FIGHTER PILOT’S HEAVEN(ISBN=)

　　Fighter Pilot’s Heaven presents the dramatic inside story of
the American military’s transition into the jet age, as told by a
flyer whose life depended on its success. With colorful anecdotes
about fellow pilots as well as precise technical information,
Donald S. Lopez describes how it was to be “behind the stick” as a
test pilot from 1945 to 1950, when the U.S. military was shifting
from war to peacetime operations and from propeller to jet
aircraft.
　　An ace pilot who had served with Gen. Claire Chennault’s Flying
Tiger Fighter Group, Lopez was assigned at the close of World War
II to the elite Proof Test Group of the Air Proving Ground Command.
Located at Eglin Field (later Eglin Air Force Base) in Florida, the
group determined the operational suitability of Air Force weapons
systems and aircraft and tested the first operational jet, the P-80
Shooting Star. Jet fighters required new techniques, tactics, and
weaponry. Lopez recounts historic test flights in the P-59, P-80,
and P-84, among other planes, describing complex combat maneuvers,
hair-raising landings in unusual positions, and disastrous crashes
and near crashes. This memoir is peppered with lively accounts of
many pilots and their colleagues, revealing how airmen coped with
both exhilarating successes and sometimes tragic failures.