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| Contrails Over the Mojave: The Golden Age of Jet Flight Testing at Edwards Air Force Base | 
 enlarge | Author: George J. Marrett
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy New: $18.78
You Save: $11.17 (37%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (4 reviews)
Sales Rank: 15883
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 264
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 1591145112
Dewey Decimal Number: 623.7460724
EAN: 9781591145110
ASIN: 1591145112
Publication Date: March 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In Contrails over the Mojave, Marrett takes off where author Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff ended in 1963. Marrett started the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB only two weeks after the school's commander, Col. Chuck Yeager, ejected from a Lockheed NF-104 trying to set a world altitude record. He describes life as a space cadet experiencing 15 Gs in a human centrifuge, zero-G maneuvers in a KC-135 'Vomit Comet,' and a flight to 80,000 feet in a Lockheed F-104A Starfighter. After graduating from Yeager's 'Charm School,' he was assigned to the Fighter Branch of Flight Test Operations for three years. There he flew the Air Force's latest fighter aircraft and chased other test aircraft like the X-15 rocket ship and the XB-70A Valkyrie as they set world speed and altitude records.
Marrett takes you into the cockpit with him going vertical in a T-38 Talon, high-G maneuvering in an F-4C Phantom and wet runway landing tests in the accident-prone F-111A Aardvark. Marrett relives stories of crashes when his test pilot friends were killed. He writes about Air Force test pilot Col. 'Silver Fox' Stephens setting a world speed record in the YF-12 Blackbird and Lockheed test pilot Bob Gilliland flying a single-engine, minimum-control speed stall in the SR-71 spy plane. He recounts dead-sticking a T-38 to a landing on Rogers Dry Lake after a twin-engine failure and conducting dangerous tail hook barrier testing in a fighter jet without a canopy. Marrett also writes about a UFO sighting in the night sky above the Mojave Desert, a mysterious sighting now referred to as 'The Edwards Encounter.'
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| Customer Reviews:
"The Right Stuff" for USAF fighter testing programs June 13, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
George Marrett vividly recounts his memoirs of the Air Force Flight Test Center at Edwards Air Force Base in "Contrails Over the Mojave". Marrett and his fellow test pilots constantly pushed the performance envelope in the mid-1960s to advance American military aviation.
Marrett's interest in aviation began at an early age during the height of World War II. He and his friend Bob used to run around the backyard pretending to be fighter pilots, or sometimes a bomber crew on a mission over Germany. He was always the co-pilot, because Bob said that you had to have a silver whistle to be the pilot. Marrett continues "I envied Bob and his whistle and promised myself that someday I would get a whistle and advance into the lofty ranks of the pilots. I never asked Bob why a whistle was required. It was just a requirement - that was enough for a young boy." After graduating flight school, he earned silver wings, but he was always trying to earn his next `silver whistle'.
The book does an outstanding job of focusing on the major events in Marrett's 12-year Air Force career. After his flight training at Bainbridge AFB, Georgia, he traveled to San Francisco, California to stand fighter alert in the nuclear-missile armed F-101B Voodoo. It was here that he learned many of the important lessons for young fighter pilots, and he also set himself up for success as a future test pilot.
After graduating from Col Chuck Yeager's `Charm School', Marrett finally became a test pilot. In this section, the book's scope expands to cover the contributions of the entire fighter branch, not only the achievements of Capt Marrett. To name a few of the bigger testing programs, the book offers recollections for the X-15; the century series fighters; the XB-70 Valkyrie; the SR-71/YF-12/A-12; the F-4 Phantom; and the F-5 Freedom Fighter.
Along with his engaging recollections of the aerial achievements, Marrett also captures the subtle entrenchment of bureaucracy at Edwards AFB. Along with the rapid expansion of the base, the Air Force Flight Test Center had to deal with increased oversight from the Air Force. As aircraft design knowledge (and aircraft prices) increased, there was an increase in the safety requirements at the installation. Tragically, Marrett recants the stories of far too many pilots who gave their lives chasing the next whistle.
Marrett is an extremely talented author. "Contrails Over the Mojave" is an insider's look at the flight testing of America's greatest fighter planes of the 1960s. Every aviation enthusiast needs to set aside a space on the bookshelf alongside Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff".
 Contrails Over the Mojavie June 7, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book provided me with information and details about programs at Edwards Air Force Base which were not available to me when I service as an Air Force Sargent at Edwards AFB during the 1960s.
An Excellent Book April 10, 2008
5 out of 8 found this review helpful
George Marrett has written an accurate, detailed and concise book about the flight test activities at Edwards Air Force Base during the 1960's. His ability to lend a personal touch to the people involved was remarkable.
A Pilot's Review March 23, 2008
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
An excellent tretise on flight testing at Edwards Air Force Base. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. My congratulations to the author for a well written piece.
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