At New Orleans, the USAF Thunderbirds fly their 518th and last show in the McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom II. The team would convert to the Northrop T-38A Talon for the 1974 show season.
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.
