Customer Reviews

On the Frontier: Experimental Flight at NASA Dryden

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an official institutional history of the Dryden Flight Research Center, the NASA facility in the Mojave Desert where hypersonic vehicles such as the X-15 were flown. It is a revision of Hallion's "On the Frontier: Flight Research at Dryden, 1946-1981" (NASA SP-4303, 1984) with additional chapters and revisions to earlier material that bring the story up to date. It traces aerospace research and development activities at the site from the first establishment of the High Speed Flight Test Facility in 1946 through the recent X-38 and other projects. In addition to the updated 1984 text, there are three additional chapters written by Michael H. Gorn, many additional photographs, and a treasure trove of appendices that document flight programs, accidents, and budgets.

NASA began early in its history to publish a series of center histories that focused on the evolution of institutions and projects at its ten field centers. The 1984 edition of this work not only accomplished this task, but also contained an excellent account of the many exciting programs that had been conducted there, from Chuck Yeager's breaking of the sound barrier in 1947 with the X-1 through Scott Crossfield's Mach 2 flights with the D-558 through lifting body research and the famous X-15 program of 1958-1969. This book records the "right stuff" without the hyperbole of Tom Wolfe, in the process evoking even more awe for the men and women who advanced the frontiers of flight in the high desert of California.

Accordingly, as the NASA Chief Historian between 1990 and 2002 when the opportunity to update this text and publish it for a broader audience came I strongly encouraged it. While the book was not yet in print when I left NASA to assume new responsibilities at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, I could not be more pleased with the final product. The result is a very impressive book that I would commend to all who have an interest in flight research. I highly recommend it as an up-to-date, authoritative, and exciting account of how the United States went from reciprocating engines on aircraft to the jet age and the hypersonic revolution that is just dawning.