The Soviet Union began a military air bridge into Vientiane in early December; it was characterized as the largest Soviet airlift since World War II.
The RAF later acquired six C-17 Globemasters for large airlifts.
The Callaghan government replied with the largest airlift and sea movement of troops since the Suez operation twenty-one years earlier.
Lajes supported the large airlift during the Gulf War.
Should that happen, he said, Israel is ready to begin a large airlift from the former Soviet republics.
Operation Blue Light was the largest and longest airlift of personnel and cargo into a combat zone in military history before Operation Desert Shield.
January 22 - The U.S. Air Force completes Operation Blue Light, the largest airlift of troops and equipment into a combat zone in history.
It was the largest civilian airlift, and after the Berlin airlift of 1948-49 the largest non-combatant airlift of any kind, ever carried out.
It also proposed a large airlift using 14 heavy aircraft to ferry food three times a day from Assab to Asmara at a cost of $10 million a month.
One week later, under Nixon's direction, and against Kissinger's initial opposition, the US military conducted the largest military airlift in history to aid Israel on October 12, 1973.