25,000 US troops ordered by President Richard Nixon to return to the United States as part of the government's Vietnamization policy are flown aboard C-141s from Tan Son Nhut AB, South Vietnam, to McChord AFB, Washington.
26-27 July 1969 Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins — and their Mobile Quarantine Unit, a modified Airstream trailer — are flown from Hickam AFB, Hawaii, to Ellington AFB, Texas, aboard a Norton AFB, California-based C-141 (66-7958). Several days earlier, y the thirty-three pounds of moon rocks collected on the mission were flown on a Norton-based StarLifter direct from Johnston Atoll to Houston. The rocks and a fifty-pound box of film taken by the astronauts was the only cargo aboard. A few days after the astronauts are returned, a Travis-based C-141 crew flies Columbia, the Apollo 11 command module, from Hawaii to Texas.
December 1969 The StarLifter fleet of 282 aircraft passes the 2,000,000 flight hour mark. This milestone comes just seventeen months after the 1,000,000 flight hour milestone was reached. Also during the month, the last of 279 C-141s receives the All-Weather Landing System modification at Lockheed-Georgia Company and is redelivered to the Air Force.
14 April 1970 A C-141 crew makes the first airlift of an operational LGM-30F Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile. The missile is flown from Hill AFB, Utah, to Minot AFB, North Dakota.
1 October 1970 As of this date, sixty-nine C-141s have amassed more than 10,000 flight hours each. One of the Lead the Force program aircraft has accumulated more than 17,000 flight hours and two more have 16,000 hours.
Spring 1971 Warner Robins Air Material Area starts painting the StarLifter fleet with a distinctive white on the top of the fuselage and gray on the bottom paint scheme. The new scheme replaces the original natural metal finish (with some exterior panels painted gray). The new gray and white paint contain aliphatic polyurethane, which is expected to last six times longer than the lacquer used originally. The new gloss paint actually gives the C-141 a couple of additional knots of speed because it produces less drag.
June 1971 StarLifter crews from the 438th Military Airlift Wing at McGuire AFB, New Jersey, fly the1,000,000th pint of whole blood to Vietnam since 1965. The Armed Forces Whole Blood Processing Laboratory is located at McGuire.
November 1971 The StarLifter fleet of 282 aircraft (with three attritions) passes the 3,000,000 flight hour mark.
23 December 1971 The lone L-300, the commercial variant of the C-141, is purchased by NASA for conversion into an airborne observatory. The aircraft will have a thirty-six inch reflecting telescope mounted just forward of the wing. The observatory will be flown at altitudes above 40,000 feet where the atmosphere is more than ninety-nine percent free of water vapor. In this clear, dry environment, astronomers can study radiant heat patterns from stars, planets, and other celestial bodies. The aircraft is delivered to NASA at Moffett Field, California, in February after preliminary modification at the Lockheed-Georgia Company facility in Marietta, Georgia.
21 – 28 February 1972 Several Charleston AFB, South Carolina-based C-141s (including 64-0644) are used to support President Richard Nixon's historic trip to mainland China.
April 1972 A C-141 is used to transport 394 Vietnamese refugees fleeing the Communist invasion of the Northern Highlands area of the country to Tan Son Nhut AB, near Saigon. The C-141A is designed to carry ninety passengers.
September 1972 The 436th Military Airlift Wing at Dover AFB, Delaware, wins the 1972 Military Airlift Command Combat Airlift Competition held at Travis AFB, California. StarLifter crews were evaluated in airdrop, low level navigation, engine running offload, and combat control and aerial delivery teams.
12 February 1973 Operation Homecoming, the repatriation of former American Prisoner of War begins as a C-141 crew flying Norton AFB, California-based 66-0177 lands at Gia Lam Airport near Hanoi, North Vietnam. Forty prisoners come out on the first flight. Two other Norton-based C-141s, 65-0243 and 65-0236, are also flown to Hanoi. A total of 143 former POWs are repatriated that day on C-141s that become known as the Freedom Birds.
20 September 1973 A Travis AFB, California-based C-141 (65-9503) along with a Lockheed C-5 Galaxy and L-1011 TriStar are static displays at the dedication for the new Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in Texas. A British Airways Concorde is also on static display during the festivities. More than 100,000 people attend.
14 October 1973 A Dover AFB, Delaware-based C-141 crew is the first to land at Lod Airport, Tel Aviv, Israel, as Operation Nickel Grass begins. The first flight brings in an Airlift Control Element team to run the massive resupply effort to Israel during the Yom Kippur War. For the next thirty-two days, C-141 and C-5 crews airlift 22,318 tons of material to Israel. The StarLifters move 10,754 tons of that total on 422 missions.
28 December 1973 As the Comet Kohoutek makes its closest approach to the sun (roughly 13,000,000 miles), scientists take observations during the first operational mission aboard NASA's new Airborne Infrared Observatory, the lone L-300 commercial variant of the StarLifter. The flights take place near Hawaii.
April 1974 The StarLifter fleet of 281 aircraft (with four attritions) passes the 4,000,000 flight hour mark. This milestone comes slightly more than ten years after the first flight of the first aircraft.
16 May 1974 The Lockheed Southern Star company newspaper notes that Lockheed-Georgia Company officials say a series of laboratory structural fatigue tests "fully confirms our predictions that this rugged aircraft will be operationally active in the year 1990."
29 April 1975 To date, the Air Force has evacuated more than 45,000 people from Saigon, South Vietnam, on 201 C-141 and 174 C-130 sorties during Operation New Life.
May 1975 Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn announces that Lockheed-Georgia Company has been awarded an Air Force contract to begin modifying one C-141A as a prototype "stretch" aircraft. Two fuselage plugs will be installed to extend the length of the aircraft by 23.3 feet (160 inches ahead of the wing and 120 inches aft), which will provide 2,171 additional cubic feet of cargo volume. Modifying the entire fleet will give the Air Force the equivalent of ninety additional C-141As. The aircraft will also receive new wing fillets to decrease drag and an aerial refueling receptacle to give the C-141B worldwide range.
December 1975 The C-141A that will become the YC-141B prototype (66-0186) is delivered to Lockheed-Georgia Company to begin modification. The aircraft is flown to Marietta from Charleston AFB, South Carolina.
July 1976 The first aircraft to be modified under the C-141 stretch program is de-mated a month ahead of schedule.
3 August 1976 C-141 63-8075, the sixth aircraft built, becomes the first StarLifter to pass 25,000 flight hours. Col. Donald W. Bennett, the commander of the 60th Military Airlift Wing at Travis AFB, California, is at the controls on the aircraft on the milestone flight. This C-141 is one of the six StarLifters that participated in the Lead the Force program that was designed to put as many hours on the aircraft as quickly as possible to determine any structural issues.
8 January 1977 The YC-141B prototype (66-0186), the first aircraft to be modified in the C-141 stretch program, is rolled out in ceremonies before a crowd of more than 15,000 Air Force, government, and company officials, and employees and their families at Lockheed-Georgia Company in Marietta, Georgia. The rollout comes nearly eight weeks ahead of schedule. The prototype stretch program also stands $3.5 million under budget.
