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100 1  Hampton, Dan,|eauthor. 
245 10 Chasing the Demon :|bA Secret History of the Quest for the
       Sound Barrier, and the Band of American Aces Who Conquered
       It /|cDan Hampton. 
264  1 [Place of publication not identified] :|bHarperCollins,
       |c[2018] 
264  4 |c©2018 
300    1 online resource (352 pages) 
336    text|btxt|2rdacontent 
337    computer|bc|2rdamedia 
338    online resource|bcr|2rdacarrier 
347    text file|2rdaft 
347    |bEPUB 
506    Access limited to subscribing institutions. 
520    NATIONAL BESTSELLE, 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 barrier-nicknamed 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 one's 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 California's 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 revealed -- until now.
       Chasing the Demon, from decorated fighter pilot and 
       acclaimed aviation historian Dan Hampton, tells, for the 
       first time, the extraordinary true story of mankind's 
       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 Yeager's former 
       commander, as well as declassified files, Hampton presents
       evidence that a fellow American -- George Welch, a daring 
       fighter pilot who shot down a remarkable sixteen enemy 
       aircraft during the Pacific War -- met the demon first, 
       though he was not favored to wear the laurels, 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.". 
588 0  Publisher metadata. 
650  0 High-speed aeronautics|xResearch|zUnited States. 
650  0 Aerodynamics, Supersonic|xResearch|zUnited States. 
650  7 TRANSPORTATION / Aviation / History.|2bisacsh 
655  0 Electronic books. 
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