Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: When was the U.S. Air Force Academy established?
Following the recommendation of the Board, Congress passed legislation in 1954 to begin the construction of the Air Force Academy, and President Eisenhower signed it into law on 1 April of that year.[14] The legislation established an advisory commission to determine the site of the new school. Among the panel members were Charles Lindbergh, General Carl Spaatz, and Lieutenant General Hubert R. Harmon, who later became the Academy's first superintendent. The original 582 sites considered were winnowed to three: Alton, Illinois; Lake Geneva, Wisconsin; and the ultimate site at Colorado Springs, Colorado. The Secretary of the Air Force, Harold E. Talbott, announced the winning site on 24 June 1954.[15][16] Meanwhile, Air Training Command (ATC) began developing a detailed curriculum for the Academy program.[12]
The Victorville Army Airfield was constructed beginning in 1941. It was renamed as the George Air Force Base when the U.S. Air Force was established in October 1947. After decades of service to the Air Force, in 1992 George Air Force Base was closed.
The Missouri Military Academy (MMA) is a private preparatory school established on November 22, 1889, in Mexico, Missouri, U.S. It is a selective, all male, boarding school, grades 7 to 12. As a U.S. Army Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps Honor Unit With Distinction (as designated by the Department of the Army), it has the privilege of nominating cadets to the U.S. Military Academy, U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Air Force Academy, and U.S. Coast Guard Academy.
In 2017, the Foundation for Moral Law publicly opposed the U.S. Air Force's nomination of then-Colonel Kristin Goodwin to serve as commandant of cadets of the U.S. Air Force Academy because Goodwin is a married lesbian; in a letter, the Foundation's president, Kayla Moore, accused the United States Department of Defense of having a "disregard for the fundamental moral order established by God." 
General Eberhart entered the Air Force in 1968 as a graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, having been the cadet wing commander during his senior year. His staff experience includes serving as executive officer to the Air Force Chief of Staff at Headquarters U.S. Air Force; Deputy Chief of Staff for Inspection, Safety and Security, Headquarters Tactical Air Command; Director for Programs and Evaluation, Headquarters U.S. Air Force; Director of Force Structure, Resources and Assessment, the Joint Staff; and Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations, Headquarters U.S. Air Force. The general has also served as Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force, commander, Air Combat Command, Commander, Air Force Space Command, and as commander-in-chief, U.S. Space Command.
There have been 218 four-star generals in the history of the U.S. Air Force. Of these, 214 achieved that rank while on active duty, 3 were promoted after retirement, and one was promoted posthumously. Generals entered the Air Force via several paths: 60 were commissioned via the U.S. Military Academy (USMA), 49 via the aviation cadet program, 40 via the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA), 40 via Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC) at a civilian university, 12 via AFROTC at a senior military college, 8 via Air Force Officer Training School (OTS), 4 via the U.S. Naval Academy (USNA), 2 via direct commission (direct), one via Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) at a civilian university, one via direct commission inter-service transfer from the Army National Guard (ARNG), and one via direct commission inter-service transfer from the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF).
He has been a Guest Lecturer to the U.S. Air Force Academy, Department of Management for a number of years. He has been a Diversity Consultant to the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Air Force Academy. He holds the Bronze Star Medal, the Joint Services Commendation Medal and two Air Force Commendation Medals.
The United States Air Force Academy is an undergraduate college in Colorado Springs, Colorado, with the mission of educating and commissioning officers for the United States Air Force. The Academy was established in 1954, entered its first class in 1955, and graduated its first class in 1959. All students hold the Air Force rank of "Cadet." Sports media refer to the Academy as "Air Force"; this usage is officially endorsed. Most cadets are admitted through a congressional appointment system. The curriculum is broad-based but has traditionally emphasized science and engineering. Before the Academy's first graduating class in 1959, the United States Military Academy and United States Naval Academy were the primary sources of officers for the Air Force and its predecessors, the Army Air Corps and Army Air Forces. Though the primary focus of the Academy is for the Air Force, some graduates are given the option of "cross-commissioning" into the United States Army, United States Navy, United States Marine Corps, or United States Coast Guard.
General Stéphane Abrial graduated in 1973 from the French Air Force academy (École de l'air), and in 1974 from the U.S. Air Force Academy. He completed pilot training at the French Air Force Academy in 1976.
Tactical Air Command was established to provide a balance between strategic, air defense, and tactical forces of the post–World War II U.S. Army Air Forces followed by, in 1947, the U.S. Air Force. In 1948, the Continental Air Command assumed control over air defense, tactical air, and air reserve forces. After two years in a subordinate role, Tactical Air Command (TAC) was established as a major command.