3 March 1977 NASA's Kuiper Airborne Observatory, the lone L-300 StarLifter commercial variant that has been modified with an enclosed thirty-six inch reflecting telescope, is flown from its base at NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California, for its first international mission. The observatory, now known as NASA 914, is flown from bases in Australia to observe Uranus during unique astronomical conditions. During these flights, it is discovered that the seventh planet from the sun has rings.
25 March 1977 The YC-141B prototype is flown for the first time from the runway shared by Dobbins AFB and Lockheed-Georgia Company in Marietta, Georgia. The late afternoon flight lasts two hours and six minutes. The flight crew consists of Lockheed Test Pilot Frank Hadden and Air Force Maj. Herb Klein with Lockheed's Malcolm Davis and TSgt. Larry Sage as flight engineers and Lockheed instrumentation engineer Bill Harris.
April 1977 The StarLifter fleet of 277 aircraft (with eight attritions) passes the 5,000,000 flight hour mark.
6 June 1977 The YC-141B prototype is flown from Marietta to the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, California, where it goes through initial operational test and evaluation during the next two months. The tests include airdrops of military equipment and test loads up to 70,000 pounds, paratroop jumps, aerial refueling operations, emergency war order high gross weight takeoffs and landings, and simulated Air Force/Army operations. The Air Force's preliminary analysis of the data indicate the aircraft is more stable, has less drag, and is generally a better handling aircraft than the C-141A.
30 September 1977 The first C-141 transatlantic mission without a navigator is made using a Delco inertial navigation system. The flight goes from Charleston AFB, South Carolina, to Naval Station Rota, Spain.
June 1978 Lockheed-Georgia company is awarded a $407.5 million contract to begin the C-141B stretch production program. The first aircraft is scheduled to arrive in Marietta to begin the modification process in July 1978 with redelivery to the Air Force expected in December 1979. A total of 271 operational aircraft are expected to go through the stretch program with the final aircraft expected to be redelivered in 1982.
22-29 November 1978 After a mass suicide of American citizens at Jonestown, Guyana, StarLifter crews airlift 911 bodies back to the United States.
9 December 1978 With political tensions and anti-government violence threatening the American community in Iran, nine C-141 and two C-5 flights transport approximately 900 US citizens from Tehran, to Europe, and then to the United States.
December 1978 Lockheed-Georgia Company receives an $85.6 million Air Force contract for eighty-five production C-141B modification kits.
14 February 1979 The first aircraft that will be modified under the C-141B stretch program is inducted into the modification line.
27 February 1979 The YC-141B (66-0176) begins a second round of testing in advance of the start of C-141B production and is flown from Dobbins AFB, Georgia. The flight lasts two hours and fifty-four minutes. The crew consists of pilot in command Air Force Maj. Herb Klein, Lockheed Test Pilot Frank Hadden, copilot; Jerry Edwards and MSgt. Larry Sage, flight engineers; Bill Harris, flight test engineer; and George Smith, instrumentation engineer.
3-9 March 1979 At the request of the State Department, thirty-four StarLifter missions are flown to Yemen to deliver more than 705 tons of 20 mm artillery shells and eighteen 105 mm howitzer cannons.
28 March 1979 The reactor core at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pennsylvania, suffers a partial meltdown and radioactive steam is released. In the aftermath of the accident, twenty C-141 crews (as well as a C-130 and two C-5 crews) respond by delivering upper air sampling equipment, radiological test equipment, a robot arm to look inside the reactor, and iodine pills. In addition, StarLifters were used to fly 90,000 lead bricks to the site to build an igloo-like structure over the breached reactor.
October 1979 Lockheed-Georgia Company completes the production and installation of lightweight graphite and Fibreglas/epoxy composite wing leading edge sections on the wings of ten C-141s as part of an Air Force evaluation.
4 December 1979 The commander of Military Airlift Command, Gen. Robert E. Huyser, flies the first operational C-141B (66-0176) from Lockheed-Georgia Company in Marietta, Georgia, to Charleston AFB, South Carolina, where it will undergo follow-up test and evaluation.
6 April 1980 An Altus AFB, Oklahoma-based crew flies the first operational C-141B mission, flying 67-0007 nonstop from Beale AFB, California, to RAF Mildenhall, United Kingdom. The flight takes eleven hours and twelve minutes and requires one air refueling over the Great Lakes.
11 April 1980 Almost fifteen years to the day that the first C-141A was delivered to Travis AFB, California, the first C-141B to be assigned to the base near San Francisco is delivered.
11 July 1980 The first C-141B is delivered to the 438th Military Airlift Wing at McGuire AFB, New Jersey. It is the thirty-first StarLifter to be redelivered to the Air Force.
August 1980 The C-141B stretch program reaches a rate of ten aircraft per month at Lockheed-Georgia Company in Marietta, Georgia.
10 October 1980 After two major earthquakes strike Al Asnam, Algeria, the US State Department asks that relief supplies be airlifted to the stricken area. In response, Military Airlift Command personnel transport 340 tons of supplies on fourteen C-141, two C-5, and one C-130 missions during a two-week period.
15 October 1980 Modification of Golden Bear (63-8088) into a C-141B is completed at Marietta. It was the first C-141 delivered to an operational Air Force unit in 1965.
November 1980 The 100th C-141A scheduled to undergo the C-141B modification is delivered to Lockheed-Georgia in Marietta, Georgia. The milestone aircraft (66-0126) is assigned to the 438th Military Airlift Wing at McGuire AFB, New Jersey.
15 May 1981 Under a program dubbed Project Mule Trainer, a C-141 that was destroyed by fire in a landing accident (64-0647) in 1979 is cut into three sections that are later transported by truck from Charleston AFB, South Carolina, to Richards-Gebaur AFB, Missouri. The cockpit is to be used as an office and the mid fuselage will be used a classroom. The tail section was destined to be a load trainer, but was destroyed in an accident while being prepared for shipment.
Fall 1981 Warner Robins Air Logistic Center at Robins AFB, Georgia, begins painting the C-141 fleet with a combination of flat gunship gray and two shades of flat green. The new scheme, known as European One, adds fifteen days to the time it takes for a C-141 to go through programmed depot maintenance. As of October 1981, twenty-six aircraft have been painted. The new scheme also inspires crews to give the C-141 a new nickname: StarLizard.
5 April 1982 The last of 270 C-141As is flown to Lockheed-Georgia Company in Marietta, Georgia, to enter the C-141B modification line.
June 1982 A crew from the 437th Military Airlift Wing and 315th MAW (Reserve Associate) become the first all-female StarLifter crew to complete a mission, flying from Charleston AFB, South Carolina; to Eglin AFB, Florida; to Scott AFB, Illinois; and back to Charleston.
29 June 1982 The last of 270 C-141Bs rolls off the modification line at Lockheed-Georgia Company in Marietta, Georgia. Peak production rate is ten aircraft per month. The aircraft were out of service for an average of sixty-four days. At program's end, the modification took roughly fifty-five days. The C-141 mod program finished two weeks ahead of schedule and $25 million under budget.
