George J Marrett: 3 books

A test pilot for Howard Hughes separates fact from fiction to tell the inside story of the aviation genius who set speed records in the 1930s and went on to develop some of America’s most famous aircraft and weapons. George Marrett draws on his wealth of experiences and those of other Hughes confidants...

In Contrails over the Mojave George Marrett takes off where Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff ended in 1963. Marrett started the Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards AFB only two weeks after the school’s commander, Col. Chuck Yeager, ejected from a Lockheed NF-104 trying to set a world altitude record....

They flew low and slow, at treetop level, at night, in monsoons, and in point-blank range of enemy guns and missiles. They were missions no one else wanted, but the ones all other pilots prayed for when shot down. Flying the World War II-vintage Douglas A-1 Skyraider, a single-engine, propeller-driven...