The Boca Raton Airport was established in 1936. In 1941, in response to the emerging Axis threat, the United States began to rapidly mobilize and expand its armed forces. In addition to enlarging its Army and Navy, the US also sought to expand its air forces. The service we know today as the U.S. Air Force was known prior to June 1941 as the U.S. Army Air Corps and after June 1941 as the U.S. Army Air Forces, and was a subordinate branch within the U.S. Army. To expand the air corps/air forces, new air bases were established throughout the United States, including bases in southern Florida at Homestead, Morrison Field in West Palm Beach, and at the Boca Raton Airport.
Support for an air academy got a boost with the National Security Act of 1947, which provided for the establishment of a separate Air Force within the United States military. As an initial measure, Secretary of the Air Force W. Stuart Symington negotiated an agreement where up to 25% of West Point and Annapolis graduates could volunteer to receive their commissions in the newly established Air Force. This was only intended to be a short term fix, however, and disagreements between the services quickly led to the establishment of the Service Academy Board by Secretary of Defense James Forrestal. In January 1950, the Service Academy Board, headed by Dwight D. Eisenhower, then president of Columbia University, concluded that the needs of the Air Force could not be met by the two existing U.S. service academies and that an air force academy should be established.[12]
Bruegmann, Robert. Modernism at Mid-Century: The Architecture of the United States Air Force Academy. University of Chicago Press: 1995. ISBN0-226-07693-8. Celebrating the U.S. Air Force Academy's Golden Anniversary, (Colorado Springs) Gazette, Special Edition, Spring 2004. Contrails (various years) Fagan, George V. Air Force Academy: An Illustrated History. Johnson Books: 1988. ISBN1-55566-032-0. Fifty Years of Excellence: Building Leaders of Character for the Nation, 2004. Lui, Elizabeth Gill. Spirit and Flight: A Photographic Salute to the United States Air Force Academy. 1996. ISBN0-9652585-0-5. Nauman, Robert Allen. (2004). Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN978-0-252-02891-5; Pendlebury, J. (2018). "This Is a Man's Job": Challenging the Masculine "Warrior Culture" at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Armed Forces & Society. Schemo, Diana Jean. Skies to Conquer: A Year Inside the Air Force Academy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.: 2010. Schifani, Katherine L. "Bring Me Men: Intertextual Identity Formation at the US Air Force Academy." (Masters Theses, U of Massachusetts-Amherst, 2008): Stiehm, Judith. Bring Me Men and Women: Mandated Change at the U.S. Air Force Academy (1981) .
Air Academy High School (AAHS) is a public high school in the western United States that serves the northwestern end of Colorado Springs, Colorado, as well as the United States Air Force Academy. Air Academy, a part of Academy School District 20, has been ranked within the top 10 high schools in the state for its high academic standards. It is the only high school in the U.S. built on a military academy (the school district also has an elementary school on the Air Force Academy).
Helms graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1980. She received her commission and was assigned to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, as an F-16 weapons separation engineer with the Air Force Armament Laboratory. In 1982, she became the lead engineer for F-15 weapons separation. In 1984, she was selected to attend graduate school. She received a Master of Science in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University in 1985 and was assigned as an assistant professor of aeronautics at the U.S. Air Force Academy. In 1987, she attended the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base, California. After completing one year of training as a flight test engineer, Helms was assigned as a USAF Exchange Officer to the Aerospace Engineering Test Establishment, at Canadian Forces Base Cold Lake in Alberta, Canada, where she worked as a flight test engineer and project officer on the CF-18 aircraft. She was managing the development of a CF-18 flight control system simulation for the Canadian Forces when selected for the astronaut program.
After a 12-year NASA career that included 211 days in space, Helms returned to the U.S. Air Force in July 2002 to take a position at HQ USAF Space Command. After a stint as the division chief of the Space Superiority Division of the Requirements Directorate of Air Force Space Command in Colorado Springs, Colorado, she served as vice commander of the 45th Space Wing at Patrick Air Force Base near Cape Canaveral, Florida. She then served as deputy director of operations (Technical Training) for Air Education and Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base near San Antonio, Texas. Helms served on the Return To Flight task group after the Columbia accident. She was promoted to brigadier general in June 2006 and became commander of the 45th Space Wing on the same day of her promotion.
The JINSA Military Academies Program in Israel is a two-week program for cadets and midshipmen attending the U.S. Military Academy, the U.S. Naval Academy, the U.S. Air Force Academy, and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. The program builds bridges for future associations between the U.S. Armed Forces and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). At each academy, participants are selected in a competitive process by supervising faculty and receive academic credit for the program.
The scandal began with an anonymous e-mail on 2 January 2003 to the secretary of the Air Force, the chief of staff of the Air Force, Senator Wayne Allard, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, other U.S. congressmen, and media representatives. The e-mail asserted there was a significant sexual assault problem at the United States Air Force Academy that had been ignored by the Academy's leadership. The secretary immediately directed the general counsel of the U.S. Air Force (SAF/GC) to establish a high-level working group to review cadet complaints concerning the Academy's program of deterrence and response to sexual assault. The Secretary also asked the working group to review allegations of sexual assault reported from January 1993 through December 2002. The Secretary subsequently directed the Air Force's inspector general to review individual U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI) cases and to investigate cadet complaints concerning the alleged mishandling of sexual assault cases. In due course these investigations were carried out and a report issued on 14 September 2004.
