While flying with his instructor, he realizes that military police are waiting for him at the airport and to avoid arrest, he parachutes out of the aircraft and hitches a ride with teenager Bob Brown (Robert Ellis).

With the military police on his trail, Mac leaves by a back window and returns to the base, where his superior, Sgt.

Again in trouble, Mac is sentenced to sentry duty but learns about his daughter's birth from fellow student, Ty Whitman (James Whitmore).

Before he is sent to fight in the Korean War, Mac takes Butch on a picnic in Apple Valley, California, where he has bought property and plans to build a house.

Aircraft passing overhead fly in the "missing man formation" which Mac explains that the pilots are honoring a colleague who was killed.

He is named the first triple jet ace in history, but after shooting down his 16th MiG, Ty and his superiors fear that he is getting tired and reckless and transfer him stateside to train new pilots.

Months later, Ty takes Butch to the base where she learns that modifications prompted by Mac's accident will save lives.

[Note 2] For the Korean air war sequences, eight Republic F-84F Thunderstreaks of the 614th Fighter-Bomber Squadron donned dark blue paint with red stars to portray Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15s doing mock battle for the cameras with F-86 Sabres of the 366th Fighter-Bomber Squadron, both units based at Alexandria AFB, Louisiana.

[7] Air Defense Command headquarters notified its pilots in January 1955 that the mock MiGs would be operating over portions of the southwestern United States.

Captain E. R. Thone and Airman First Class Ronald K. Opitz, of the 48th ARS, were the crew for the helicopter, TDY to shoot the rescue sequence.

[9] The other technical advisor was Captain Manuel "Pete" Fernandez, third-ranking US jet ace of the Korean War who came home from Korea with McConnell in 1953.

Shown on American Movie Classics, host Bob Dorian said that Ladd, who hated flying, filmed his scenes in mockups in front of blue screens.

Joseph McConnell, which cleaves to the facts about the restless, intrepid airman who became America's first triple jet ace during the Korean unpleasantness, is dramatic only when it is rocketing through the wild blue yonder.