NAVY PILOT KILLED IN CRASH DURING TRAINING MISSION
 An FA-18 naval fighter jet on a training mission crashed in northern
 Nevada, killing the pilot. The jet was practicing a bombing drop with
 at least one other jet and two helicopters when it went down about 9
 p.m. local time Wednesday, said Anne McMillin, a spokeswoman for the
 Naval Air Station in Fallon, Nevada. Authorities did not know the
 cause of the crash. No information is being released about the pilot
 until authorities notify the next of kin. McMillin did indicate that
 the pilot was experienced.
 ------------------------------
                 NORTHWEST PILOTS MAY WALK
 Pilots have authorized a strike against Northwest Airlines Corp.
 after 20 months of negotiations, the Air Line Pilots Association said
 Wednesday. The authorization sets the stage for a strike by North-
 west's roughly 6,120 pilots after a 30-day cooling-off period. North-
 west and its pilots have been in contract negotiations since August
 1996 and in federal mediation since July 1997.
 -->Northwest says move isn't surprising
 --------------------------------------------------------------------
       Nominee is cleared of wrongdoing - By William Matthews
     An investigation exonerated the nominee for Air Force secretary
 of financial wrongdoing, but the Senate Armed Services Committee has
 not yet rescheduled his confirmation hearing.
     Daryl Jones was nominated by President Clinton in October, but
 confirmation has been delayed for seven months. Jones is a former
 fighter pilot and lieutenant colonel in the Reserve, and served as a
 Florida state senator.
    After his nomination, fellow pilots questioned his flying ability,
 claimed he sold Amway products to subordinates and campaigned for
 office in his flight suit. The Securities and Exchange Commission
 probed allegations that he failed to register as a lobbyist for a
 Florida securities company.
 -------------------------------------------------------------------
 Berlin Airlift delivered hope -  Released: May 27, 1998
 by Tech. Sgt. Ray Johnson - Air Force News Service
     RHEIN-MAIN AIR BASE, Germany -- During the Berlin Airlift, U.S.,
 British and French aircrews hauled 2.3 million tons of supplies,
 primarily coal and food, to 2 million desperate people trapped by a
 Soviet blockade. And according to those who made the 15-month long
 operation successful, they brought another vital substance: hope.
     Retired Col. Gail Halvorsen, who flew 126 missions during what
 Americans called Operation Vittles, said supplies brought into Ber-
 lin's Tempelhof Air Base kept stranded Germans sustained, but it was
 faith that kept them alive.
     "Throughout the years, countless number of middle-aged Germans
 told me that just knowing that we cared and that we wouldn't abandon
 them was just as important as crates of milk and flour," Halvorsen
 said during a question-and-answer session at the base theater here.
 "You can survive with limited amounts of food, but when you lose
 faith and hope you die. What we delivered was a reason to keep
 going."
   Gerald Munn, a veteran of 121 airlift flights, also took questions
 and spoke of nearing Berlin in June 1948 and seeing immense damage
 still remaining three years after World War II had ended.
     "There was nothing there," said Munn, who also made 50 B-24
 bombing runs during the war. "Everything was flattened and the
 buildings were demolished. I thought to myself, 'How can anyone be
 living in such terrible surroundings.' That's when I knew what we
 were doing was literally keeping a city and its entire population
 alive."
     Added Fred Hall, an aircraft mechanic and flight engineer: "Just
 looking into those people's eyes made me forget that they once fought
 us. There was no doubt in anyone's mind that we were doing the right
 thing. We couldn't fail to save those people."
     The airlift came about from France, England and the United States
 clashing with the Soviet Union over who would feed Germany's popula-
 tion, how to dismantle part of the country's industrial capacity, and
 movement of people and goods in different sections of Berlin ruled by
 Western and communist powers. At stake: whose model of government,
 economy and society would prevail.
     By early 1948, the Soviets exploited the vulnerability of a
 divided city by stopping coal deliveries to western-controlled Ber-
 lin. In March, they tried canceling air rights over the area, but
 backed down as the Allies invoked a 1945 agreement which permitted
 the other three countries to cross Soviet-owned airspace in Germany.
 Further dissatisfied with plans of an independent German state, they
 restricted rail traffic in April with a miniblockade that lasted for
 11 days, showing who controlled all supply lines.
     On June 18, 1948, the Soviets, upset over Allied plans to intro-
 duce new German currency, claimed "technical difficulties" and closed
 surface traffic into Berlin, virtually sealing it off from the rest
 of the world. Six days later electricity was cut. The Soviets clearly
 meant to wrestle complete control of eastern Germany by strangling
 Berlin's lifeline and forcing the Allies into leaving the beleaguered
 city.
    Faced with the choice of abandoning Berlin or attempting to supply
 its 2 million people using the last transportation routes left ---
 three 20-mile-wide air corridors --- the United States, along with
 England, chose the latter. And for 11 months, Air Force units flying
 C-47 Gooney Birds and C-54 Skymasters, augmented by Navy and Royal
 Air Force aircraft, kept the city alive during an unprecedented and
 hectic mission.
     Halvorsen compared Operation Vittles to the Air Force's current
 philosophy of global engagement.
     "What we were doing is what now is called rapid global mobility,"
 said the colonel, wearing the same flightsuit he wore when piloting
 C-54s in and out of Rhein-Main five decades ago.. "We displayed for
 a watching world the might of U.S. air power. Today, you carry on
 that tradition."
 ===
--- DB 1.39/004487
---------------