A January 28th “Three-fer”

I might be accused, yesterday, of “being asleep at the switch”.  Guilty as charged.  Three aviation history events happened yesterday in 1964, 1986, and in 2025.  Instead of publishing a “three-fer” aviation history vignette yesterday, I flapped my trap and published a piece about dreams of flapping my arms and flying, a piece that could have been published anytime.  Oh well.  As my dad used to say, “You can’t win em’ all.”

So, let’s go back a day and review three of yesterday’s biggest aviation history events.

Number one

Photo Credit: Bruce Weaver/AP Photo

According to History.com, “Yesterday in 1986 At 11:38 a.m. EST, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Christa McAuliffe was on her way to becoming the first ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space. McAuliffe, a 37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New Hampshire, won a competition that earned her a place among the seven-member crew of the Challenger. She underwent months of shuttle training but then, beginning January 23, was forced to wait six long days as the Challenger‘s launch countdown was repeatedly delayed because of weather and technical problems. Finally, on January 28, the shuttle lifted off.

“Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground, including Christa’s family, stared in disbelief as the shuttle broke up in a forking plume of smoke and fire. Millions more watched the wrenching tragedy unfold on live television. There were no survivors.

“In 1976, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) unveiled the world’s first reusable manned spacecraft, the Enterprise. Five years later, space flights of the shuttle began when Columbia traveled into space on a 54-hour mission. Launched by two solid-rocket boosters and an external tank, only the aircraft-like shuttle entered into orbit around Earth. When the mission was completed, the shuttle fired engines to reduce speed and, after descending through the atmosphere, landed like a glider. Early shuttles took satellite equipment into space and carried out various scientific experiments. The Challenger disaster was the first major shuttle accident.

“In the aftermath of the disaster, President Ronald Reagan appointed a special commission to determine what went wrong with Challenger and to develop future corrective measures. The presidential commission was headed by former secretary of state William Rogers, and included former astronaut Neil Armstrong and former test pilot Chuck Yeager. The investigation determined that the disaster was caused by the failure of an ‘O-ring’ seal in one of the two solid-fuel rockets. The elastic O-ring did not respond as expected because of the cold temperature at launch time, which began a chain of events that resulted in the massive loss. As a result, NASA did not send astronauts into space for more than two years as it redesigned a number of features of the space shuttle.

“In September 1988, space shuttle flights resumed with the successful launching of the Discovery. Since then, the space shuttle has carried out numerous important missions, such as the repair and maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope and the construction of the International Space Station.

“On February 1, 2003, a second space-shuttle disaster rocked the United States when Columbia disintegrated upon reentry of the Earth’s atmosphere. All aboard were killed. Despite fears that the problems that downed Columbia had not been satisfactorily addressed, space-shuttle flights resumed on July 26, 2005, when Discovery was again put into orbit.

“The Space Shuttle program formally ended on August 31, 2011 after its final mission, STS-135 flown in Atlantis, in July 2011.”

Number Two

According to History.com. “Yesterday in 1964 the U.S. State Department angrily accused the Soviet Union of shooting down an American jet that strayed into East German airspace. Three U.S. officers aboard the plane were killed in the incident. The Soviets responded with charges that the flight was a ‘gross provocation,’ and the incident was an ugly reminder of the heightened East-West tensions of the Cold War-era.

“According to the U.S. military, the jet was on a training flight over West Germany and pilots became disoriented by a violent storm that led the plane to veer nearly 100 miles off course. The Soviet attack on the plane provoked angry protests from the Department of State and various congressional leaders, including Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, who charged that the Soviets had intentionally downed the plane ‘to gain the offensive’ in the aggressive Cold War maneuvering.

An unarmed T-39 Sabreliner aircraft of the United States Air Force (USAF) was shot down while on a training mission over Erfurt, East Germany, by a MiG-19 jet fighter of the Soviet Air Force.  Courtesy Wikipedia.

“For their part, the Soviets refused to accept U.S. protests and responded that they had ‘all grounds to believe that this was not an error or mistake…It was a clear intrusion.’ Soviet officials also claimed that the plane was ordered to land but refused the instructions. Shortly after the incident, U.S. officials were allowed to travel to East Germany to recover the bodies and the wreckage.

“Like numerous other similar Cold War incidents–including the arrest of suspected ‘spies’ and the seizure of ships–this event resulted in heated verbal exchanges between the United States and the Soviet Union, but little else. Both nations had bigger issues to contend with: the United States was engaged in the Vietnam War, and the Soviet Union was dealing with a widening split with communist China. The deaths were, however, another reminder that the heated suspicion, heightened tension, and loaded rhetoric of the Cold War did have the potential to erupt into meaningless death and destruction.”

Number Three

Yesterday, and according to Space.com retrieved today from: https://www.space.com/space-exploration/tech/boom-supersonic-xb-1-jet-breaks-sound-barrier-on-historic-test-flight?utm_term=80CFE072-3D22-4ED3-B366-38D5778C5AB2&lrh=979456b06da101021af8477d820fe42a8b8fac61060c8f48a99307e6facca454&utm_campaign=58E4DE65-C57F-4CD3-9A5A-609994E2C5A9&utm_medium=email&utm_content=4FEC4D8F-2662-425F-9975-9B93D9518F97&utm_source=SmartBrief,

“Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 became on January 28, 2025 the first civil aircraft to go supersonic over the continental United States.

“Boom Supersonic made history yesterday (Jan. 28) when its XB-1 jet broke the sound barrier for the first time. The XB-1 is a subscale pathfinder vehicle, designed to demonstrate technologies and capabilities that Boom plans to employ a few years from now on a commercial jet called Overture.    If all goes according to plan, the 64-seat Overture will become the first supersonic passenger jet since the British-French Concorde, which was retired in 2003.

“Boom Supersonic’s chief test pilot Tristan ‘Geppetto’ Brandenburg took off in the company’s XB-1 jet from the storied Mojave Air & Space Port in California this morning under mostly clear skies. Some 11.5 minutes into the flight — the 12th overall for the XB-1 — at an altitude of around 35,000 feet, the test plane exceeded Mach 1, the speed of sound, marking the first time a civil aircraft has gone supersonic over the continental United States.

“‘This is such a huge step, building the first civil supersonic jet, you know, right here in America,’ said Boom advisor and former Chief Engineer Greg Krauland during the company’s livestream on X. ‘This jet really does have much of the enabling technologies that are going to enable us to go ahead and to build a commercial supersonic airliner that is available to the masses.’”

Onward and upward!

Sources: History.com, Boom Supersonic, Wikipedia, Associated Press