Aerial refueling craft was eventually modified by Airspeed to Cobham's specification, for a non-stop flight from London to India, using in-flight refueling to extend the plane's flight duration. Meanwhile, in 1929, a group of U.S. Army Air Corps fliers, led by then Major Carl Spaatz, set an endurance record of over 150 hours with the "Question Mark" over Los Angeles. Between June 11 and July 4, 1930, the brothers John, Kenneth, Albert, and Walter Hunter set a new record of 553 hours 40 minutes over Chicago using two Stinson SM-1 Detroiters as refueler and receiver. Aerial refueling remained a very dangerous process
US signals intelligence in the Cold War Desert Shield Desert Storm. COMBAT APPLE aircraft began to gather SIGINT overland, over the Ho Chi Minh trail and Laos. They went without fighter cover, and in the threat envelope of antiaircraft guns and missiles. When the US detected the antiaircraft weapons, it quickly attacked them, and the North Vietnamese quit trying to shoot down the COMBAT APPLEs. Several other ELINT versions of the RC-135 flew out of Kadena for specialized ELINT collection, with some aircraft flying missions of 24 hours and more while still based at Offutt AFB, Nebraska, in the US. Flying from Kadena, the RC-135C model, called