October 1, 1956. NASA awards its Distinguished Service Medal to
 Dr. Richard T. Whitcomb, inventor of the "area rule" concept, which
 results in aircraft (such as the Convair F-102) having Coke bottle-
 shaped fuselages in order to reduce supersonic drag.
     October 26, 1956. Less than sixteen months after design work be-
 gan, and ironically, the same day that legendary designer Larry Bell
 dies, company pilot Floyd Carlson makes the first flight of the Bell
 XH-40 at Fort Worth, Tex. Later redesignated UH-1, the Iroquois, or
 "Huey" as it is more popularly known, will go on to be one of the
 significant helicopters of all time.
     November 11, 1956. With company pilot Beryl A. Erickson at the
 controls, USAF's first supersonic bomber, the delta-winged Convair
 B-58 Hustler, capable of flying at speeds of more than 1,000 mph,
 makes its first flight at Fort Worth, Tex.
     December 26, 1956. Company pilot Richard L. Johnson makes the
 first flight of the first Convair F-106 Delta Dart at Edwards AFB,
 Calif. The F-106, a substantially redesigned and much improved ver-
 sion of the F-102 interceptor, would remain in service until 1988
 and would later be modified into target drones.
     January 18, 1957. Commanded by Maj. Gen. Archie J. Old, Jr.,
 USAF, three B-52 Stratofortresses complete a 24,325-mile round-the-
 world nonstop flight in forty-five hours, nineteen minutes, with an
 average speed of 534 mph. It is the first globe-circling nonstop
 flight by a jet aircraft.
     April 11, 1957. With company pilot "Pete" Girard at the controls,
 the Ryan X-13 Vertijet makes its first full-cycle flight. He takes
 off vertically from the aircraft's mobile trailer, transitions to
 horizontal flight, performs several maneuvers, and then lands
 vertically.
     May 1, 1957. James H. Douglas, Jr., becomes Secretary of the Air
 Force.
     July 1, 1957. Gen. Thomas D. White becomes Air Force Chief of
 Staff.
     July 1, 1957. Pacific Air Forces is established.
     July 13, 1957. President Dwight D. Eisenhower becomes the first
 chief executive to fly in a helicopter as he takes off from the
 White House lawn in a Bell UH-13J Sioux. Maj. Joseph E. Barrett
 flies the President a short distance to a military command post at
 a remote location as part of a military exercise.
     July 19, 1957. A Douglas MB-1 Genie aerial rocket is fired from
 a Northrop F-89J Scorpion, marking the first time in history that
 an air-to-air rocket with a nuclear warhead is launched and deton-
 ated. The test took place at 20,000 feet over the Nevada Test Site.
     July 31, 1957. The DEW Line, a distant early warning radar de-
 fense installation extending across the Canadian Arctic, is
 reported to be fully operational.
     August 1, 1957. NORAD, the joint US-Canadian North American Air
 Defense Command, is informally established.
     August 15, 1957. Gen. Nathan F. Twining becomes Chairman of the
 Joint Chiefs of Staff, the first USAF officer to serve in this
 position.
     October 4, 1957. The space age begins when the Soviet Union
 launches Sputnik 1, the world's first artificial satellite, into
 Earth orbit.
     November 3, 1957. The first animal in space, a dog named Laika,
 is carried aboard Sputnik 2. The satellite is carried aloft by a
 modified intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
     November 11-13, 1957. Gen. Curtis E. LeMay and crew fly a Boeing
 KC-135 from Westover AFB, Mass., to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to set
 a world jet-class record distance in a straight line of 6,322 miles.
 The crew will set a class speed record on the trip back.
     December 6, 1957. The first US attempt to orbit a satellite fails
 when a Vanguard rocket loses thrust and explodes.
     December 12, 1957. Flying a McDonnell F-101A Voodoo, USAF Maj.
 Adrian Drew sets a world record of 1,207.34 mph at Edwards AFB,
 Calif.
     December 17, 1957. The Convair HGM-16 Atlas ICBM makes its first
 successful launch and flight.
     January 31, 1958. Explorer I, the first US satellite, is launched
 by the Army at Cape Canaveral. The satellite, launched on a Jupiter-
 C rocket, will later play a key role in the discovery of the Van
 Allen radiation belt.
     February 4, 1958. The keel of the world's first nuclear-powered
 aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise (CVN-65), is laid at the Newport
 News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co. yards in Virginia.
     February 27, 1958. Approval is given to USAF to start research
 and development on an ICBM program that will later be called
 "Minuteman."
     March 6, 1958. The first production Northrop SM-62 Snark inter-
 continental missile is accepted by the Air Force after four
 previous successful launchings.
     April 8, 1958. An Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker crew flies
 10,229.3 miles nonstop and unrefueled from Tokyo to Lajes Field,
 Azores, in eighteen hours, fifty minutes.
     May 7, 1958. USAF Maj. Howard C. Johnson sets a world altitude
 record of 91,243 feet in a Lockheed F-104A Starfighter. Nine days
 later, USAF Capt. Walter W. Irwin sets a world speed record of
 1,404.09 mph, also in an F-104.
     May 27, 1958. The first flight of the McDonnell F4H-1 (F-4)
 Phantom II is made by company pilot Robert Little (who was wearing
 street shoes at the time) at the company's facility in Saint Louis,
 Mo.  On May 20, 1978, McDonnell Douglas will deliver the 5,000th
 F-4.
     June 17, 1958. Boeing and Martin are named prime contractors to
 develop competitive designs for the Air Force's X-20 Dyna-Soar
 boost-glide space vehicle. This project, although later canceled,
 is the first step toward the space shuttle.
 End of Part 20
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