The Bell XP-59A lifts off from Rogers Dry Lake, Calif., with Bell test pilot Robert Stanley at the controls. It is the first flight of a jet airplane in the United States. The next day, Col. Lawrence C. “Bill” Cragie becomes the first AAF pilot to fly a jet when he makes the type’s “official” first flight.
In the final few hours before the Senate adjourned for its Memorial Day recess on May 26, lawmakers approved a raft of some 3,400 pending military nominations, including a number of high-profile Air Force and Space Force generals to assignments that will significantly reshape some of the upper echelons of…