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.
John Wayne would later recall, "The final budget was something like four million dollars. It was just too stupid for words."
The lead actors fretted that the screenplay was silly, with John Wayne only taking on the role because he thought it would make a political statement. He soon realized it would become "one of the worst films" he would ever make.