Howard Hughes intended to show off the latest in aircraft technology in 1949-50 (when this film was shot). By the time it was finally released to the public in 1957, the aircraft featured were already obsolete.
The U.S. Air Force, still taking advantage of Chuck Yeager's 1947 supersonic flight for publicity, offered his services as a stunt pilot. During a stunt involving the inverted dive of an F-86, Yeager misjudged the dive and overstressed the plane's tail, causing the horizontal stabilizer to come apart while he was too low to eject. He barely managed to pull out.
Filmed between December 8, 1949 and February 8, 1950, this long held-back movie finally debuted on September 25, 1957 in Los Angeles, followed by its Manhattan opening at the Palace Theatre on October 4, 1957, coincidentally the same day that the Soviet Union launched Sputnik and the Space Age began.
The film was produced in 1950 by RKO, which was owned by Howard Hughes. By the time it was released in 1957, Hughes had sold RKO and the film was released by Universal-International.
Howard Hughes intended to make a jet-age Hell's Angels (1930) to the extent that the flying scenes were the most important element, and led to his obsessive re-editing that stretched into years.