Test Pilots: The Frontiersmen of Flight

by Richard P. Hallion

"If you really wish to learn" wrote Wilbur Wright, "you must mount a machine and become acquainted with its tricks by actual trial". And even before the Wright Flyer took off on its history-making first flight, intrepid researchers had been testing many different flying the hapless tower jumpers of the Dark Ages; the balloonist of the eighteenth century; the glider builders of the nineteenth. In Test Pilots, Richard P. Hallion chronicles the history of test pilots from these early explorers to today's military men.

Genres: Aviation

347 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Richard P. Hallion is Senior Adviser for Air and Space Issues, Directorate for Security, Counterintelligence and Special Programs Oversight, the Pentagon, Washington, D.C.