1 – 12 March 1983 During the deployment phase of a massive field training exercise directed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff known as Team Spirit '83, Military Airlift Command C-141, C-5, and C-130 crews fly 325 missions and airlift more than 15,000 troops and 4,850 tons of equipment to South Korea.
May 1983 A Travis AFB, California-based C-141 crew becomes the first StarLifter to land at Gillot Airport, Reunion Island, in order to deliver a T56 turboprop engine for a Navy RP-3D, which had been grounded on the small island while in the Indian Ocean performing research on the Earth's magnetic field.
9 May 1983 A C-141 crew from the 18th Military Airlift Squadron at McGuire AFB, New Jersey, becomes the Air Force's first all female crew to fly across the Atlantic.
3-25 September 1983 As part of Operation Rubber Wall, eighty-five C-141, twenty-four C-5, and four C-130 missions are flown to transport 4,000 tons of supplies to US Marines in Beirut, Lebanon.
28 September 1983 A Norton-based C-141B crew is diverted from a supply mission to the South Pacific and Australia to McMurdo Station, Antarctica, to air-evac an injured sailor. The landing begins Operation Deep Freeze '83 five days early.
23 October 1983 A terrorist drives a truck carrying 12,000 pounds of explosives into the US Marine Barracks at the Beirut International Airport and detonates it, collapsing the four-story building instantly. In the aftermath, a C-141 rigged for aeromedical airlift evacuates seventy-eight wounded Marines to medical care in Germany.
25 October 1983 Operation Urgent Fury, the rescue of US citizens in Grenada begins. After the Point Salinas airport is captured by Army Rangers, twenty-eight StarLifters land at the field, which has no approach or landing lights, has equipment blocking more than one-third of the runway, and is still subject to intermittent ground fire, to airland elements of the Army's 82d Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The StarLifters later evacuate US medical students and injured US servicemembers.
December 1983 A C-141 transports 5,448 boxes of cookies from Langley AFB, Virginia, to Beirut as a Christmas present for sailors aboard the USS Independence (CV-62) cruising off the coast of Lebanon. The 120,000 cookies are from the citizens of the carrier's homeport of Norfolk, Virginia.
3 January 1984 A C-141 crew on a routine mission in Europe is diverted to Damascus, Syria, to pick up Navy pilot Lt. Robert O. Goodman, Jr., and Rev. Jesse Jackson. Goodman was shot down over Lebanon and held captive by extremist militia. Jackson worked to secure his release.
September 1984 The StarLifter fleet of 273 aircraft (with twelve attritions) passes the 7,000,000 flight hour mark.
5 January 1985 A C-141 crew from McGuire AFB, New Jersey, transports a Sikorsky S 70 helicopter to La Paz, Bolivia, where it is used in search operations for an Eastern Airlines 727 airliner that crashed in the Andes Mountains four days earlier.
18-23 January 1985 To provide assistance for Ethiopian refugees living in camps near the Ethiopian-Sudanese border, two C-141 crews move cargo directly to the Sudan from McGuire AFB, New Jersey.
3 February 1985 After an earthquake on 26 January destroyed nearly 12,000 homes in west central Argentina, a C-141 crew arrives at Mendoza, Argentina, from Howard AFB, Panama, with 500 eight-person tents to help protect some of the nearly 10,000 people who are without shelter.
8 March 1985 A StarLifter crew transports the remains of a US Drug Enforcement Agent, kidnapped and murdered on assignment in Mexico, from Guadalajara, Mexico, to NAS North Island in San Diego, California.
29 March 1985 A C-141 crew transports 100 artists and their paintings from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Andrews AFB, Maryland, so the painters could formally present their works to the Air Force at a dinner hosted by the Secretary of the Air Force. The Special Assignment Airlift Mission returned the artists to the West Coast on 1 April.
21-22 June 1985 A C-141 crew returns the bodies of four US Marines murdered by terrorists in San Salvador, El Salvador, to Howard AFB, Panama, and then transports the remains to Andrews AFB, Maryland, the following day. President Ronald Reagan, the servicemen's families, and a Marine honor guard are on hand for the arrival ceremony.
30 June 1985 After thirty-nine male hostages from TWA Flight 847 hijacked on 14 June on a flight from Athens to Rome are freed by Shiite Muslim terrorists in Damascus, Syria, they are flown to Rhine-Main AB, Germany, and to freedom by a C-141 crew.
4-10 July 1985 As forest fires rage over thousands of acres of mountain woodlands in California, C-141s fly ten missions to airlift 285 passengers and 181 short tons of cargo to support the massive fire fighting operations.
21-30 September 1985 After massive earthquakes in Mexico City on 19 and 21 September kill more than 4,000 people and destroy up to 2,500 buildings, Military Airlift Command flies four C-5, eleven C-141, and five C-130 missions to transport roughly 300 people and 375 short tons of cargo to Mexico City.
December 1985 The Kuiper Airborne Observatory, the lone L-300 commercial variant of the StarLifter that has been modified into an aerial telescope for NASA, is used to track Halley's Comet on its once-every-seventy-six-year-trek around Earth. The observations confirm that comets are actually "dirty snowballs," a mixture of water, ice, and dust.
17-19 December 1985 Four C 141 missions transport 250 members of the Army's 9th Infantry Division from McChord AFB, Washington, to Cairo, Egypt, to begin their tour of duty with the Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai Peninsula. A quartet of C-141s is later used to return the final contingent of the 101st Airborne Division to Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
January 1986 A total of 105 C-141Bs participate in Reforger '86, the annual rapid deployment of personnel and equipment to and within Europe. The StarLifters are used to transport 20,000 personnel and more than 500 tons of equipment.
7 February 1986 A C-141 crew from the 437th Military Airlift Wing at Charleston AFB, South Carolina, flies Haitian president Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier, his family, and staff from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, to exile in France.
15-17 February 1986 In the aftermath of the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger, a C-141 crew airlifts eighty relatives and NASA associates of Lt. Col. Ellison S. Onizuka, one of the crewmembers, from the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, to Keahole, Hawaii, for a memorial service.
March 1986 Air Force crews flying the Electric StarLifter, the NC-141A (61-2776) modified with an all-electric primary flight control activation system, complete the initial flight test program on the aircraft, accumulating 12.5 flight hours on six flights at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio.
29 April 1986 After a massive search effort located the remains of the seven crewmembers aboard the space shuttle Challenger, a C-141 crew from Charleston AFB, South Carolina, transports the remains from the Kennedy Space Center to the Air Force mortuary at Dover AFB, Delaware.
April-May 1986 After a massive meltdown of the main reactor at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl nuclear power plant on 25 April, Military Airlift Command launches one C-141 mission in late April and ten more C-141 missions in May to support US air sampling operations. On the April mission, the C-141 transports canisters of contaminated compressed air from RAF Mildenhall, United Kingdom, to the Air Force Technical Applications Center laboratory at McClellan AFB, California, where scientists analyze the contaminated air. The ten missions flown in May transport air sampling containers from RAF Mildenhall and Yokota AB, Japan, to the AFTAC laboratory.
