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Bill Gunston tells the thrilling story of how test pilots in the USA and UK in the late 1940s first pierced the sound barrier and eventually showed that it need not be a barrier at all. Much has happened since then, and as recently as 2003 thousands of fare-paying passengers were routinely enjoying intercontinental air travel at speeds of up to Mach 2.
Even though much of the theory of supersonic flight was worked out nearly a century ago, nobody was able to explore the difficult transonic region (from Mach 0.8 to 1.2) until the 1950s. As a result, the fastest piston-engine fighters and the earliest jet fighters suffered from potentially dangerous flight characteristics, which cost the lives of many pilots. Yet, by the 1960s military fighter jets were routinely breaking the sound barrier and in 1969 the world's first supersonic passenger transport, Concorde, had its maiden flight.
Bill describes in a simple accessible style the rules and technologies of supersonic flight; ongoing developments in engine and airframe technology that have made supersonic flight practicable and safe; the age of the supersonic passenger transports like Concorde; advances in supersonic fighter and bomber design, including the F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning II, Eurofighter Typhoon and the French Dassault Rafale; and the latest developments in SST design.
Bill looks at the theory and implications of the speed of sound and the concept of the sound barrier, together with examining man's attempts to break this barrier. He covers all aspects of supersonic aircraft - research, military and transport planes - as well as aerospace machines that can operate from ordinary airfields yet fly to the moon, of which the Space Shuttle is an early example. First published by PSL in 1992, this fully illustrated book is a completely revised, updated providing the most complete and up-to-date story of supersonic flight.
Author Bill Gunston OBE is a former RAF pilot and the prolific author of more than 350 published books on aspects of aviation. He is among the top ten non-fiction writers in the UK today. He lives in Surrey.
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