Customer Reviews

Contrails Over the Mojave: The Golden Age of Jet Flight Testing at Edwards Air Force Base

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

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".

A very good story about flight testing, but like Marret's other books(So far there are 2 more about his flying) he never realy puts you in the cockpit and lets you fly the jet he just tells you about it. I wanted more!. Cheating Death his first book is also a good story but what is it realy like to fly the A-1H Skyraider on combat rescue missions in vietnam??. Thank you for your stories and service Col Marret. I'm just an old marine what do I know?, Simpher Fi. JA

"Contrails Over the Mojave" is certainly an entertaining book about one of my favorite subjects. I learned a lot of details about some of the famous and not-so-famous flight test projects at Edwards. The author's qualifications to write this book are beyond reproach.

However...

There are at least two pages in the book (pages 68-69, Chapter 6) that are nearly identical to text found in Chapter 10 of a book entitled "Aerospace Pilot," by Charles Coombs, published in 1964 by William Morrow and Company, Inc. There is no attribution or acknowledgement of the source of the text in either book, so I don't really know what to think here. Using substantial portions of material without attribution has a name -- it's called plagiarism.

To be fair, perhaps the section of text in question was actually written by Marrett originally, and used by Coombs first in his 1964 book. I don't know. What I do know is that SOMEBODY wrote it, and one of the authors appears to have lifted it from another.

This was a minor detraction from what is otherwise a very good book.

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.

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.

I live near Edwards AFB and I have seen Space Shuttle landings, and watched them load the shuttle onto the 747 to ship back to Florida several times, and I've met quite a few of the

I was a kid at Edwards during this time period. Very realistic, author reminds me of my Dad. I do remember all those land windsailers and the handball players. Unfortunately, the book only summarized many of the flying events.

I do remember all the crashes, many could be seen from the grade school I attended. All the streets in the neighborhood were named after dead test pilots.

I think some of the stories were a little too kind to the people involved. As I recall, there was a lot of really stupid stuff done in the name of testing. Since money was no problem, people could get away with a lot that even a grade school kid knew was wrong!

From someone who was there as a Test Pilot, I was expecting a more detailed account. Tom Wolff's "The Right Stuff" was much more detailed in explaining the flying and the culture of Test Pilots.

The first I heard of George Marrett was in reading a book about my favourite (the F-14 Tomcat).
Mr Marrett having left the Air Force and Test Pilot program, wound up flying for the Hughes
Aircraft company and subsequently went on to fly many hours in the Tomcat while developing the
legendary AIM-54 Phoenix/AWG-9 combination that was to give the Tomcat capabilities other aircraft
could only dream of. Mr Marrett recounts details of this program and others in the 3rd of three
books he's written about his flying exploits - Testing Death.
The next time I came across his name was when I ordered a book called Cheating Death and went on
to read about his time flying the A-1 Skyraider (another favourite aircraft of mine) in Vietnam.
I'm not reviewing that book here obviously, but if you haven't read it, I suggest you remedy that
situation at your earliest convenience.
So to Contrails Over the Mojave. This details stories of the heady days at Muroc/Edwards when the
newest, fastest, hottest aircraft were showing up to be rung out by the brave men of the test pilot
fraternity. Mr Marrett details his own experiences and many of those experienced by his friends and
collegues. Many of the stories don't have happy endings for those involved as this was an inherently
dangerous occupaption. Many of the stories are amusing. ALL of them are compelling and well written.
For anyone interested in flying, this is a great read. For those interested in military aviation,
this is a must read.
I highly reccommend this book to all and thank Mr Marrett for sharing his experiences with us.

I just finished reading CONTRAILS OVER THE MOJAVE and found it to be a wonderful book. I was an Air Force jet pilot about the same time as George and found his observations about flying to be right on. His presentations are chronologically and technically accurate and his details are spot on.

One of the things which the book brings out so well that, despite all the training to be dispassionate and all numbers, George presented some of the things he just loved about flying - like going vertical. I loved to go vertical as well so I was hooked when I found a technically accurate writer who loved going vertical.

I just ordered one of George's other books, CHEATING DEATH, and expect it will be the same.

Keep them coming, George!! I loved it.

I'm a true fan of aviation history books, having read a number on the golden age of jet aviation, and frankly, this book didn't really cut it.

Firstly, it was a slow read. It was near on halfway into the book before there was any of the promised content about XB-70's or YF-12's. Most of the first half of the book was taken up by Marrett talking about living in San Francisco, flying in regular squadrons and his blue sports car. Whilst the life of a line pilot on high alert during the cold war is a worthy subject, it's not what the title of this book promised.

Secondly, and most disappointing, Marrett has some sort of issue with Chuck Yeager. Due reverence seems to be paid to the greats of test flying at Edwards, such as Bob Hoover, Pete Everest or Scott Crossfield, Marrett seems to embrace any opportunity possible to sink the boot into Col Yeager.

Gleefully he describes in detail the crash of the NF-104 that near killed the famous test pilot, harping on about the "arrogance" that led to the crash. Please, one test or fighter pilot accusing another of being arrogant? He then goes on further in the book to describe other incidents involving Col Yeager, errors in his test flying philosophy or just his general leadership - delivering slights wherever possible. While I'm sure much of what Marrett describes is true and correct, I struggle to see why he he needs to deliver so many rabbit punches to a historical figure like Yeager.

Unfortunately, by the end of the book, I got so sick of Marrett's whining about Chuck Yeager that i didn't even finish the Epilogue, which is funny, because it contains a final three pages further attacking Yeager.