The Academy was established in 2008 after the merger of the Zhukovsky Air Force Engineering Academy and the Gagarin Air Force Academy, both of which had long histories (90 and 70 years respectively) of aerospace education and research. The Gagarin Academy specialized in preparing high-ranking commanding officers, while the Zhukovsky Academy focused on aviation engineering.
The Air Force Longevity Service Award is a military award of the United States Air Force established by Air Force General Order 60, on 25 November 1957 by General Thomas D. White, Air Force Chief of Staff. The award was primarily created as an air force equivalent to the service stripes used by other branches of the United States military to denote years of military service. The award is retroactive to the establishment of the U.S. Air Force as an independent service in September 1947. The ribbon is also retroactive for any service with the U.S. Army Air Forces, U.S. Army Air Corps, or U.S. Army Air Service prior to the creation of the U.S. Air Force as a separate service as long as the serviceman was on active duty on or after 18 September 1947.
Premier ensembles are tasked with promoting the image of the U.S. armed forces through public performances, concerts, and parades. They also support official government ceremonies such as state visits, are used as recording groups to produce the music used in recruiting advertisements and other productions of the armed forces, and provide ceremonial support to the corps of cadets and midshipmen at the U.S. Military Academy (West Point), U.S. Naval Academy (Annapolis), U.S. Air Force Academy, and U.S. Coast Guard Academy.
The Commander-in-Chief's Trophy is awarded to each season's winner of the American college football series among the teams of the U.S. Military Academy (Army Black Knights), the U.S. Naval Academy (Navy Midshipmen), and U.S. Air Force Academy (Air Force Falcons).
Mueh was born in Celle, Germany and emigrated to the United States in 1951. He graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1966. He served as an intelligence officer in Saigon, South Vietnam, and at Nakhon Phanom Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. In 1976, he was recognized as a distinguished graduate after completing a Doctor of Philosophy in chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, and in 1977 he was assigned to the U.S. Air Force Academy as an associate professor in chemistry. Dr. Mueh then served as special assistant for technical matters at the Defense Intelligence Agency before returning to the Air Force Academy where he served as head of the Department of Chemistry and Vice Dean of the Faculty. He retired from the Air Force in 2004 and became the ninth Director of Athletics at the academy.
The U.S. military codified their forward air control (FAC) experience from World War II in 1946, when the most recent edition of Field Manual 31–35 "Air Ground Operations" (FM 31–35) was issued for the U.S. Army. The Army Air Force organized its strategic bombers into the Strategic Air Command (SAC), and split its fighters into Air Defense Command (ADC), and Tactical Air Command (TAC). The latter was tasked with close air support (CAS), and thus with forward air control. The Air Force's doctrine, based on Second World War experience called for three necessary conditions for successful close air support. One was gaining air superiority over the enemy. Another was isolating the battlefield via interdiction strikes on a foe's lines of communication. The third was the delivery of air strikes via a forward air control system supporting the Army's ground forces. The Army tended to believe the latter was given the lowest priority by the Air Force and resented it. In 1947, the newly established U.S. Air Force also adopted FM 31–35. However, this failed to set a single forward air control system within the U.S. military. As part of the division of forces when the Air Force became independent, the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps kept their aviation components and their forward control systems. The Army kept its light liaison aircraft and the few helicopters of the era, but was still dependent on the Air Force for most air support, including forward air control.
Being "local" ground forces affiliated with the Army, militias were considered state-centric/territorial-centric in nature, this versus naval forces, which were considered wholly activities of the federal government. This distinction accounts for why there are no National Guard components in the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps or U.S. Coast Guard. Because the present day U.S. Air Force evolved from the U.S. Army, it was only natural that a separate Air National Guard would be established with the divestiture of the former U.S. Army Air Forces and its establishment as a separate and independent U.S. Air Force in 1947. 
The Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy (RNoAFA) is the Norwegian Air Force’s college which conducts officer training for the RNoAF and the Norwegian Armed Forces. The school was established in 1949 and is one of the Armed Forces´ three military academies. The two others are the Army Academy and the Naval Academy. The students at the Armed Forces´ Academies are referred to as cadets and have full salary during education. The cadets at the RNoAFA have their own association, the Cadet Society (Kadettsamfunnet). The RNoAFA has a staff of 40 and a student body of 80 cadets and has since 1961 been located in Trondheim. The Commandant of the Royal Norwegian Air Force Academy is (from Autumn 2009) Colonel Ole Asbjørn Fauske.