The KC-135 tanker is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, but so is a retired chief master sergeant, who spent his entire Air Force career working on the KC-135 and continued right on in civilian life. Retired CMSgt. Bobby McCasland was with the crew that picked up USAF’s first KC-135 in 1957 and spent the next 23 years in and around the tanker. After retiring, he worked with the Air Force as a civilian—on KC-135 quality assurance—retiring in 1987. He is now helping convert a KC-135R into a communication test aircraft at the Oklahoma City Air Logistics Center at Tinker AFB, Okla. (Read more here.)
The National Garden of American Heroes, a statuary park being planned at President Donald J. Trump’s behest, will tentatively include the likenesses of U.S. aviation and aerospace pioneers including Benjamin O. Davis Jr., James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, and William “Billy” Mitchell—just to name a few.