Bøker utgitt av Donald Pickinpaugh

What is it like to wrestle with a Dragon or dance with a Lady? This is the challenge all U-2 pilots must face when flying the Lockheed U-2 Dragon Lady.When first seeing the aircraft, the plane resembles an awkward albatross bird from a prehistoric age. The Dragon Lady is always the most unique aircraft on any military ramp. She has 104 feet of wing span across her tiny fuselage. Two wheels make up her landing gear. Like a bicycle, one wheel is in the front and the other near the rear. Usually, the first question at airshows is, "How can the airplane stay upright on the runway?" Our only reply is, "You have to keep the wings level on landing, otherwise the Dragon will come alive." The U-2 may not be pretty on terra firma, but she was never born to stay on the ground. In the air, the Dragon Lady has a whole new personality. She will climb to the heavens with no stops in between. A little over 1,000 pilots have soared to the upper limits of our atmosphere alone in the U-2. All pilots have to make a reckoning with the Dragon, sooner or later. Hopefully, with experience, her occupants get to dance with the Lady more often than having to battle the Dragon.This book describes our missions and what it is like to fly the most challenging aircraft in the United States Air Force. Grab your spacesuit and let's head out for an adventure of a lifetime.

There I was as my arm jerked forward, and a new sensation filled my mind-panic. Thoughts filled my head quickly: today I'm going to die, this is it, this airplane is going to blow up any second, we are sitting on thousands of pounds of fuel (55,000 to be exact), GET OUT!Imagine flying 500 knots just above the trees when the left engine fire light suddenly comes on. Pilots of Valor takes you inside the cockpit of a high-performance military aircraft when everything starts to go wrong, seriously wrong. We invite you inside the world of a military pilot's day at work.Military aviation is described as many hours of boredom while occasionally interrupted by moments of sheer terror. This book is a collection of those few moments of terror. The pilots tell some stories and describe how they reacted in the face of death. Some stories recount events in the heat of combat, while others speak of missions that began as routine flights. This book includes ten Medal of Honor recipients from Vietnam. In all circumstances, these pilots put their lives on the line for their country, and, in some cases, they lost them.