Exotic research aircraft designed; built; and flown in Europe in the two decades following World War II were the foreign equivalent of the legendary American X-Planes. Many of these advanced aircraft flown by test pilots such as Peter Twiss and Andre Turcat captured speed and altitude records previously held by their American counterparts.Some of today's most famous and successful aircraft were influenced by advanced technologies first tested and flown on European X-Planes. A significant number of aviation "firsts" occurred at secluded flight test facilities located in England; France; and Germany. The world's first jet airliner (1948); first jet transport with rear-mounted engines (1956); first VTOL jet fighter (1964); and first supersonic airliner (1969) were all developed in Europe utilizing technological advances pioneered by these rare and highly advanced X-Planes. Unpublished photographs; detailed appendix; and stories of these historic aircraft combine to produce an in-depth look at these secret aircraft.
#1328987 in Books 1997-03-29Ingredients: Example IngredientsOriginal language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.00 x .75 x 6.00l; 1.15 #File Name: 188380910X216 pagesAuthor John Moore is the "cat with nine livesof the aviation fraternity. From his early days as a Naval Aviation Cadet he had a knack for flying but seemed to be in the neighborhood of disaster. Through two Korean combat tours; Navy test operations; his years as test pilot for North American Aviation; and the space program he was associated with many near and some real catastrophes.
Review
3 of 5 people found the following review helpful. After the reviews; a real disappointment...By Kristan O. OverstreetA friend of mine has praised this book to the skies; so I bought a copy; expecting cover-to-cover laughs and revealations. Instead; what I got was a -very- disorganized; rambling series of partial recollections which were; despite the disclaimer in the introduction; the memoirs of a single pilot. Most of the stories failed to be funny in any way and were only moderately shocking.Most irritating of all was Chapter Twelve; which dealt with the author's anger at the Tailhook scandal/witchhunt and which had absolutely; positively nothing at all to do with anything else in the book. The chapter didn't belong. It was a distraction. Had any editing been done on the book; it should have been deleted entirely.There were some good parts; and the first two-thirds of the book would be quite nice with some serious re-arranging and reworking to present a coherent and orderly progression of events. The material about test-flying the Cutlass and the obscenely stupid FlexDeck program are must-reads; but the section on Apollo 1 adds nothing to the reams of material written about that tragedy; and the material on Mr. Moore's training runs hot and cold. As a minor note; the tendency to use technical terms without explaining them to the casual reader makes for difficult reading in some spots.All in all; if I'd found this in a library first; I never would have bought it; now that I have it; I can't recommend it to others; but I won't be giving my copy away either.Kris Overstreet0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Been there; done most of it. Understand perfectlyBy Len EisnerThe author went through much of what I did and some I never did. Similarly; I did much of what he did-like flying F7Us off and on boats-as we call em and other things. Sadly he passed on and while we knew many of the same folks; I don't recall being in a squadron with him-though we might have been in VX-3 at different times.So all in all I dearly enjoyed a similar rehash that was very well writen.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. The anti-hero is a heroBy AeropixFull of self-deprecating humor and curmudgeonly wisdom; Mr. Moore's account of his years testing early jets hits the mark in every way. It's great history. He pulls no punches on his views of either machines (the F7U Cutlass) or bureaucrats (the NASA apparatchiks who ordered the Challenger launch).
