Lt. Col. William A. Jones III leads a rescue mission for a downed pilot near Dong Hoi, North Vietnam. After several low passes, he finds the pilot and realizes he must destroy a nearby gun emplacement. On his second pass, Jones’s aircraft is hit, and the cockpit of his Douglas A-1H is set ablaze. He tries to eject, but the extraction system fails. He then returns to base and, before receiving medical treatment for his burns, reports the exact position of the downed pilot, who is rescued the next day. Jones dies in an aircraft accident in the US before he can be presented the Medal of Honor for his actions the day of the rescue.
Bell Textron has won DARPA's contest for a no-runway, high-speed drone that will prove out technologies useful for special operations forces and possibly the Air Force's Agile Combat Employment concept. Bell's design converts a tiltrotor to a jet-powered aircraft able to fly at up to 450 knots.