Testing Death
eBook - PDF

Testing Death

Hughes Aircraft Test Pilots and Cold War Weaponry

  1. 240 pages
  2. English
  3. PDF
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Testing Death

Hughes Aircraft Test Pilots and Cold War Weaponry

About this book

In 1969, after his return from Vietnam, George Marrett took a job as a test pilot at Hughes Aircraft. For twenty years, he tested the most sophisticated airborne radar and missiles ever designed for advanced Navy and Air Force aircraft. Marrett's masterful command of storytelling puts the reader in the cockpit during the F-15, F-16, and F-18 weapons systems flyoff, as well as during the firing of a Mach 3 Phoenix missile from an F-14A Tomcat at a Soviet MiG Foxbat target. In addition to the weaponry, Marrett relives stories of espionage, deadly crashes, and the development of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber radar. He combines the thrill of test flying with the pathos, humor, and tragedy that is the everyday life of a test pilot, showing how the Cold War was actually won in the skies above Southern California. The background to Marrett's tale is the story of Hughes Aircraft. While Howard Hughes's huge and unwieldy Spruce Goose never made it into World War II, the Radio Department he started grew to become the electronics giant Hughes Aircraft Company. By the 1950s, Hughes Aircraft built airborne radar and missiles for all of the Air Force interceptors stationed on the East and West Coasts and along the border with Canada to defend the United States from Soviet bombers. In the years that followed, the company built airborne radar for the Navy F-14A Tomcat, the Air Force F-15A Eagle, the Navy F-18A Hornet and the B-2 stealth bomber. They also built the Navy air-to-air AIM-54 Phenix and the Air Force air-to-ground AGM-65 Maverick missiles. These advanced electronic weapons were developed and fielded during President Reagan's massive buildup of military might. Even though Hughes himself did not live to see the Berlin Wall fall in 1989, the company he built made an essential contribution to the collapse of communism.

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Yes, you can access Testing Death by George J. Marrett in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Military & Maritime History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
Praeger
Year
2006
Print ISBN
9780275990664
eBook ISBN
9780313081194

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Foreword by D. Kenneth Richardson
  3. Preface
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. 1 Sore Feet
  6. 2 Jet Pilot
  7. 3 Combat and the F-15 Eagle Fly-Off
  8. 4 The Impossible Journey
  9. 5 Ace of the Test Range
  10. 6 Bombing the Blue Eel Railroad Bridge
  11. 7 Flying Dumbo
  12. 8 Gathering of Eagles and One Turkey
  13. 9 California Dreamin’
  14. 10 Hitting the Jackpot in Vegas
  15. 11 A Hornet with Two Stings
  16. 12 The Dream
  17. Epilogue
  18. Bibliography
  19. Index
  20. A photo essay follows page 68.