AAS Lt. James H. “Jimmy” Doolittle, flying a deHavilland DH-4B, takes off from Pablo Beach, Fla., and lands at Rockwell Field, San Diego, 21 hours and 20 minutes later, marking the first flight across the US in a single day. Doolittle only makes one refueling stop (at Kelly Field, Tex.) during the 2,163-mile trip.
The Air Force awarded a $13.08 billion contract to the Sierra Nevada Corporation on April 26 for its Survivable Airborne Operations Center aircraft, the successor to the service’s E-4B “Doomsday” plane. Like the E-4B, officially called the National Airborne Operations Center, the SAOC will be meant to withstand a nuclear attack and keep…