11 July 1986 A C-141 crew flies twenty-six musk ox calves from Sondrestrom AB, Greenland, to Thule AB, Greenland. From Thule, the US Coast Guard cutter Northwind transports the animals to pastures north and south of Thule. The objective of the resettlement project is to help reestablish the herd in the area around Thule. The ox-lift was conducted as part of a regularly scheduled C-141 channel mission to Thule.
12-13 July 1986 For the first time, C-141s are placed under the direct command of the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve, as the 172nd Military Airlift Group, the ANG unit at Jackson, Mississippi, and the 459th Military Airlift Wing, the Reserve unit at Andrews AFB, Maryland, begin operations with the StarLifter. Both units previously flew C-130s.
19 July 1986 With livestock in the South suffering from the effects of a severe drought, C-141 crews from Charleston AFB, South Carolina, and McGuire AFB, New Jersey, begin Operation Haylift — aka "Moo Aid" — airlifting hay for farm animals. More than 1,600 bales of hay are brought in on the first sortie to Greenville, South Carolina. Each C-141 carries an average load of 800 bales, which collectively weighed 45,000 pounds.
26 May 1987 After an unprovoked Iraqi attack on the USS Stark (FFG-31) claims the lives of thirty-seven sailors on 17 May, C-141 crews return the remains of all but one of the seamen to the Air Force mortuary at Dover AFB, Delaware, from Bahrain.
June 1987 The Air Force awards Lockheed-Georgia Company a $608,000 contract to develop a preliminary design for modernized flight station for the C-141. Liquid crystal flat panel instrument displays are to be looked at as part of the design.
September 1987 Two C-141 crews from the 63d Military Airlift Wing at Norton AFB, California, airlift more than sixty passengers and twenty-four short tons of equipment for the Thunderbirds, the US Air Force aerial demonstration team, which is making a month-long tour to the Pacific and Far East.
11 December 1987 After 1,100 Cuba detainees riot at the Atlanta Federal Prison, twelve C-141 and six C-130 missions move 715 of the detainees and 165 correction officers from Dobbins AFB, Georgia, to Rosecrans, Missouri, and Augusta, Georgia, where the prisoners are then taken to nearby correctional facilities.
21-28 December 1987 Two C-141 are used to provide transportation for comedian Bob Hope's annual Christmas tour that entertains US servicemen and women serving in the South Pacific, Indian Ocean, and Atlantic regions.
20 April 1988 A C-141 assigned to the 438th Military Airlift Wing at McGuire AFB, New Jersey, airlifts Pakistani nationals seriously burned in an explosion at Pakistan's Ojhari Ammunition Depot. They were taken from Islamabad to Rhein-Main AB, Germany, for treatment at the nearby Landstuhl Army Medical Center.
May 1988 The StarLifter fleet of 273 aircraft (with twelve attritions) passes the 8,000,000 flight hour mark.
9 June 1988 The first direct observation of an atmosphere on Pluto is made 41,000 feet over Pago Pago by a team of astronomers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology flying aboard the NASA Ames Research Center Kuiper Airborne Observatory. The observatory is the lone L-300, the commercial version of the C-141, which has been equipped with a thirty-six inch, 15,000 pound telescope mounted just forward the aircraft's wing.
1 – 4 July 1988 C-141 crews transport seventy-two Soviet inspectors from Travis AFB, California, to designated facilities in the United States according to provisions of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces treaty and then returned them to Travis for a 5 July 1988 departure to the Soviet Union.
22 August – 1 September 1988 Military Airlift Command crews fly twenty-nine C-141, one C-5, and one C-130 missions to Bozeman, Montana, to transport 2,497 Army firefighters and 420 short tons of equipment as the worst forest fire in Yellowstone National Park's 116-year history rages over 582,000 acres of the 2.2 million acre park.
3 October 1988 A C-141 crew from the 437th Military Airlift Wing at Charleston AFB, South Carolina, flies former hostage Mithileshwar Singh Mithileshwar Singh — released the previous day by his Muslim captors — from Damascus to Rhein-Main AB, Germany for examination at the nearby Wiesbaden Air Force Regional Medical Center.
16 – 30 November 1988 Ten C-141 missions deliver several hundred drums of the insecticide malathion to Dakar, Senegal, for use in combating an intense plague of desert locust.
December 1988 A 438th Military Airlift Wing C 141 crew from McGuire AFB, New Jersey, airlifts the remains of the Zambian ambassador to the United States from Andrews AFB, Maryland, to Zambia.
December 1988 A C-141 airlifts non-useable parachutes from the United States to Nairobi, Kenya, where a Norwegian charitable organization then trucks the chutes to the Sudan for conversion into crude shelters for Sudanese refugees.
11 December 1988 Two C-141s loaded with humanitarian relief supplies arrive in Yerevan, Soviet Armenia. These are the first of seven humanitarian aid missions that Military Airlift Command crews fly to Yerevan after a massive earthquake on 7 December. These are also the first flights by a US military aircraft into the Soviet Union since World War II without a Soviet observer onboard.
14 January 1989 A C-141 crew transports the remains of an American F-111 pilot killed in the April 1986 terrorist reprisal raid on Tripoli and Benghazi, Libya, from Ciampino military airfield near Rome, Italy, to Torrejon AB, Spain. Another C-141 mission then carried the remains to the mortuary at Dover AFB, Delaware.
9 February 1989 A StarLifter crew from Charleston AFB, South Carolina, brings thirty-seven Armenian children and young adults seriously injured in a December 1988 earthquake in Armenia from Rhein-Main AB, Germany, to Andrews AFB, Maryland. Several days before, two C-141 flights took the children from Moscow and Yerevan to Rhein-Main. After arriving in the US, the children received medical treatment in American hospitals.
11 June 1989 A C-141 aircrew from the 438th Military Airlift Wing, McGuire AFB, New Jersey, delivers a seventeen-member Army burn team from the US Army Institute of Surgical Research at Brooks Army Center, San Antonio, Texas, to Moscow. The team went to Russia to help Soviet physicians treat children seriously burned in a gas pipeline explosion on 4 June.
21-30 September 1989 After Hurricane Hugo devastates the Caribbean Basin, two C-5, twenty-eight C-141, and two C-130 missions deliver 950 troops and 429 short tons of cargo to Alexander Hamilton Airport, St. Croix, in support of Operation Hawkeye.
October 1989 Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Company-Georgia is awarded a $53.3 million contract to provide twenty-five center wing box replacement kits for the C-141. The new wing box will help extend the design service life of the StarLifter from 30,000 to 45,000 flight hours. Eventually, 173 kits are expected to be built.
14 December 1989 Military Airlift Command authorizes women to serve as aircrew on C-141 and C-130 airdrop missions.
20 December 1989 – 3 January 1990 StarLifter crews fly 251 missions, the most of any airlifter, during Operation Just Cause, the US intervention in Panama. The US airlift fleet of C-141s, C-5s, and C-130s are used to deliver more than 11,000 personnel and 3,000 tons of cargo to Panama. The StarLifters had a ninety-six percent departure reliability rate.
