Corky Meyer's Flight Journal [Paperback]

Corwin Meyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 11, 2006

Designing high-performance military aircraft in the slide-rule era was challenging. Being the first person to fly these airplanes and expand an aircraft's flight envelope was often very frightening, if not downright deadly. It is hard to believe that someone could really endure 22 years in this occupation, plus another 30 years in the aircraft industry, often leading the industry-wide transition from large, too-complicated piston engines to doggy, unreliable jet engines and from 300-mile-per-hour (barn doors÷ through slippery transonic and supersonic airframes. But this is, in fact, the truly remarkable v if not virtually unparalleled v life story of Corky Meyer. In an occupation and time which killed many, if not most, this man had the brains, skill, and good luck to meet every challenge that faced him and survive to tell his amazing story. It is a story that covers the most important era in the history of flight, told by a man at the epicenter of the activity. Corky Meyer's Flight Journal is an electrifying tale of a very passionate and patriotic man, his wife and family, and of course his numerous sensational close calls as an experimental fighter test pilot.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Modeling Madness, January 2006, reviewed by Scott Van Aken
"It is a fascinating look into an interesting job during an equally interesting time in aviation: the transition from subsonic prop planes to supersonic turbojet powered aircraft. It is all here in a book that is one of the best I've ever read."

Internet Modeler, January 2006, reviewed by Chris Banyai-Riepl
"Whether just for entertaining reading, or for some modeling reference, this book is well worth having."

IPMS, April 2006, reviewed by Floyd S. Werner, Jr.
"All told, this is a fine volume and a nice companion to the straight ahead history books that fill most modeler's shelves. I would highly recommend it to anyone with more than a passing interest in naval aviation."

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Specialty Press (February 11, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1580070930
• ISBN-13: 978-1580070935
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #615,083 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Miracle, March 18, 2006

By 

John Joss (Los Altos, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Corky Meyer's Flight Journal (Paperback)

This book is a miracle. The miracle is that the author lived to write it.

'Corky' Meyer joined Grumman in the 1940s when that company was demonstrating its ability to design and build Navy fighters such as the Hellcat and Bearcat (and, later, other types of Naval aircraft and civilian flying boats), and went on to undertake flight test of essentially every significant Grumman fighter from the F-6F-3 Hellcat, the F-8F-1 Bearcat, the twin-engined F7F-1 Tigercat, the jet F-9F-2 Panther, the Navy's first swept-wing fighter--the F-9F-8 Cougar, up to the F11-F Tiger (all Grumman's fighters have been named after cats of various types). He became one of the very few, if not the only civilian pilot ever to achieve 'carquals'--carrier qualifications.

Meyer flew dozens of different aircraft from many countries, and his commentaries are illuminating, including his chapter on "the best fighters of WWII," undertaken for FLIGHT JOURNAL. His conclusions, based significantly on analysis of warfighting results, will be the subject of endless hangar flying by readers of the book.

This book charmingly, humbly but with marvelously tongue-in-cheek humor traces the author's adventures and misadventures over a long and brilliant career in flight test. He and a few dozen other civilian and military test pilots enabled the difficult, painful and often fatal transition from the relatively simple propeller-driven fighter aircraft that endured into the 1950s up to the current complex devices. Many did not survive but gave their lives to flight test, bravely, often in the most difficult circumstances imaginable.

In effect, his experience covers the transition from personal observation by the hands and the seat of the pants to the slide rule to the eventual use of sophisticated measuring systems on the aircraft that morphed eventually into computer-aided simulation and telemetry, as speeds went from subsonic to supersonic, and as materials, structures, systems and procedures placed ever-increasing demands on every aspect of aircraft development from initial design through prototyping into flight test and eventual production. Meyer was never afraid to speak his mind to those around him, sometimes insisting on changes that took a lot of time and effort to undertake but were proved right in the end. His conclusions were sometimes intuitive but were often right. When he was wrong, he said so.

This book reminds me of the similarly marvelous SPITFIRE: A Test Pilot's Story, by Jeffrey Quill (see my review), and it belongs on the bookshelf of every pilot interested in understanding whose shoulders we are truly standing on. Meyer and Quill, brothers in the cockpit, write definitively about some of the most interesting flying ever done.

The book is particularly important for pilots who are interested in naval aviation (every naval aviator will enjoy it) because it makes clear that aircraft development for carrier operation is a very difficult art. It requires not only that the basic characteristics and performance meet the specifications for a fighter aircraft but that it must also be able to withstand the rigors of carrier arrivals (22-feet-per-second descent rate at trap), acceptable approach speeds and stability that makes it suitable for average naval aviators (there is probably no such thing, especially in the eyes of naval aviators).

Problems are always more interesting to read about than cake walks, and Meyer got his fill. He saved his life, and the lives of countless others, through his ability to analyze, decide and act decisively under severe stress. His description, alone, of his flight-test experience of the variable-sweep XF10-F-1 Jaguar and its appalling difficulties (it was a significant contributor to the F-14 Tomcat, technically) is worth the price of the book, but any page you look he describes, often with profound candor, the lot of the test pilot before (and this is crucial in terms of survival) reliable ejection seats were developed.

So the miracle happened. Corky lived to write this fine book. It lacks only an index.

_________________________________________________________________

Disclaimer: early in the development of the book, Corky asked me to help with the editing. He didn't need my help. He writes as well as he flies.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Test Pilot Who Bridged Between Prop and Jet, March 3, 2006

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Corky Meyer's Flight Journal (Paperback)

In the very early days of World War II Corky Meyer showed up unexpectedly at Grumman's long island facility and applied for a job as a test pilot. He was hired and remained there until 1978. In those years he flew some 125 different types of military and commercial piston and jet aircraft. For many planes he was the first pilot.

These years saw tremendous changes in the aircraft industry. It was nearing the end of the time of piston engines, when they were reaching their zenith of power and performance. Then came the jets. First they were low powered, unreliable, and there was really no standard idea about how they should be designed.

Over the years, through much development effort, much testing, much failure, and many lives, the fighter jets evolved. Mr. Meyer relates what he did, and what they discovered along the way. Then once in a while he mentions that so-and-so was killed doing this test, or that plane came apart. Twenty years as a test pilot and Mr. Meyer has remarkably few disasters. As he says, a lot of it appears to have been the luck of the draw. He arrived late and someone else took his place in a plane that crashed.

All in all, a fascinating story that's hard to put down.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Corky Meyer's Flight Journal, June 1, 2011

By 

Robin Caple (Northern Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Corky Meyer's Flight Journal (Paperback)

Corky Meyer's book is just amazing, especially in the current flying environment where pilots can get their checkride without leaving the ground (in a simulator). Corky's flying, along with other test pilots of the time, was literally by the seat of their pants.

I just wanted to share that just 5 years ago this book was published........... and sadly the author, Corky Meyer, died this morning at the age of 91.