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EDITORIAL INFORMATION

Wingless Flight tells the dramatic story of the most unusual flying machines ever flown. Eight different lifting body configurations were flown at the NASA Flight Research center (FRC) at Edwards, California over a 12 year period form 1963 to 1975. These wingless wonders were all considered flying prototypes or models of future spacecraft that could land like an airplane after the searing heat of reentry from space. Precursors of today's Shuttle, the X-33, and the X-38, the lifting bodies provided technical and operational engineering data that shaped all three space vehicles.

This book is written as a continuing story which puts the reader behind the eyes and ears of a young creative NASA engineer, R. Dale Reed, as he goes day to day working with technicians, engineers, pilots, managers, and politicians in an exciting environment of flight research at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where FRC is a tenant. This book is as much about the "Real Stuff" (people who create and service the flying machines) as it is about Tom Wolfe's "Right Stuff" (the pilots who fly the machines).

(Extracted from the dust jacket.)

GENERAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

-Contents.

-Acknowledgments.

-Foreword.

-Introduction.

-1. The Adventure Begins.

-2. "Flying Bathtub".

-3. Commitment to Risk.

-4. On to the Heavyweights.

-5. Angry Machines.

-6. Back to the Drawing Board.

-7. Wingless Flight Matures.

-8. Lifting-Body Racehorses.

-9. Wingless Flight Lives On.

-Appendix.

-Glossary.

-Bibliography.

-About the Author.

-Index.

-The NASA History Series.