22 April 1990 Islamic extremist release former US hostage Robert Polhill from captivity in Beirut. Syrian military officials then drive him to Damascus where he boards a McGuire AFB, New Jersey-based C-141. The StarLifter crew flies Polhill to Rhein-Main AB, Germany, where he is treated at the military hospital in nearby Wiesbaden. This flight comes on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the C-141's first operational mission.
17 May 1990 As part of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces reduction treaty, a C-141 crew airlifts a Soviet SS 20 intermediate range nuclear missile to Andrews AFB, Maryland, for permanent display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in downtown Washington. As a result of the treaty, an American MGM-31 Pershing II missile is transported to Moscow for display. A crew from the 438th Military Airlift Wing at McGuire AFB, New Jersey, transports the Pershing II to Shermetyevo Airport near Moscow.
3-8 June 1990 At Pope AFB, North Carolina, the C-141 team from the 63rd Military Airlift Wing at Norton AFB, California, claims the Best Overall Wing trophy at the eleventh annual Airlift Rodeo 1990, the Air Force's international airlift competition.
8 August 1990 A C-141 is the first US transport to arrive in the Persian Gulf as Operation Desert Shield begins. The aircraft lands at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. During Operations Desert Shield/Desert Storm, which lasts until 28 February 1991, more than eighty percent of the C-141 fleet is involved in operations. At the height of the airlift, a C-141 or C-5 lands at Dhahran an average of every eleven minutes. These two aircraft types airlift more than three quarters of the cargo and one-third of the personnel moved to the Persian Gulf and average more than 17,000,000 ton miles (moving one ton of cargo one mile) per day. The US strategic airlift fleet hauls 543,548 tons during the operations, with C-141s hauling 152,178 tons on 43,335 sorties.
30 October 1990 In support of Operation Desert Shield, Military Airlift Command, at US Transportation Command's direction, initiates Operation Desert Express. To quickly move the highest priority cargo to Central Command's area of responsibility, the operation provides for a dedicated C-141 to depart Charleston AFB, South Carolina, daily and proceed on a seventeen-hour mission to the Persian Gulf region with a brief en route stop at Torrejon AB, Spain. Desert Express and later European Desert Express, a dedicated C-141 mission from Germany, continues transporting cargo through the end of the Gulf War.
January 1991 Threats by Iraqi sympathizers against American Embassy personnel in Khartoum, Sudan, prompted the decision to evacuate the embassy staff. A C-141 crew commanded by Captain Thomas M. Beirne safely extricate seventy-seven passengers and 7,000 pounds of baggage.
April 1991 The StarLifter fleet of 272 aircraft (with thirteen attritions) passes the 9,000,000 flight hour mark.
27 April 1991 In the first US airlift mission into Iran since 1979, a C-141 crew from the 437th Military Airlift Wing at Charleston AFB, South Carolina, delivers fifteen tons of blankets to Teheran for Kurdish refugees.
8 July 1991 Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Company officially delivers the Advanced Radar Test Bed, or ARTB, to the Air Force. The ARTB is a modified C-141A (61-2779) designed to test a wide range of advanced radar sensors in a dynamic electronic countermeasures environment. The aircraft also is equipped with a fighter-type nose. Development of the ARTB began in 1987.
21-24 July 1991 In the first military airlift to Albania since 1946, C-141 crews on seven missions deliver 140 short tons of food to Tirana, Albania, to alleviate a food shortage. Four more C-141 missions in August provide sixty additional short tons of food.
11 September 1991 A C-141 based at McGuire AFB, New Jersey, serves as Air Force Two when Vice President Dan Quayle and his wife, Marilyn, fly from Liongwe, the capital of Malawi, to Blantyre, Malawi, and back. Using the C-141 as Air Force Two for the forty-five minute flight was dictated by the absence of an instrument approach and narrow runway at Blantyre's Chileka Airport.
December 1991 The City of Charleston , a C-141B (63-8079) based at Charleston AFB, South Carolina, passes 40,000 flight hours, which currently marks it as the second highest total for the C-141 fleet and is the high-time aircraft in 21st Air Force. This aircraft carries a small equine silhouette painted on the left landing gear well to symbolize a 1966 incident when the crew unfortunately struck and killed a horse that had strayed onto an active runway at Clark AB, Philippines.
24 – 30 January 1992 A C-141 crew from the 63d Airlift Wing, Norton AFB, California, completes five shuttle missions to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The flights carry approximately 125 short tons of construction materials to be used to reestablish the US Embassy in the Cambodian capital.
12 February 1992 A C-141 is flown to Alma Alta, Kazakhstan, to deliver eighteen tons of food for the city's hospitals as part of Operation Provide Hope.
March 1992 The 164th Airlift Wing, the Air Force Reserve unit at Memphis International Airport, Tennessee, receives its first C-141B (66-0167) as the unit begins converting from the C-130A.
1 April 1992 A C-141 crew from Charleston AFB, South Carolina, successfully airdrops 115 fifty-five gallon barrels of JP 4 aviation fuel on a floating joint US-Russian Ice Station in the Weddell Sea off the coast of Antarctica. The C-141 crew drops all of the barrels onto a 1,000-yard drop zone to deliver the aviation fuel needed to get the expedition's helicopters flying again after the original fuel supply became contaminated.
8-12 June 1992 At Pope AFB, North Carolina, the team from the 446th Airlift Wing, the Air Force Reserve Associate C-141 unit at McChord AFB, Washington, claims the Best Overall Wing trophy at the twelfth Rodeo 1992, the Air Force's international air mobility competition.
31 August 1992 A C-141 crew carries seventy Byelorussian children suffering aftereffects of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident from Minsk, Byelarus, to medical treatment in Brussels, Belgium.
25 October 1992 A C-141 is used to evacuate twelve American embassy personnel and nine foreign nationals from Dushanbe, Tajikistan. The evacuation follows fighting between forces belonging to ousted President Rakhmon Nabiyev and troops supporting the acting president, Akbarshah Iskandarov.
26 August 1993 Eight C-141 missions transport two military field hospitals from Germany to Tiblisi, Georgia, as part of Operation Provide Hope. With the end of the Cold War, the hospitals became surplus to American needs.
October 1993 Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Company begins inspection of the lower wing panel riser weep holes in the C-141 fleet for cracks. The cracks can result in flight restrictions for the individual aircraft. Each C-141 has 1,500 weep holes. The inspections and repairs as necessary continue until 1995.
10 – 14 April 1994 Air Mobility Command provides airlift for the evacuation of American citizens and other foreigners fleeing Rwanda and for the deployment of Belgian forces to Kenya for possible military intervention in Rwanda. Two C-141 missions on 10 April and one each on the 11 and 12 April bring 242 US and other foreign nationals and 100 US Marines from Bujumbura, Burundi, to Nairobi, Kenya.
8 May 1994 C-141s join Operation Provide Promise and begin flying humanitarian missions from Rhein-Main AB, Germany, to Sarajevo, Bosnia. Five aircraft and 150 aircrew and support personnel from the 437th Airlift Wing and 315th Airlift Wing (Associate) at Charleston AFB, South Carolina, deployed to Germany on 2 May to begin the mission. As of 26 July when C-141 participation in Operation Provide Promise ends, more than 7,000 tons of cargo were moved on 382 sorties.
