Company pilot Pete Girard makes the first flight of the Ryan X-13 Vertijet Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) research aircraft in hover mode at Edwards AFB, Calif. He had also made the type’s first conventional flight on Dec. 10, 1955.
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…