Flight TestingA forum for test pilots, flight test engineers, observers, telemetry and instrumentation engineers and anybody else involved in the demanding and complex business of testing aeroplanes, helicopters and equipment.
This is the thread for us to post book reviews. For anything like this, we need a few ground rules, so here they are:
(1) Books must have some relation to flight testing. However, this could be textbooks, biographies, histories, technical manuals, even appropriate works of fiction.
(2) There is no maximum length limit, but anything very short is probably unhelpful - say something meaningful.
(3) Duplicate reviews are fine, if you feel that you have something new to say.
(4) If you are the author, you must say so. If this would compromise your PPRuNe anonymity - create another identity to post the review.
(5) Please start each review with the title, author(s), and (if there is one) ISBN number. If you can, please also include the price and link to somewhere it can be purchased, if it's still in print, or downloaded if it's available online.
(6) If you are going to criticise books (or praise them), back it up with clear reasons, but strong criticism is no reason not to post. Reviews will however be moderated on grounds of over-shortness, illiteracy, irrelevance to flight testing or personal abuse. Those are the only reasons I hope that there should be any need to moderate.
(7) Please don't post discussion about reviews in this thread. Either post an alternative review, or create a new thread for discussion about a particular book.
Needless to say, this post will remain a sticky at the top of the page - please everybody make good use of it.
A posting on this excellent thread is overdue, so I shall begin...
I have just finished reading: Back to the Drawing Board, Aircraft Which Flew, But Never Tookoff, by: Bill Gunston. ISBN 0-7603-0316-9
I just purchased it as a used book, from the Museum of Aviation in Ottawa, but I am certain it was the only copy there, and not in their normal stock. It was suspiciously low priced at $10, worth much more!
I have very much enjoyed it, and recommend it.
It provides brief descriptions of the characteristics of about 90 types of fixed and rotor wing aircraft, from all eras and nations. There are detailed insights as the reasons why the particular aircraft was not a success in it's intended application. In many cases, the failing was design related, and revealed during initial testing. The author's description of some of the simple characteristics which were inadequate, is helpful in furthering the understanding of aircraft and cockpit design. An example of this is a reference to a particular aircraft being difficult to fly, because certain secondary cockpit controls were located on the wrong side, so crossing hands on the controls was necessary, at the least opportune phases of flight. Anyone involved in design and testing would surely appreciate this random insights.
Thanks for the thread Genghis, it's a great idea! I'll have more entries in the times to come...
I would very strongly recommend ' Test Pilots - The History of British Test Flying 1903 - 84 ' by Don Middleton, Collins Willow press, ISBN 0-00-218098-7.
The late D.Middleton was a pilot himself, and a very good author - this book is simply the best of it's type I have ever come across by a very wide margin.
It is never over-sensational, while comprehensively covering the story of how Test Flying developed, citing some quite remarkable feats and escapes ( and the inevitable tragedies ) while using them not just to entertain, but to drive home in a slightly understated way just what risks and achievements have been accomplished, both by aircrew and design & engineering staff - along with less successful projects.
The book is out of print, but fairly easily available at the usual places for quite reasonable amounts ( I have given secondhand copies to several people, who seem to agree with me ).
Perhaps an idea of my opinion of it is, if suffering a fire, it would be the first book I would grab to save, and I am constantly referring to it now I'm a museum volunteer !
' Tests of Character, Epic Flights by Legendary Test Pilots ' by the same author, Airlife, ISBN 1-85310-481-7 is very similar, and also very good, inevitably with some duplication - I'd say get both, but if only one, it has to be ' Test Pilots '.
The First Jet Pilot – the story of German test pilot Erich Warsitz, by Lutz Warsitz (his son) Pen & Sword ISBN 978-1-84415-818-8
This book tells the extraordinary story of how the world’s first rocket and jet-propelled aircraft were built and flown, just before the second world war. Much of it is written in the first person from Erich Warsitz’s notes, backed up by interviews of Erich and other key personnel by his son. Working closely with Von Braun, Von Ohain and Dr Heinkel, Warsitz volunteered to fly the first trials of a spectacularly unstable experimental rocket motor, installed in the rear of a He 112.
Next comes the really scary part of the story: the He 176, which became the first aircraft to fly by rocket power alone in March 1939. Warsitz tells how this tiny aircraft was built around him, with a cockpit so small that he could only operate the switches on the opposite side from his arms. The seating position was semi reclined to cope with the expected G forces, and the cockpit was designed to separate if the pilot needed to abandon the aircraft. The sequence of actions required to separate the cockpit then escape from it by parachute would have required far more altitude than the aircraft ever attained in practice. The aircraft flew a number of short flights from Peenemunde, and was demonstrated to Hitler and his generals, but Udet considered the flights too dangerous and stopped the programme.
Warsitz went on to make the first flights of the He178 – the world’s first jet powered aircraft – in August 1939, just before the outbreak of war. The book briefly touches on Warsitz’s later career. After a spell of instructing, a flying accident and health problems forced him to devote his time to a family engineering business for the remainder of the war. At the end of the war he was kidnapped by the Russians. He refused to cooperate with their work on rockets and jet so suffered harsh conditions in Siberia until his release in 1950. He died in 1983.