11 – 17 May 1994 Thirteen C-141 missions deliver 478,000 pounds of humanitarian relief supplies from Incirlik AB, Turkey, to Mwanza, Tanzania. The cargo, which includes 10,000 rolls of plastic sheeting and 100,000 blankets, is intended for an estimated 250,000 Rwandans who fled to Tanzania to escape the indiscriminate violence associated with the civil war in their homeland. Most of the missions were flown by four C-141s deployed to Turkey from the 438th Airlift Wing at McGuire AFB, New Jersey.
21 July 1994 Three aircraft participating in Operation Provide Promise, including a C-141, a British C-130, and a United Nations An-26 flown by Russians, are struck by small arms fire while approaching or departing Sarajevo. The C-141 takes several hits in both wings, and approximately twenty-five holes are later found in the underbelly of the fuselage. The number-two hydraulic system is also knocked out, but the crew returns to Rhein-Main AB, Germany, and lands safely. None of the crew is injured. A day earlier, another C-141 was struck by a single small arms round while on approach to Sarajevo. All flights into Sarajevo are subsequently suspended until 5 August.
30 August 1994 Nine C-141s deploy to Rhein-Main AB, Germany, to participate in the first joint United States-Russian training exercise, Peacekeeper '94. Between 30 August and 6 September, twenty-five C-141 missions are flown to deploy 320 American troops and support personnel and 610 tons of cargo to Totskoye, Russia. The US contingent is redeployed to Germany on twenty-seven C-141 missions from 8-12 September.
30 October 1994 A StarLifter crew operating from Kadena AB, Japan, delivers twenty tons of American medical supplies, blankets, and tarpaulins to Vladivostok in Russia's Far East. The cargo helps victims of a massive flood.
3 – 10 February 1995 Eight C-141 aircrews and support personnel fly to Katmandu, Nepal, to airlift 410 Nepalese troops and their equipment to Haiti. The Nepalese soldiers become part of a deployed United Nations peacekeeping force.
7 April 1995 A C-141 crew leaves McGuire AFB, New Jersey, for Donetsk, Ukraine, with six pallets of equipment and medical supplies. Among the passengers are forty men and women from US European Command who teach hospital personnel in Donetsk how to use the donated medical equipment. The flight is part of Operation Provide Hope.
11 May 1995 A C-141 crew departs Andrews AFB, Maryland, for Kinshasa, Zaire, with 2,000 pounds of emergency medical supplies furnished by the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance. The medical cargo is used in the ongoing effort to counter a potential outbreak of hemorrhagic fever caused by the Ebola virus, which pervades an area approximately 150 miles east of Kinshasa.
19 May 1995 C-141 aircrews transport 300 soldiers and 430 tons of cargo from Rhein-Main AB, Germany, to L'Vov, Ukraine, where the US Army's 3d Infantry Division participates in Peace Shield, a ten-day US European Command exercise. Approximately twenty-five C-141 missions are flown during the deployment phase (19-22 May), followed by an equal number of missions during the redeployment phase (29 May-1 June).
8 June 1995 Three C-141s land at Scott AFB, Illinois, from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, carrying 350 Haitian police cadets on their way to training classes at the Army's Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. The cadets made up the first group of approximately 5,200 Haitian police cadets who would train at Fort Leonard Wood in 1995. The Army program, in conjunction with training at the Haitian National Police Training Center in Haiti, will enable the Haitian government to have about 7,000 police in place by 1 March 1996 when United Nations forces are scheduled to withdraw from the island.
24 December 1995 The first C-141 to land at Tuzla, Bosnia-Herzegovina, touches down late on Christmas Eve. Crewmembers from the 16th Airlift Squadron, Charleston AFB, South Carolina, operate the StarLifter, which was assigned to McChord AFB, Washington. The aircraft was loaded at Ramstein AB, Germany, with two pallets, three vehicles, and twenty-nine passengers.
5 March 1996 A C-141 crew from Charleston AFB, South Carolina, flies nonstop to Tel Aviv with one air refueling to provide 2,800 pounds of highly sophisticated explosive-detection devices. The StarLifter departs Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts, after President Bill Clinton announces the US would send the equipment to Israel, the target of four terrorist suicide-bombings in two weeks. After departing Tel Aviv, the crew ends its mission by landing at Sigonella, Italy, approximately twenty-six hours after it left Charleston.
27 March 1996 A Travis AFB, California-based C-141 is used to return the remains of two Air Force officers, Maj. Andrew Ivan, Jr., and Capt. Leroy J. Cornwell III, who were shot down in Laos in 1971.
April 1996 The StarLifter fleet of 268 aircraft (with seventeen attritions) passes the 10,000,000 flight hour mark.
25 April 1996 The NC-141A Electric StarLifter (61-2776) is flown on its first test flight at the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, California. The aircraft's new control system replaces the C-141's traditional hydraulic/mechanical aileron system with one that used electrical impulses to operate localized, computerized, hydraulic packs in each wing. Advantages of the new system include reducing weight and eliminating centralized hydraulic plumbing.
15-16 May 1996 In the largest airdrop of personnel and equipment since World War II, a force of forty C-141s and 104 C-130s are flown in Big Drop III, a joint US/UK exercise at the drop zones near Pope AFB, North Carolina. During a six-hour period, 1.5 million pounds of equipment and 5,500 paratroops are airdropped.
28 May 1996 A C-141 crew from the 62d Airlift Wing, McChord AFB, Washington, lands at Mihail Kogalniceaunu Airport near Constanta, Romania, with two trucks, two trailers, and four pallets of equipment from Redstone Army Airfield, Alabama. The airlift is part of Cornerstone '96, a US European Command-sponsored exercise with Air National Guard engineers to help Romanian Defense Forces make rudimentary repairs to a hospital, an orphanage, and a day-care center.
17 August 1996 A C-141 is used to transport ninety cats and dogs belonging to Department of Defense families from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to Charleston, South Carolina, in an operation dubbed Noah's Ark. The families are evacuated on a chartered 747 the next day. The families were moved as part of Operation Desert Focus because of increased terrorist activity in the region.
20 August 1996 A C-141 from the 437th Airlift Wing, Charleston AFB, South Carolina, airlifts an Air Force medical team from Wilford Hall Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas, to Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, to help a baby boy suffering from a severe lung infection. The C-141 crew was at Kelly AFB, Texas, ready to depart for Panama when the Tanker Airlift Control Center at Scott AFB, Illinois, arranged the emergency flight. After a six-hour surgery, the infant was attached to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenator before being boarded on a waiting C-141 from McChord AFB, Washington, and was transported to Portland, Oregon, for hospitalization.
4 September 1996 A C-141 assigned to the 305th Air Mobility Wing, McGuire AFB, New Jersey, deliver a generator, medical supplies, and diplomatic papers to State Department officials in Burundi. On the outbound leg from Bujumbura, Burundi's capital, the StarLifter crew evacuates some thirty foreign nationals and a few Americans, to Nairobi, Kenya.
