Operations
Under supervision of the 2242nd Air Force Reserve Training Center, the newly established wing trained as a troop carrier organization from 1949 until 1951 and for fighter-bomber missions from 1952 to 1957.
It replaced the 901st and 905th Tactical Airlift Groups at Westover Air Reserve Base in April 1974 and assumed tactical airlift, special operations, satellite support, and aeromedical evacuation missions. It has since taken part in tactical exercises, global airlift, and humanitarian missions. It gained two tactical groups and the responsibility for operating the military portion of Niagara Falls International Airport on 25 January 1976 and Pittsburgh International Airport on 1 October 1980, but relinquished control of those groups in 1992. During the 1980s, the wing took part in various training exercises involving tactical airlift and rotated personnel and aircraft to Panama. It also provided airlift support for the movement and training of other units and conducted local proficiency flying training missions. At the conclusion of the Iran–Iraq War in 1989, the wing transported United Nations ceasefire observers to the Persian Gulf area. It airlifted troops and equipment to Panama during the incursion into Panama at the end of the year. The 439th airlifted troops, equipment, and supplies to support global contingency, humanitarian, and anti-drug operations during the 1990s. Additionally, its airlifts included troops and cargo to Europe and the Persian Gulf area before and during the Gulf War, and Patriot missiles to Israel in 1991.
Read more about this topic: 439th Airlift Wing, History
Famous quotes containing the word operations:
“It may seem strange that any road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a railway.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“You can’t have operations without screams. Pain and the knife—they’re inseparable.”
—Jean Scott Rogers. Robert Day. Mr. Blount (Frank Pettingell)
“A sociosphere of contact, control, persuasion and dissuasion, of exhibitions of inhibitions in massive or homeopathic doses...: this is obscenity. All structures turned inside out and exhibited, all operations rendered visible. In America this goes all the way from the bewildering network of aerial telephone and electric wires ... to the concrete multiplication of all the bodily functions in the home, the litany of ingredients on the tiniest can of food, the exhibition of income or IQ.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)