Company pilot Bill Wheatley, with chief engineer I.M. “Mac” Laddon as a passenger, makes the first flight of the Consolidated XP3Y-1, the forerunner to the Catalina patrol bomber/rescue aircraft, at NAS Anacostia, D.C. The “P-Boat” would be produced for more than 10 years and would become the most numerous, (3,200+ including more than 300 for the Army Air Forces) and quite possibly, the most famous flying boat ever.
The Pentagon’s new counter-drone task force will play a direct role in arming Airmen with new weapons to defend Air Force agile combat employment, or ACE, air bases in austere locations against enemy drone attacks, the director of Joint Interagency Task Force 401 said Oct. 14.
