Company test pilot George S. “Wheaties” Welch, who was one of the few AAF fighter pilots who was able to get airborne during the Pearl Harbor attack, makes the first flight of the North American XP-86 Sabre at Muroc Dry Lake, Calif. The Sabre is the Air Force’s first swept-wing fighter.
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…