Customer Reviews

Road to Mach 10: Lessons Learned from the X-43a Flight Research Program (Library of Flight Series)

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Curtis Peebles wrote this book about the Hyper-X based on his unique vantage point as NASA project historian. Based on internal and published documents, interviews with project participants and his own personal observations, the book offers a detailed insider's view of one of the most exciting flight research projects in several decades. As befits a book published by an organization of aerospace engineering professionals, this book is highly technical in places. While not an engineering textbook, the author assumes that the reader has a good background in the full range of aerospace technologies. If the sentence "The computational-fluid-dynamics data were used to quantify the ground-to-flight scaling and unsteady-flow phenomena during the dynamic separation." fazes you, this book might not be for you.

For those who are undaunted by the required level of technical knowledge, the reader is rewarded with a detailed but readable story that begins with a background of scramjet research and continues on to Hyper-X design, manufacturing, integration and checkout, and flight operations. The first flight tumbled out of control shortly after release from the B-52, but the second and third flights successfully demonstrated scramjet-powered flight at Mach 6.83 and 9.68 respectively. Peebles provides an excellent description of all the missions as well as the mishap investigation.

There is an adequate number of good photographs in the book. Unfortunately the photographs are reproduced in black and white rather in color. A more significant omission is the absence of line drawings of the vehicles and its systems. At several points in the book, intricate mechanisms are described, but with no supporting illustrations it is difficult for even the intended audience to visualize the systems.

Quibbles about illustrations aside, this book is an outstanding recounting of an exciting and notable project. Those with a professional interest in modern flight research at the leading edge of technology will benefit greatly from reading it.