17-18 September 1996 A C-5 and C-141 are used to airlift an air transportable hospital and a forty-four member medical team from Yokota AB, Japan, to Andersen AFB, Guam, to provide medical care for 2,500 Kurds evacuated from northern Iraq.
16 January 1997 An Air Force Reserve C-141 aircrew from the 446th Airlift Wing, McChord AFB, Washington, departs Beijing with the remains of five Americans who died when their B-24J Liberator crashed on 13 August 1944 after bombing Japanese ships near Taiwan. The crash site, located in a remote location of China's Guangxi Province, was discovered by villagers searching the area for herbs.
2 March 1997 The 60th Air Mobility Wing's last scheduled C-141 mission in support of Operation Deep Freeze departs Travis AFB, California. For more than forty years, Travis aircrews flew Deep Freeze missions from Christchurch, New Zealand, to McMurdo Station to resupply scientists on tiny Ross Island near the southern polar ice cap of Antarctica. The 62d Airlift Wing, McChord AFB, Washington, takes over the Operation Deep Freeze missions. As C-141s are now being phased out of the Air Force inventory, McChord is programmed to operate C-141s longer than Travis.
2 April 1997 A Reserve C-141 crew assigned to the 459th Airlift Wing at Andrews AFB, Maryland, departs Scott AFB, Illinois, for Sucre, Bolivia, carrying enough donated medical equipment to set up two surgical rooms. The StarLifter crew transports the cargo, donated by the Diocese of Joliet Peace and Justice, Romeoville, Illinois, under the auspices of the Denton Amendment, which allows the Department of Defense to move privately donated humanitarian cargoes on a space available basis worldwide at no cost to the donor organization.
5 August 1997 A C-141 from the 305th Air Mobility Wing at McGuire AFB, New Jersey, takes medical equipment and seven physicians from MCAS Kaneohe, Hawaii, to Guam to help treat survivors of a Korean Air 747 crash. In addition, a C-141 from the 62d Airlift Wing, McChord AFB, Washington, airlifts representatives of the Red Cross, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Federal Aviation Administration from Hawaii to Guam on a regularly scheduled channel mission.
9 August 1997 C-141 aircrews from Air Force Reserve Command's 446th Airlift Wing, McChord AFB, Washington, arrive at Kelly AFB, Texas, with four victims from the 5 August crash of a Korean Airlines 747 in Guam. From Kelly, the victims were rushed to a specialized burn unit at nearby Brooke Army Medical Center. The aircrew was on a routine mission to the Pacific when it was diverted to Guam to airlift the crash victims to the US. A second McChord crew took over the flight at Hickam AFB, Hawaii, where the StarLifter was refueled.
October 1997 Deployment of the first C-141C, which features upgraded avionics, begins. Eventually, fifty-six C-141Bs will be brought up to C-141C standard.
20 December 1997 The first flight of Project Eclipse takes place at the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards AFB, California. Under this program, which is designed to test a low cost method of putting payloads into orbit, the first C-141 (61-2775, now designated NC-141A), acts as the world's largest glider tug, towing an unpowered F-106 behind it. Once airborne, the F-106 pilot releases the rope, powers up, and lands. Six test flights are made from heights varying from 10,000 feet to 25,000 feet. The last comes on 6 February 1998.
January 1998 A McGuire-based C-141 is used to transport a damaged U-2S from Osan AB, South Korea, back to the Lockheed Martin facility in Palmdale, California, for repair. The C-141 required two-inch-thick plywood for extra floor support to carry the 40,000 pound weight of the U-2.
2 March 1998 A C-141 crew assigned to the 62d Airlift Wing, McChord Air Force Base, Washington, air evacuates six victims of an oil pipeline explosion in Esmeraldas, Ecuador, to a burn treatment facility in Galveston, Texas. The government of Ecuador requested US assistance after an explosion. The StarLifter crew carried an eight-member critical care transport team from Wilford Hall Medical Center, Texas, to Ecuador to help transport the injured.
12 March 1998 A C-141 assigned to the 445th Airlift Wing, the Air Force Reserve unit at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, lands at Randolph Air Force Base, Texas, with more than fifty former Vietnam-era prisoners of war on board. The StarLifter crew took the men to Randolph AFB to participate in the Freedom Flyers reunion and to commemorate the silver anniversary of Operation Homecoming.
8-9 July 1998 An Air Force Reserve C-141 aircrew from the 445th Airlift Wing, Wright-Patterson, Ohio, airlifts five dolphins, their handlers, and veterinarians from NAS North Island, California, to Palanga International Airport, Lithuania. In Lithuania, the mammals participated in Baltic Challenge 1998, a joint military land and sea exercise involving the US and eleven European nations. The dolphins located and marked mines on the floor of the Baltic Sea and searched for live ordnance that might have remained from World War II. Another aircrew from the 445th Airlift Wing returned the dolphins to California on 20 July.
9 August 1998 A C-141 crew from the 305th Air Mobility Wing, McGuire AFB, New Jersey, evacuates fifteen seriously injured State Department employees from Nairobi, Kenya, to Ramstein AB, Germany. The eleven Americans and four Kenyan patients were injured in the 7 August bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi that claimed at least 200 lives and wounded more than 1,000.
9 July 1999 Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael E. Ryan presents the Kolligan Trophy for outstanding airmanship to Capt. Mark Barker, who is assigned to the 459th Airlift Wing, the Air Force Reserve unit at Travis AFB, California. Barker received the prestigious trophy for his leadership in orchestrating a safe landing of a C-141B after an inflight emergency on 6 February 1998. Soon after the StarLifter departed Travis, hydraulic fluid began misting from the plane's cargo section to create conditions in which static electricity or an errant spark could trigger an explosion. Barker landed the StarLifter safely in spite of the potential danger. The entire crew received the 1998 Air Mobility Command Excellence in Airmanship Award.
11 July 1999 In a daring 14.7 hour mission from Christchurch, New Zealand, in the middle of the austral winter, an 8th Airlift Squadron crew from McChord AFB, Washington, flying 63-8076 spends twenty minutes over the South Pole to airdrop emergency medical equipment to the National Science Foundation station there. The six pallets of diagnostic equipment, medicines, and other supplies are for Dr. Jerri Nielson, the station's doctor, who self-diagnosed her breast cancer. Each of the sixteen crewmembers on the flight are later awarded the Air Medal.
15 July 2000 The 437th Airlift Wing deactivates the 16th Airlift Squadron, ending thirty-five years of C-141 operations at Charleston AFB, South Carolina. One remaining aircraft at the base (65-0217) is reassigned to Altus AFB, Oklahoma. The last of fifty-eight C-141s once assigned to the base is flown to the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, on 17 July. That C-141B (67-0020) was assigned to the 437th Airlift Wing's 16th Airlift Squadron, which in mid-July 2000 boasted more than 919,000 accident-free flying hours.
15 October 2000 A C-141 crew from the 452d Air Mobility Wing, March AFB, California, flies thirty-three survivors of the destroyer USS Cole (DDG-67), injured in a terrorist bombing on 12 October from Aden, Yemen, to Norfolk, Virginia. Another six injured sailors more seriously wounded in the attack remained at the US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany.
