A Boeing B-47 Stratojet is flown from Limestone (later Loring) AFB, Maine, to RAF Brize Norton, UK, in four hours, 53 minutes to establish a new trans-Atlantic speed record from the continental US.
Happy Birthday US Air Force: 78 Today
Sept. 18, 2025
Seventy-eight years ago today, on Sept. 18, 1947, Supreme Court Chief Justice Fred Vinson swore in Stuart Symington as the first ever Secretary of the Air Force, and the Air Force officially became the first new military service since the Revolutionary War.