Flight research takes up where the other instruments of
aeronautical research -- wind tunnels, fluid dynamics, and
mathematical analyses -- leave off. No matter how the equations
suggest it ought to fly, only by studying actual flight, often
demanding complicated and dangerous maneuvers, can researchers
discover the limits of flight and the true characteristics of
experimental flight vehicles. The National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics (1915) and its successor, The National Aeronautic and
Space Act (1958) were created to find out.
Expanding the Envelope is the first book to explore the full
panorama of flight research history, from the earliest attempts by
such nineteenth-century practitioners as England's Sir George
Cayley, who tested his kites and gliders by subjecting them to
experimental flight, to the cutting-edge aeronautical research
conducted by the NACA and NASA.
NASA historian Michael H. Gorn explores the vital human aspect
of the history of flight research, including such well-known
figures as James H. Doolittle, Chuck Yeager, and A. Scott
Crossfield, as well as the less heralded engineers, pilots, and
scientists who also had the "Right Stuff". While the individuals in
the cockpit often receive the lion's share of the public's
attention, Expanding the Envelope shows flight research to be a
collaborative engineering activity, one in which the pilot
participates as just one of many team members.
Here is more than a century of flight research, from well before
the creation of NACA to its rapid transformation under NASA. Gorn
gives a behind-the-scenes look at the development of groundbreaking
vehicles such as the X-1, the D-558, and the X-15, which
demonstrated mannedflight at speeds up to Mach 6.7 and as high as
the edge of space.
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