Carswell Air Force Base

It's a shockwave.

The closest sonic boom I was at, they were doing an air show at Carswell Air Force Base.

And the guy came in really low and he hit mock right over.

I mean, you couldn't time it any better.

Guard units are affiliated with their home state but trained to active-duty Air Force standards and can be federalized for national missions.

The Texas Air National Guard operates F-16 Fighting Falcons out of Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base, which occupies the former Carswell Air Force Base footprint in the Fort Worth area.

But guard units do not always train at home.

They rotate to facilities across the country that have the specific ranges, airspace, and infrastructure required for different training objectives.

It set car alarms off before car alarms existed.

Residents near Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth described knowing exactly what was overhead, even without looking up, even from inside their houses with the windows closed.

But six piston engines at cruise altitude only got the B-36 to around 350 miles per hour.

By the early 1950s, Soviet jet interceptors were being developed.

The Air Force had to actually prove the B-36 could do what they claimed.

And they did.

In December 1948, a B-36 flew nonstop from Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth to Honolulu, Hawaii, and back.

9,600 miles, without landing, without taking on fuel, 35 and a half hours in the air.