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Laddar... Always another dawnav Albert Scott Crossfield, Clay Blair
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Gå med i LibraryThing för att få reda på om du skulle tycka om den här boken. Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken. As a child, Scott Crossfield secretly learned to fly. Told he would never be physically strong enough to fly, due to serious bouts of pneumonia and rheumatic fever, he found he could not let go of the dream of flight and ultimately earned for himself a place as a renowned and dedicated test pilot for the X-1 and Skyrocket rocket planes. Told with candor, this is the story of a man dedicated to flight, the man who was the first to fly at twice the speed of sound. It is also the story of the X-15, the rocket plane that flew its brave and daring pilots into journeys into the unknown. Told in Scott Crossfield’s own words, this account of a life of flight reveals a pilot who had faith in the future of man in space, a pilot who believed that the experimental plane had a place in that quest. In these pages, readers will meet the legendary pilot who flew a miracle and set man on his path toward the stars. Highly recommended. inga recensioner | lägg till en recension
All his life Test Pilot Scott Crossfield has carried on a love affair with airplanes. As a child he learned secretly how to fly, and the unyielding ambition to become a superb aviator spurred him to overcome a serious childhood disease. Working for the NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), Crossfield achieved national renown testing the rocket-powered planes, X-1 and Skyrocket, taking them to amazing heights where "man had a new view of his life and the world." He has logged more rocket plane flights than most of the chief test pilots combined. Written in the tradition of Saint-Exup?ry and Lindbergh, Scott Crossfield's inspiring autobiography is a testament to the adventure and achievement of the flight pioneers who dare to live beyond the clouds. Why is "death the handmaiden of the pilot" and how does it feel to face her fifteen miles above the ground? What can a pilot do when fear and panic overtake him? What is it like to be the first man to fly at twice the speed of sound? These are some of the questions Crossfield answers as he explains why he was prepared to devote so much of his time, his dreams, and his aspirations to an experimental plane called the X-15. Always Another Dawn tells of the birth of this plane; the daring of the men who painstakingly designed and built her, counting every extra pound a danger and creating innovations unprecedented in flight history. Here is the courage of the men who flew her, their every take-off a hazardous journey into the unknown. This book is the thrilling story of man's first faltering steps into space, of the great experiment and the great pilot who "set man on his path toward the stars." Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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Google Books — Laddar... GenrerMelvil Decimal System (DDC)629.13Technology Engineering and allied operations Other Branches Aviation Aviation engineeringKlassifikation enligt LCBetygMedelbetyg:
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To put this book into context, it wraps up in early 1960. That's about a year before Yuri Gagarin becomes the first human in space, and consequently a year before the Mercury program starts its first piloted flights. Dwight Eisenhower is still president. North American thinks the B-70 won't be cancelled. NASA has only been NASA for just about two years. (And the author, Scott Crossfield, is still ~65 years away from killing himself by failing to flying out of a thunderstorm.)
So it's still really early in the space business. In some ways things are both prescient and also naive. Aerodynamic space vehicles are being explored, even though they ultimately won't be used to travel to space until the STS program kicks off in 1977, and then will be virtually abandoned again after the program ends in 2011. Lots of aerospace firms are alive and kicking with buckets of defense or NASA funding before merging or shutting down in the 80s and 90s after the cold war ends and the federal government decides not to give NASA money for cool projects anymore. There is a little discussion about the nascent (at the time) conflict between piloted flight and autonomous missiles.
In that context, the book is pretty fascinating. Where did one of the top test pilots and engineers see the future of aviation and space research? It also highlights years that are often not covered that much in many other books about space, who usually just gloss over the 1950s to get right to the Mercury program.
That said, the book was REALLY LONG and started out REALLY SLOW. I felt like it took 100 pages for me to feel good and interested. I've been zipping through books lately, and this one took me quite a while to get through. So it's not amazing, but it was solidly good.
If you've read The Right Stuff and you kind of want to know more, especially about the aviators who didn't become astronauts, this book is for you.
One more note. This book was written in 1960. This means that every pilot, engineer, and human worth writing about (according to this book) is a man. (Except for the exceptional single "lady engineer.") The author uses exclusively male pronouns. The author annoyingly says "space man" instead of astronaut. I found it to be grating, jarring, and obnoxious. I know the book is a product of its time, but I wish people could have been a little less awfully sexist a little earlier in our history. ( )