Chasing the Demon: A Secret History of the Quest for The Sound Barrier, and the Band of American Aces Who Conquered It
New York: Morrow, 2018. First edition. Hardcover. First edition, first printing. Hardcover. Illustrated endpapers. 331 pp. with bibliography, index. Illustrated with photographs. Fine in bright, crisp dust jacket with a tiny nick foot of spine. After Hiroshima, the ability to deliver a nuclear device to its target faster than one's enemy became a singular obsession of American war planners. From this aim, in the early days of the Cold War came a highly classified program conducted on an air base in California's Mojave Desert. There gathered an extraordinary band of WWII aces, including Chuck Yeager and George Welch, who flew experimental aircraft to reach Mach 1, the so-called sound barrier, which pilots called "the demon". Though the US military reluctantly revealed, after a leak to the press' that the "barrier" had been broken, the project remained shrouded in secrecy. This work reveals the truth behind it. Author Dan Hampton, himself a decorated fighter pilot and aviation historian, relied on interviews of still-living members of the program as well as declassified files. Fine / fine. Item #E34399
ISBN: 9780062688729
Price: $17.95