Chasing the Demon: A Secret History of the Quest for the Sound Barrier, and the Band of American Aces Who Conquered It

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NATIONAL BESTSELLER At the end of World War II, a band of aces gathered in the Mojave Desert on a Top Secret quest to break the sound barriernicknamed "The Demon" by pilots. The true story of what happened in those skies has never been told.

Speed. In 1947, it represented the difference between victory and annihilation.

After Hiroshima, the ability to deliver a nuclear device to its target faster than ones enemy became the singular obsession of American war planners. And so, in the earliest days of the Cold War, a highly classified program was conducted on a desolate air base in Californias Mojave Desert. Its aim: to push the envelope of flight to new frontiers. There gathered an extraordinary band of pilots, including Second World War aces Chuck Yeager and George Welch, who risked their lives flying experimental aircraft to reach Mach 1, the so-called sound barrier, which pilots called the demon.

Shrouding the program in secrecy, the US military reluctantly revealed that the barrier had been broken two months later, after the story was leaked to the press. The full truth has never been fully revealeduntil now.

Chasing the Demon, from decorated fighter pilot and acclaimed aviation historian Dan Hampton, tells, for the first time, the extraordinary true story of mankinds quest for Mach 1. Here, of course, is twenty-four-year-old Captain Chuck Yeager, who made history flying the futuristic Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound on October 14, 1947. Officially Yeager was the first to achieve supersonic flight, but drawing on new interviews with survivors of the program, including Yeagers former commander, as well as declassified files, Hampton presents evidence that a fellow AmericanGeorge Welch, a daring fighter pilot who shot down a remarkable sixteen enemy aircraft during the Pacific Warmet the demon first, though he was not favored to wear thelaurels, as he was now a civilian test pilot and was not flying the Bell X-1.

Chasing the Demon sets the race between Yeager and Welch in the context of aviation history, so that the reader can learn and appreciate their accomplishments as never before.

Reviews

Impressive. ... Finely honed. ... Technically astute. ... Offers insight into the challenges faced by daring men who conqueredthe demon. Aviation History Chasing the Demon flows very smoothly and tells a great story about the pioneers of high-speed flight, primarily from the pilots perspective. JOHN D. ANDERSON, JR., curator of aerodynamics at the Smithsonian Institutions National Air and Space Museum

Author Bio

The New York Times bestselling author of Viper Pilot, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Dan Hampton flew 151 combat missions during his twenty years in the USAF (1986-2006). For his service in the Iraq War, Kosovo conflict, and first Gulf War, Col. Hampton received four Distinguished Flying Crosses with Valor, a Purple Heart, eight Air Medals with Valor, five Meritorious Service Medals, and numerous other citations.