Customer Reviews

The Smell of Kerosene: A Test Pilot's Odyssey (NASA SP)

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I was disappointed in the book. I expected it to be an exciting documentation of the things that go right and things that go wrong during flight testing, along with detailed "ride in the right seat" descriptions of how he came through the tense moments. Instead it seemed like it was mostly a litany of people he worked with and the designations of plane that they had experience flying. Even the tense moments that were documented failed to evoke emotion in me. They were mostly fairly sterile descriptions of what happened - which is certainly best for the scientific test flight reports, but adds nothing to the desire of the reader to "be there." It is probably this trait that made Mr. Mallick an exceptional test pilot, but, unfortunately, not an exciting author.

Donald Mallick has some very good assessments and descriptions of aircraft he flew during his time in the early 1950's Navy, and then with NACA/NASA, first at Langley, and then at Edwards. Some of those types that he gives more than a passing mention are: Navy SNJ Texan, F6F Hellcat, TO-1(navy's version of the f-80), F2H Banshee, F9F-6 Cougar, JRF Goose, F8U-3 Super Crusader, XB-70 Valkyrie, YF-12/SR-71 Blackbird, and the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle(LLRV).

Here are some excellent descriptive experiences of what it was like to fly some very famous, and not so famous, rare experimental aircraft that there are few descriptions else where. And what it was like to work with many other test pilot personalities and programs, like Joe Walker, Fitz Fulton, and the X-15 program.