SP-4220 Wingless
Flight: The Lifting Body Story
Foreword
- [v] When Dale Reed
asked me to write the foreword to his book, Wingless Flight: The
Lifting Body Story, I had to think back a long ways to remember
the day that Paul Bikle asked me to fly the M2-F1 lifting body. It
was a very interesting program that would give a space vehicle
similar to the present day space shuttle the ability to maneuver.
During the time that the lifting body program was being flown,
space capsules were re-entering the Earth's atmosphere in a
ballistic path and had very little ability to maneuver.
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- The concept behind the lifting body
program was to investigate the ability of the pilot to land in a
horizontal mode which required an excessive angle of attack to
flare. I enjoyed flying the lifting body and probably found it
easier to fly than most pilots because of my experience with the
XF-92 airplane which landed with extremely high angles of attack
similar to those later experienced with lifting bodies.
-
- Dale's book covers the warm things that go
on during the test programs at Edwards Air Force Base, California.
Dale has emphasized the cooperative effort that must take place
between the people he calls the Real Stuff (people who create and
service the flying machines) and the Right Stuff (pilots who fly
the machines). Most of the NASA lifting body crews (about 90
percent) were made up of ex-military mechanics and technicians,
mostly Air Force and of excellent caliber. I owe a deep debt of
gratitude to many an aircraft crew chief in my career. These crew
chiefs provided me with aircraft in first-class condition to fly
by working themselves and their people long hours to stay on
schedule.
-
- Test pilots, on the other hand, were a
different story. Dale, being a pilot himself could see the
undercurrent that flows in the macho world of test pilots.
Competition has always existed between pilots. There was a special
kind of competition between Air Force and NASA test pilots, and
Dale has covered it very well in this book.
-
- The lifting body story covers a little
known period at Edwards Air Force Base, and it fills a gap during
the transition from space capsules to maneuvering space
vehicles.
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- Chuck Yeager B/Gen., USAF, Ret.
