The Air Force has reconsidered dropping the designation Distinguished Graduate from its Squadron Officer School program and plans to reinstitute DG status with the class that starts April 16. According to an Air Education and Training Command release, the service took 38 months to re-evaluate the issue. Air University dropped DG in 2004 when it implemented the Top Third Graduate Award instead. Now, SOS will convey both awards.
In 1941, Gen. Henry H. “Hap” Arnold of the then-U.S. Army Air Corps, personally reviewed a jet engine patented by Sir Frank Whittle flying on a Gloster E.28/39 aircraft. Impressed by its design, Arnold arranged for a Whittle engine to be brought back to the U.S. and tasked General Electric…