20 December 2000 An Air Force Reserve C-141 crew from the 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, picks up pieces of the Berlin Wall and an East German-made vehicle from Rhein-Main AB, Germany, for later display at the US Air Force Museum.
28 July 2001 The 57th Airlift Squadron, which for the past thirty-five years has served as the C-141 schoolhouse, is deactivated in ceremonies at Altus AFB, Oklahoma. The last assigned aircraft (66-0206) is flown to the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center at Davis-Monthan AFB, Arizona, two days later by Brig. Gen. Pete Peterson, the 97th Air Mobility Wing commander. At this point a total of 154 C-141s have been retired to the Arizona boneyard.
17 September 2001 C-141 crews fly members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency staff from California to New York in the aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks on the United States.
21 December 2001 The C-141 fleet suffers its twentieth and final hull loss, as 61-2778, which had been brought up to C-141C model standard, is destroyed in a ground accident at Memphis International Airport, Tennessee. The aircraft had 39,412 hours of flight time at the time of the accident.
7 January 2002 Air Force Reserve Command's new C-141C Formal Training Unit officially opens at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, to train aircrews for Air Force Reserve Command and Air National Guard units.
28 October 2002 A C-141 crew arrives at the US Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with the year's last group of Taliban and Al Qaeda detainees captured by American forces in Afghanistan. From 10 January through 28 October 2002, C-141s and C-17s are used to transport 620 detainees from Kandahar, Afghanistan, to Guantanamo Bay on twenty-three missions.
14 May 2003 Air Mobility Command begins the Baghdad Express, a daily C-141 resupply mission from Ramstein AB, Germany, to Baghdad International Airport, Iraq. Two C-141s and two active-duty aircrews assigned to the 305th Air Mobility Wing at McGuire AFB, New Jersey, and one aircrew from McGuire's Reserve Associate 514th Air Mobility Wing are staged at Ramstein to fly the missions.
13 May 2004 Army Pvt. Jason Stewart becomes the last paratrooper to ever jump out of a StarLifter during training at Fort Benning, Georgia, as he is the last of his stick to jump. The jump platform is a C-141C (65-0229) from March ARB, California.
18 – 19 May 2004 A C-141 aircrew assigned to the 89th Airlift Squadron at Andrews AFB, Maryland, and a medical team from the 791st Expeditionary Aeromedical Evacuation Squadron at Ramstein AB, Germany, airlift a critically ill eight-month-old Iraqi girl, Fatemah Kalil Hassan, from Balad Air Base, Iraq, to Rickenbacker ANGB near Columbus, Ohio. The aircraft is assigned to the 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. Passengers included Fatemah, her mother, an Arabic translator, and a physician's assistant assigned to the Army National Guard's 230th Support Battalion in Iraq. After the plane landed at Rickenbacker, the girl was taken to Children's Hospital in Columbus where she received pro bono treatment for an obstruction of her airway that was caused by an abnormal growth of a blood vessel on the right side of her face and neck. A squadron of C-141s was assigned briefly in the 1970s to the then-Rickenbacker AFB.
29 May 2004 Reserve Maj. Gen. Ed Mechenbier, the Air Force's last Vietnam-era former Prisoner of War still serving, flies Hanoi Taxi (66-0177) to Hanoi and back to the US to retrieve the remains of two US service members listed as missing in action. This mission was Mechenbier's last before retiring on 30 June.
19-28 August 2004 The 6th Airlift Squadron at McGuire AFB, New Jersey, makes its last overseas flight by flying around the world in 67-0012. The crew of twelve has more than 59,000 C-141 flight hours between them.
16 September 2004 The last two C-141s (67-0012 and 64-0633) assigned to the 305th Air Mobility Wing at McGuire AFB, New Jersey, are retired, closing out the airlifter's thirty-nine year with the active duty Air Force.
16 October 2004 Thirty-five years of C-141 programmed depot maintenance comes to an end at the Warner Robins Air Logistics Center at Robins AFB, Georgia, as the 1,800th aircraft to go through PDM (65-0248) is flown back to March ARB, California.
4 February 2005 An Air Force Reserve Command C-141 crew from the 452nd Airlift Wing at March ARB, California, makes the last StarLifter flight from the South Pole flying in 66-0152, now a C-141C. Since 1966, C-141 crews have flown personnel and equipment to Antarctica to support National Science Foundation research efforts. Despite often flying more than 200 sorties a year to Antarctica, there were no C-141 accidents and no aircraft or crews were ever left on the ice.
19 March 2005 The 730th Airlift Squadron at March ARB, California, is retired. The 730th AS, which first stood up as a B-17 unit in World War II and went through several name changes, was the first associate unit in the Air Force Reserve, a system in which Reservists fly active duty aircraft and augment the active duty crews.
25 July 2005 The last three C-141 StarLifter crew chiefs complete training at Sheppard AFB, Texas. SSgt. Lauro Valles, Jr., SrA Michael Engle, and A1C Adam Winebrenner will return to Air Force Command's 445th Airlift Wing at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, to work on the ten C-141s remaining in service.
1 October 2005 A crew from Air Force Reserve Command's 445th Airlift Wing completes the last StarLifter combat mission when they return to base at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, shortly after midnight. The crew returned after a five-day mission to Germany and Iraq, flying cargo in and injured personnel out and then back to the US. The C-141 was used to transport more than seventy percent of the injured or wounded out of Iraq since Operation Iraqi Freedom began in 2003.
7 April 2006 The 285th and last C-141 to come off the assembly line becomes the second-to-last StarLifter to be retired. A crew from the 445th Airlift Wing, the last unit to operate the aircraft, flew 67-0166 from Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, to Scott AFB, Illinois, where it will go on display. For several years, this aircraft served as the Military Airlift Command/Air Mobility Command commander's aircraft.
5 May 2006 The final two missions in C-141 StarLifter history were conducted in conjunction with the biennial Vietnam Prisoners of War reunion in Dayton, Ohio. More than sixty former POWs are flown on the two sorties that recreate the POWs' release from captivity in North Vietnam on 12 February1973 on the same aircraft, 66-0177, that was the first to land in Hanoi. There were forty former POWs on that first flight out, and a number of them were in attendance at the reunion. In late 2002, this aircraft, now a C-141C and known as Hanoi Taxi, was repainted in the same high gloss gray-and-white paint scheme it wore in 1973.
6 May 2006 The last C-141 StarLifter is retired to the National Museum of the US Air Force in ceremonies at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio. The final aircraft, 66-0177, was the 203rd aircraft to come off the then-Lockheed-Georgia Company assembly line and the first aircraft delivered to the 63rd Military Airlift Wing at Norton AFB, California, in August 1967. In September 2005, Hanoi Taxi was flown by the 445th Airlift Wing in the evacuation of New Orleans and Gulf Coast residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina. With Maj. Stephen Schnell at the controls, the aircraft touches down at 9:28 AM after a forty-five minute flight to close the forty-three year, 10,640,908 flight hour career of the StarLifter. The aircraft goes on public display in August 2006.
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