[1] The First and Fourth Air Forces, through their interceptor commands, managed the civilian Aircraft Warning Service on the East and West Coasts, respectively.

[4] HQ AAF responded that "until the kind of defense needed to counter future attacks could be determined, AC&W planning would have to be restricted to the use of available radar sets".

In December 1946 the "Development of Radar Equipment for Detecting and Countering Missiles of the German A-4 type" was planned, part of the Signal Corps' Project 414A.

[2]: 2 A 1947 proposal for 411 radar stations and 18 control centers costing $600 million[10] was the Project Supremacy plan for a postwar Radar Fence that was rejected by Air Defense Command since "no provision was made in it for the Alaska to Greenland net with flanks guarded by aircraft and picket ships [required] for 3 to 6 hours of warning time",[2]: 129  and "Congress failed to act on legislation[specify] required to support the proposed system".

Gaps were filled by additional Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) radar stations and the Ground Observation Corps (disbanded 1959).

[16][17] During the mid-1950s, planners devised the idea of extending the wall of powerful land-based radar seaward with Airborne early warning and control units.

A total of seven ATC bases actively participated in the exercise, deploying aircraft and aircrews and supporting the ADC radar net.

ADCOM's missile warning and space surveillance installations transferred in 1979 to the Strategic Air Command's Directorate of Space and Missile Warning Systems (SAC/SX),[21]) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command's Air Force Element, NORAD/ADCOM (AFENA)[21], which was redesignated the Aerospace Defense Center.

[24][25] The early jet fighters, such as the F-80 Shooting Star and F-84 Thunderjet, lacked all-weather capability and were deemed useless for air defense purposes.

Some 2,504 would be built and it would in time be the most numerous interceptor in the Air Defense Command fleet, with more than 1,000 in service by the end of 1955[28] The F-86D was not ideal, however; its afterburner consumed a great deal of fuel in getting it to altitude, and the pilot was overburdened by cockpit tasks.

It was to be capable of Mach 3 performance and was intended to serve as a long-range interceptor that could destroy attacking Soviet bombers over the poles before they could get near US territory.

The primary strategic threat from the Soviet Union was now perceived to be its battery of intercontinental ballistic missiles instead of its force of long-range bombers.

In addition, the Air Force was increasingly of the opinion that unmanned intercontinental ballistic missiles could accomplish the mission of the B-70 Valkyrie/F-108 Rapier combination much more effectively and at far lower cost.

[30] B-57E Canberra dedicated Air Defense Command target towing aircraft were used for training of F-86D Sabre, F-94C Starfire, and F-89D Scorpion interceptors firing 2.75-inch Mk 4/Mk 40 Folding-Fin Aerial Rockets.

Due to the nature of air-to-air weapon training requiring a large amount of air space, only a few locations were available for practice ranges.

In Europe, USAFE supported a squadron of B-57E gunnery trainers at Wheelus AB, Libya where European-based interceptors deployed for "live firing" over the vast desert range there.

Six other B-57Es were converted to RB-57E "Patricia Lynn" tactical reconnaissance aircraft in 1966 during the Vietnam War, operating from Tan Son Nhut Air Base until 1971.

Initially RB-57As from reconnaissance units were modified to have their former camera bays refitted to carry out the latest ECM systems to confuse the defenders.

Wing racks, originally designed for bombs, now carried chaff dispensers and the navigator position was replaced with an Electronic Warfare Officer (EWO).

[33] NORAD sector direction center (NSDCs) also had air defense artillery director (ADAD) consoles [and an Army] ADA battle staff officer."

[34] From 1 September 1954 until 1975, ADC was a component of the unified Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) along with the Army's ARAACOM (1957 ARADCOM) and until 1965, the Navy's NAVFORCONAD.

On 19 October 1959, HQ USAF assigned ADC the "planning responsibility" for eventual operations of the Missile Defense Alarm System to detect ICBM launches with infrared sensors on space vehicles.

[43] ADC's BMEWS Central Computer and Display Facility was built as an austere network center (instead of for coordinating anti-ICBM fire) which "at midnight on 30 September I960…achieved initial operational capability" (IOC).

[23] The "1st Aero" cadre at the Hanscom AFB NSSCC moved 496L System operations in July 1961 to Ent's "SPADATS Center"[44] in the annex of building P4.

Responsibility for a USAFSS squadron's AN/FPS-17 radar station in Turkey for missile test monitoring transferred to ADC on 1 July 1963, the same date the site's AN/FPS-79 achieved IOC.

[46] By January 1963, ADC's Detachment 3 of the 9th Aerospace Defense Division (9th ADD) was providing space surveillance data from the Moorestown BMEWS station "to a Spacetrack Analysis Center at Colorado Springs.

[21] After claiming in March 1958 that "the Army's ZEUS did not have the growth potential to handle possible enemy evasion decoy and countermeasure tactics", the USAF similarly identified by early 1959 that its planned Wizard missile was "not cost effective" against ICBM warheads.

[14] The changing emphasis in the threat away from the manned bomber and to the ballistic missile brought reorganization and reduction in aerospace defense resources and personnel and almost continuous turmoil in the management structure.

[14] In early 1977 strong Congressional pressure to reduce management "overhead", and the personal conviction of the USAF Chief of Staff that substantial savings could be realized without a reduction in operational capability, moved the final "reorganization" of ADCOM to center stage.

It was conducted in two phases:[14] On 1 October 1979 ADCOM atmospheric defense resources (interceptors, warning radars, and associated bases and personnel) were transferred to Tactical Air Command.