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Author: A. M. "Tex" Johnston
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
Published: 2014-12-02
Total Pages: 320
ISBN-13: 1588344479
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →One of America's most daring and accomplished test pilots, Tex Johnston flew the first US jet airplanes and, in a career spanning the 1930s through the 1970s, helped create the jet age at such pioneering aersospace companies as Bell Aircraft and Boeing.
Author: George J. Marrett
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Published: 2006-05-30
Total Pages: 240
ISBN-13: 0313081190
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In 1969, after his return from Vietnam, George Marrett took a job as a test pilot at Hughes Aircraft. For twenty years, he tested the most sophisticated airborne radar and missiles ever designed for advanced Navy and Air Force aircraft. Marrett's masterful command of storytelling puts the reader in the cockpit during the F-15, F-16, and F-18 weapons systems flyoff, as well as during the firing of a Mach 3 Phoenix missile from an F-14A Tomcat at a Soviet MiG Foxbat target. In addition to the weaponry, Marrett relives stories of espionage, deadly crashes, and the development of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber radar. He combines the thrill of test flying with the pathos, humor, and tragedy that is the everyday life of a test pilot, showing how the Cold War was actually won in the skies above Southern California. The background to Marrett's tale is the story of Hughes Aircraft. While Howard Hughes's huge and unwieldy Spruce Goose never made it into World War II, the Radio Department he started grew to become the electronics giant Hughes Aircraft Company. By the 1950s, Hughes Aircraft built airborne radar and missiles for all of the Air Force interceptors stationed on the East and West Coasts and along the border with Canada to defend the United States from Soviet bombers. In the years that followed, the company built airborne radar for the Navy F-14A Tomcat, the Air Force F-15A Eagle, the Navy F-18A Hornet and the B-2 stealth bomber. They also built the Navy air-to-air AIM-54 Phenix and the Air Force air-to-ground AGM-65 Maverick missiles. These advanced electronic weapons were developed and fielded during President Reagan's massive buildup of military might. Even though Hughes himself did not live to see the Berlin Wall fall in 1989, the company he built made an essential contribution to the collapse of communism.
Author: Society of Experimental Test Pilots
Publisher:
Published: 1960
Total Pages: 690
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Ann Carl
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
Published: 2013-06-04
Total Pages: 161
ISBN-13: 1588343413
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Before World War II most Americans did not believe that the average woman could fly professionally, but during the war more than a thousand women pilots proved them wrong. These were the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPs), who served as military flyers on the home front. In March 1944 one of them, Ann Baumgartner, was assigned to the Fighter Flight Test Branch at Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. There she would make history as the only woman to test-fly experimental planes during the war and the first woman to fly a jet. A WASP among Eagles is the first-person story of how Baumgartner learned to fly, trained as a WASP, and became one of the earliest jet-age pioneers. Flying such planes as the Curtiss A-25 Helldiver, the Lockheed P-38, and the B-29 Superfortress, she was the first woman to participate in a host of experiments, including in-air refueling and flying the first fighter equipped with a pressurized cockpit. But in evaluating the long-awaited turbojet-powered Bell YP-59A, she set a “first” record that would remain unchallenged for ten years.
Author: Christopher Hounsfield
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Published: 2009-03-09
Total Pages: 410
ISBN-13: 1781599246
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Flight testing experimental and new aircraft is one of the worlds most hazardous occupations. A test pilot requires the skills of a flying ace whilst maintaining the self-control and mental discipline of a scientist. They are a rare breed, carefully selected for their experience and intelligence let alone their bravery. This book contains a series of exclusive, fascinating anecdotes written by some of the world's best, flying iconic aircraft during the extensive experimental flights that must take place before a type can enter service. Each story is a unique insight into these modern day technological explorers. From Concorde to the Phantom jet, Spitfire to the U-2 spy plane.
Author: Antony Loveless
Publisher: Crabtree Publishing Company
Published: 2009-08
Total Pages: 36
ISBN-13: 9780778750994
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Piloting experimental aircraft is more dangerous than most other types of flying. Test pilots are generally military aviators who fly new and modified aircraft, allowing the results to be measured and the design to be evaluated. Despite their image as fun-loving daredevils, these pilots have to be ruthlessly precise and professional when flying. This intriguing book looks at what type of people become test pilots; how they train; what the job includes; how it feels to be the first person to fly a new design; the aircraft they fly; and how they analyze and report on each flight.
