The B-52 had a rocky beginning. The original XB-52 design in 1946, was for a straight-wing, six-engine, propeller-powered heavy bomber. On Oct. 21, 1948 the Air Force's chief of bomber development told Boeing to scrap the propellers and come up with an all-jet bomber. The next weekend, in a Dayton hotel room, the Boeing team designed a new eight-engine jet bomber, still called the B-52, made a scale model out of balsa wood and prepared a 33-page report. This effort impressed the Air Force's Air Material Command, and the design was approved. As the war worsened in Korea, the Air Force, in 1951, designated the B-52 the country's next intercontinental bomber and approved an initial production order for 13 B-52s. The first B-52A flew Aug. 5, 1954.