The United States Air Force was late in developing a jet fighter, definitely behind Germany and the United Kingdom. Nevertheless, a small number of Lockheed P-80 Shooting Stars did make it to the European and Mediterraneantheaters of operations before VE Day, although they did not see combat. After the war, the sheer size of the U.S. aviation industry d that American fighters would soon dominate the skies. However, the state of the art was advancing so fast that many development efforts never resulted in production aircraft; concepts that had seemed reasonable, even ideal, at the time were quickly overcome by newer and better technology. In the United States alone, several dozen different fighter designs made it to the prototype stage during the 1950s and 1960s. In this book, Dennis R. Jenkins and Tony R. Landis look at the variety of different jet-fighter concepts developed by the U.S. Air Force after World War II. These pages cover all experimental and prototype

Experimental & Prototype U.S. Air Force Jet Fighters (Specialty Press)

History

Jenkins, Dennis

Landis, Tony

Military

Specialty Press

Nineteen years before Space Shuttle, the small, black, rocket-powered, bullet-shaped X-15 showed it was possible to fly into - and out of - space. There had never been anything like the X-15; it had a million-horsepower engine and could fly twice as fast as a rifle bullet. The X-15 set records that stood for years. 
Specialty Press's bestseller, Hypersonic, has been re-released in a softbound format at a reduced price. This book is the most extensively researched history of the X-15 program yet published. The book was written with the cooperation of surviving X-15 pilots as well as many other program principals and is based on six years of research in Air Force, NASA, and North American archives. It covers the tasks of converting and testing the B-52 carrier airplanes, building the first full-pressure suits to protect the pilot, building the first engineering mission simulators, acquiring the remote lakebed landing sites, and building the radar range. It also covers the flight program in detail, including the most authoritative flight log ever assembled; in many instances, information in this log was derived from the original flight-data recordings. Also covered are each of the experiments that were flown aboard the X-15 late in its career when it became the workhorse of the space program, carrying such things as startrackers destined for the Apollo program and missile-detection systems that would later be sent into orbit on satellites.

Hypersonic: The Story of the North American X-15 (Revised Edition) (Specialty Press)

The U.S. Air Force began developing jet fighters as World War II came to a close. The Cold War that soon developed saw a significant increase in fighter production programs as America tried to counter the perceived Soviet threat. World War II's best piston-powered fighters could barely top speeds in excess of 450 mph. But the post-war jets developed by the U.S. Air Force were soon breaking the sound barrier, flying to Mach 3, and Mach-4-capable aircraft were on the drawing board. U.S. Air Force Prototype Jet Fighters details the evolution of these aircraft, using dozens of never-before-published photographs from government archives.

USAF Prototype Jet Fighters: Photo Scrapbook

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jenkins, Dennis. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Jenkins, Dennis

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Jenkins, Dennis. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Experimental & Prototype U.S. Air Force Jet Fighters (Specialty Press)

Hypersonic: The Story of the North American X-15 (Revised Edition) (Specialty Press)

USAF Prototype Jet Fighters: Photo Scrapbook