X-Plane Crashes: Exploring the Experimental

Experimental test flying is like no other type of aviation, for everything ever done to, with, or by an airplane had to be accomplished for the very first time by a test pilot. In the early days of the supersonic era immediately following World War II, daring and courageous men did things in airplanes that had never been done before while reaching for speeds and altitudes that had been pure science fiction only several years earlier, and many of these men perished in the process while ground-bound engineers learned what worked and what didn't. This book takes you to the very last places that many of the world's most pioneering airplanes ever touched the earth, and in many cases employs both archival and modern photography to show the reader these locations as they appeared immediately after the crash, and then as they look today. Additionally, comprehensive appendices accompany these stories containing a vast storehouse of information on each and every accident that took place in the barren stretches of the Mojave and beyond, from 1930 to the present. With deep reverence and respect for the sanctity and history of these sites as well as the people being memorialized, authors Peter W. Merlin and Tony Moore-better known today as the X-Hunters-carefully combed the ground for evidence of what happened in those final fateful seconds of flight that ended there decades ago. In so doing, they discovered valuable and compelling pieces of aeronautical puzzles that, when fully assembled, represented some of the most exotic and revolutionary aircraft ever flown.