The Wrong Stuff is a short read by the late Cdr John Moore, USN.
Moore begins his book telling the story of being on the carrier USS Essex with a Banshee coming in with an emergency. Moore's squadron was flying Panthers and on the straight deck, they had to taxi the airplanes clear for the Banshee to land. Moore was in the cockpit when the Banshee landed long, hot and crashed into the Panthers on the forward deck. Moore was not only burned but tossed overboard into the water 70ft below. He was fortunate. Many did not survive.
Moore writes about flying such machines as the F7U "Gutless" and how the first models were so underpowered, the final turn to the carrier was made with occasional punches of the afterburner (reheat) to maintain speed. In a later chapter Moore writes about landing a Cutlass that has the nosegear collapse. When this happens, the fuselage breaks just aft the cockpit. Moore is tossed forward and with his hands on the throttles, they are slammed into burner. When the fuselage breaks, the throttle linkage is destroyed so the Cutlass is in burner and beginning to move. Moore is able to get out of the airplane before it takes on a life of its own, catches fire and is destroyed. Everyone is sure Moore is dead... but he has once again escaped.
Moore writes about flying Hellcats, Bearcats, Tigercats and is in one of the first Navy units to get the Lockheed F-80 renamed the TO-1. He is an instructor.
He later joins North American and flies the RA-5C Vigilante, the T-2 Buckeye as well as the FJ-4 Fury. He is also around when the fire kills three astronauts in the Apollo program. Like many mid-level managers, he gets sacked in the clean sweep after the accident. Moore died in the late 1990s.
The book is a quick read and Moore's insight to the dangers of test flight, his comments on various machines and his overall view of life makes for a decent read.
published 1997 by Special Press Publishers
ISBN 1-883809-10-x
Last edited by Genghis the Engineer : 26th February 2009 at 12:24.
Reason: tidyness.
Thoroughly absorbing account of the life and times of those involved in the early days of the space programme as related by probably the greatest of NASA's Flight Directors.
Whilst Kranz's book doesn't have the evocative prose and drama of Tom Wolfe's "The Right Stuff" (Which I'm surprised hasn't been posted on here yet!) it does contain a wealth of technical information in an easy-to-understand format.
Reading this book certainly gives you an impression of what it must have been like to have worked on a test flying project of a completely unknown nature. They were all learning as they went along and procedures evolved at an incredible pace.
Kranz takes us through his early days of flying the F-86 and F-100, through his Flight Test days on the F-101 Voodoo project and finally onto NASA and the now legendary Moon landings that marked the culmination of all the effort and hard work of those involved.
Not exactly written like a Dale Brown or a Tom Clancy, but all the better for it.I enjoyed it enormously. Well worth a punt.
Trained in the halcyon days of the '30s on Tigers, Atlas' and Siskins, Dixi Dean was posted to a bomber squadron equipped with the ludicrous HP Hinaidi and subsequently Heyfords. Specialising later in armaments he found himself at Martlesham Heath as the Second World War broke, a Weapons Development Engineer.
At the end of Chamberlain's historic broadcast his CO told him to "get into that Blenhiem over there, go low level to Boscombe Down, and say nothing to anyone"...Despite protests that he'd never flown a Blenhiem before he did so, and set a trend that he'd follow for the rest of the war.
There followed a hectic five years taken up with solving the problems of fitting, sighting and operating eight guns into the thin wings of the new fighters, the even harder problem of making canons fit and work in that same space, the endless problems with feed machanisms that were so crucuial to the air war, and the long development of RPs, the unguided Rocket Projectiles that turned the Hurricane into, effectively, a 4 inch artillery battery, and the later Thunderbolt into something resembling a small battleship in terms of hitting power. The triumphs, disappointments, coincidences and miracles that all contributed to the Allied success in the war from the air are carefully documented, as well as the people involved.
All this with constant flight testing of his developments in new aircraft with never a check-out, just jump in, study the "taps" and go straight into a weapons test routine. He flew virtually every type the RAF operated, one engine or four, (and quite a few they didn't, including captured Luftwaffe types) and worked constantly at Boscombe and elsewhere, including a highly successful trip to the USA to co-ordinate the development of his beloved RPs and other weapons, flying all their new types as he went, as well as learning the new-fangled "radio range" system of navigation in corridors called "airways"...He even flew (illegally) on Operations, in P47s, splashing Tiger tanks in Normandy to see how his weapons worked in the field!
This is a superbly well written book done with humour and panache, it has enough technical detail to fascinate, but not so much as to baffle or bore. His zest for flying, his family and the Sercive shines throughout.
This is a highly unusual book, a story of the back-room boys and how they interfaced with the front line. It's not short, 400 pages with notes and Bibliography, but irritatingly no index. It is, however, a ripping good read.
Last edited by Agaricus bisporus : 6th June 2009 at 11:19.
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