Author: Gilliland|Keith Dunnavant Bob Gilliland (Dunnavant)
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
Published: 2021-06
Total Pages: 293
ISBN-13: 1640124675
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →On December 22, 1964, at a small, closely guarded airstrip in the desert town of Palmdale, California, Lockheed test pilot Bob Gilliland stepped into a strange-looking aircraft and roared into aviation history. Developed at the super-secret Skunk Works, the SR-71 Blackbird was a technological marvel. In fact, more than a half century later, the Mach 3-plus titanium wonder, designed by Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson, remains the world's fastest jet. It took a test pilot with the right combination of intelligence, skill, and nerve to make the first flight of the SR-71, and the thirty-eight-year-old Gilliland had spent much of his life pushing the edge. In Speed one of America's greatest test pilots collaborates with acclaimed journalist Keith Dunnavant to tell his remarkable story: How he was pushed to excel by his demanding father. How a lucky envelope at the U.S. Naval Academy altered the trajectory of his life. How he talked his way into U.S. Air Force fighters at the dawn of the jet age, despite being told he was too tall. How he made the conscious decision to trade the security of the business world for the dangerous life of an experimental test pilot, including time at the clandestine base Area 51, working on the Central Intelligence Agency's Oxcart program. The narrative focuses most intently on Gilliland's years as the chief test pilot of the SR-71, as he played a leading role in the development of the entire fleet of spy planes while surviving several emergencies that very nearly ended in disaster. Waging the Cold War at 85,000 feet, the SR-71 became an unrivaled intelligence-gathering asset for the U.S. Air Force, invulnerable to enemy defenses for a quarter century. Gilliland's work with the SR-71 defined him, especially after the Cold War, when many of the secrets began to be revealed and the plane emerged from the shadows--not just as a tangible museum artifact but as an icon that burrowed deep into the national consciousness. Like the Blackbird itself, Speed is a story animated by the power of ambition and risk-taking during the heady days of the American Century.
Author: Michael Williams
Publisher: Sunstone Press
Published: 2017-05-01
Total Pages: 202
ISBN-13: 1632931613
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →From 1989 to 1995, a small group of individuals with unique skill sets came together to support air-to-air/air-to-ground weapons testing over the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) in New Mexico. Unwilling to maintain the status quo, they came up with innovative solutions to support test missions and became the best at what they did. One of the squadron’s pilots used to say, “We do it, because we can, and we did, because it was fun.” What an adventure to fly and do what others could only speculate about. With little notoriety, we helped advance stealth, global positioning systems (GPS), and missile technologies, while developing our own capabilities that no one thought possible. Instead of saying “why,” we said “why not,” and never settled for ordinary, but extraordinary. In time, our reputation grew as an organization that could always deliver. It was not rare for a project to come in and say, “Your reputation has preceded you, so don’t screw up.” They only wanted the same support they heard other groups had received before. This book is a pictorial history of that journey, by the actual people who participated, and preserved for you to appreciate and enjoy.
Author: Colin Higgs
Publisher: Air World
Published: 2021-07-21
Total Pages: 266
ISBN-13: 1526747766
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Eleven daring test pilots recount their experiences at the forefront of aeronautical innovation in this oral history of the Jet Age. In the years after World War II, a select band of British test pilots risked everything in the quest to fly further, faster, and higher than ever before. Their vital work made our modern age of air transport possible. This book captures the stories of eleven such pilots, as told in their own words. Britain’s aircraft industry was booming in the late 1940s, and the demand for test pilots was seemingly limitless as new aircraft designs—some legendary and others nearly forgotten—were being built. Royal Air Force veterans who had distinguished themselves in the war suddenly had a vital new mission. First, they pursued the almost mythic goal of breaking the sound barrier. But once this was accomplished, they found themselves approaching speeds no one imagined possible. Their stories of that time are both colorful and insightful—and often tinged with humor.
Author: Mike Phipp
Publisher: Amberley Publishing Limited
Published: 2020-03-15
Total Pages: 222
ISBN-13: 1445695235
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →The riveting story behind an exceptional test pilot, George Errington, whose career spanned three decades.
