The squadron was reactivated at Ebbing Air National Guard Base, Arkansas, on 2 July 2024 as an F-35A Lightning II training unit focused on NATO and Allied pilots.

On 20 June 1942, the air echelon of the 54th PG (now FG) took its P-40s and newly assigned Bell P-39 Airacobras to Elmendorf Field, Alaska, where it served in combat against the Japanese forces that invaded the Aleutian Islands during the summer of 1942.

[7] The unit did not in itself take any part in the action against the Japanese in the Aleutians, but a detachment of eleven of the pilots saw service with the 42d which was based at Adak Army Air Field, Alaska and between them got three confirmed victories and two probables.

[12] However, the Army Air Forces (AAF) was finding that standard military units, based on relatively inflexible tables of organization, were proving less well adapted to the training mission.

On 12 November 1954, the 57th FIS moved to Keflavik Airport, Iceland, replacing the 82d Fighter-Interceptor Squadron which was temporarily assigned from Larson AFB, Washington.

The 57th FIS at Keflavik was an interceptor squadron charged with the monitoring of the Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom gap in the North Atlantic that formed a naval warfare choke point during the Cold War.

In 1962 ADC replaced the squadron's F-89s with newer Convair F-102 Delta Dagger supersonic interceptors, the F-89s generally being worn-out after nearly a decade of continual interceptions.

Challenges by the 57th FIS to Soviet aircraft on flights over the North Atlantic and along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States to bases in Cuba continued throughout the 1960s.

The first McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II aircraft was assigned to the squadron on 16 April 1973, as TAC was replacing its F-102 Delta Dagger with F-4C models at the end of the Vietnam War.

On 1 August, one of the squadron's F-4Es[18] was taking off for a training mission to practice interceptions for the William Tell interceptor weapons meet as the number two ship in a formation.

After a very long takeoff roll followed by difficulty in controlling pitch, the crew found the plane's outer wing panels were in the folded position.

The wing panels had apparently been unlocked when the plane was repainted from Tactical Air Command camouflage to ADC gray and had not been locked when the job was through,[19] Four F-106 Delta Darts of the 87th FIS from K.I.

They occupied the open air flight line beside the alert shelters, and operated from this location for approximately a month, during which they made several successful intercepts against the Soviet "Bear" fleet.

Activated in its place, assuming the mission previously carried out by AFI, was the 35th Wing that was transferred from the closing George Air Force Base, California.

Because the 35th garnered the majority of its history in the Pacific theater during World War II, and in California since 1971 until its move to Iceland, it was decided to relocate the unit back to that area.

As GSUs of the 33rd Fighter Wing at Eglin AFB, Florida, the 85 FG abd 57 FS are tasked with training international pilots on the Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning II, starting with members of the Polish Air Force in September 2024.