The USAF Thunderbirds fly their first show in the McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom II for the graduating seniors at the Air Force Academy. The F-4 is the team’s sixth show aircraft.
The Air Force is on track to reach its annual goal of graduating 1,500 new pilots that had proved elusive to this point, one year after the service launched a sweeping overhaul of its undergraduate pilot training program, Air Education and Training Command said Sept. 14.
