North American's Space and and Information Systems Division began development of the Hound Dog missile in August, 1957. The first inertially-guided test flight took place in October, 1959. Initially ordered as the GAM-77, changed to AGM-28 in 1962, The Hound Dog entered service with SAC as part of Weapons System 131-B on 21 December, 1959. The first SAC launch of a production missile occurred on 1 March, 1960 (some sources state 29 February 1960, an interesting bit of leap-year confusion). 29 SAC wings operated the Hound Dog by August, 1963. An air-breathing missile powered by the Pratt & Whitney J-52 (likely the only J-52s operated by the Air Force), the Hound Dog reportedly had a high-altitide supersonic mission profile, and a low-altitude subsonic mission profile. Armed with a thermonuclear warhead of about 4 megatons, the missile's engines could be throttled up to assist the B-52 carrier on heavy takeoffs.

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