A Sky Full of Challenges

Nearly everyone is curious about what makes airplanes fly with confidence-giving predictability. Joe Dobronski has risen to the challenge with this master work that will satisfy many aspects of your curiosity. His prose is in a fun-to-read storyteller style, while introducing you to an impressive array of technical considerations that determine the difference between controllable flying and the uncontrollable that are the consequence of design flaws. Working at the leading edge of knowledge, some design flaws elude the designers, and must be deduced by exceptional pilots who have skill, experience, and superlative alertness to detail. Overcoming obstacles to jet flight, supersonic flight, high altude flight, and fly-by-wire are beautifully described as a progression that includes nearly all successful jet designs by Joe in first-person style that makes for riveting reading. A Sky Full of Challenges reveals what this master test pilot was thinking in several critical phases of helping to develop the famous and dominant F4, F101, AV8 F15, and F18 fighters.

Reading this book is really a feast for everyone curious about what it is like to perform as a test pilot in the development of the world's most sophisticated airplanes. Some of the chapters are especially notable in providing the feeling of being one of those elite pilots. In the two chapters, "Getting a Foot in the Door", and "The Making of a Test Pilot", Joe presents the exemplary narrative of what was involved in developing jets to surpass the "speed of sound barrier", defining the limits of flight (safety margins), and to improvise pilot skill development concurrently, as these complex, interacting tasks had to be done. Necessity was the mother of invention during many development flights for an experimental test pilot. Recounting more-surprising-than-fiction fables of what went wrong and how it was solved (or not) makes these chapters fascinating inside stories for everyone, test pilot or not. After reading these chapters and experiencing the thought stream, who can fail to regard these test pilots as extraordinary men and true aeronautical heroes?

This book is thus not only a fascinating insight into how to test jet aircraft for success and reliability, but also an inspiring inside account of human achievement at the highest ethical levels. Read a few paragraphs of this book, and you can enter a world that is important, but unknown, to most of the population. Joe's life has indeed been, and continues to be an exciting adventure.

1146223182
A Sky Full of Challenges

Nearly everyone is curious about what makes airplanes fly with confidence-giving predictability. Joe Dobronski has risen to the challenge with this master work that will satisfy many aspects of your curiosity. His prose is in a fun-to-read storyteller style, while introducing you to an impressive array of technical considerations that determine the difference between controllable flying and the uncontrollable that are the consequence of design flaws. Working at the leading edge of knowledge, some design flaws elude the designers, and must be deduced by exceptional pilots who have skill, experience, and superlative alertness to detail. Overcoming obstacles to jet flight, supersonic flight, high altude flight, and fly-by-wire are beautifully described as a progression that includes nearly all successful jet designs by Joe in first-person style that makes for riveting reading. A Sky Full of Challenges reveals what this master test pilot was thinking in several critical phases of helping to develop the famous and dominant F4, F101, AV8 F15, and F18 fighters.

Reading this book is really a feast for everyone curious about what it is like to perform as a test pilot in the development of the world's most sophisticated airplanes. Some of the chapters are especially notable in providing the feeling of being one of those elite pilots. In the two chapters, "Getting a Foot in the Door", and "The Making of a Test Pilot", Joe presents the exemplary narrative of what was involved in developing jets to surpass the "speed of sound barrier", defining the limits of flight (safety margins), and to improvise pilot skill development concurrently, as these complex, interacting tasks had to be done. Necessity was the mother of invention during many development flights for an experimental test pilot. Recounting more-surprising-than-fiction fables of what went wrong and how it was solved (or not) makes these chapters fascinating inside stories for everyone, test pilot or not. After reading these chapters and experiencing the thought stream, who can fail to regard these test pilots as extraordinary men and true aeronautical heroes?

This book is thus not only a fascinating insight into how to test jet aircraft for success and reliability, but also an inspiring inside account of human achievement at the highest ethical levels. Read a few paragraphs of this book, and you can enter a world that is important, but unknown, to most of the population. Joe's life has indeed been, and continues to be an exciting adventure.

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A Sky Full of Challenges

A Sky Full of Challenges

by Joseph Dobronski
A Sky Full of Challenges

A Sky Full of Challenges

by Joseph Dobronski

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Overview

Nearly everyone is curious about what makes airplanes fly with confidence-giving predictability. Joe Dobronski has risen to the challenge with this master work that will satisfy many aspects of your curiosity. His prose is in a fun-to-read storyteller style, while introducing you to an impressive array of technical considerations that determine the difference between controllable flying and the uncontrollable that are the consequence of design flaws. Working at the leading edge of knowledge, some design flaws elude the designers, and must be deduced by exceptional pilots who have skill, experience, and superlative alertness to detail. Overcoming obstacles to jet flight, supersonic flight, high altude flight, and fly-by-wire are beautifully described as a progression that includes nearly all successful jet designs by Joe in first-person style that makes for riveting reading. A Sky Full of Challenges reveals what this master test pilot was thinking in several critical phases of helping to develop the famous and dominant F4, F101, AV8 F15, and F18 fighters.

Reading this book is really a feast for everyone curious about what it is like to perform as a test pilot in the development of the world's most sophisticated airplanes. Some of the chapters are especially notable in providing the feeling of being one of those elite pilots. In the two chapters, "Getting a Foot in the Door", and "The Making of a Test Pilot", Joe presents the exemplary narrative of what was involved in developing jets to surpass the "speed of sound barrier", defining the limits of flight (safety margins), and to improvise pilot skill development concurrently, as these complex, interacting tasks had to be done. Necessity was the mother of invention during many development flights for an experimental test pilot. Recounting more-surprising-than-fiction fables of what went wrong and how it was solved (or not) makes these chapters fascinating inside stories for everyone, test pilot or not. After reading these chapters and experiencing the thought stream, who can fail to regard these test pilots as extraordinary men and true aeronautical heroes?

This book is thus not only a fascinating insight into how to test jet aircraft for success and reliability, but also an inspiring inside account of human achievement at the highest ethical levels. Read a few paragraphs of this book, and you can enter a world that is important, but unknown, to most of the population. Joe's life has indeed been, and continues to be an exciting adventure.


Product Details

BN ID: 2940033232086
Publisher: Joseph Dobronski SR.
Publication date: 03/15/2012
Sold by: Smashwords
Format: eBook
File size: 5 MB

About the Author

J.F. "JOE" DOBRONSKI graduated from high school in western Pennsylvania and entered the NavyV-5 Program in 1945. He attended Worchester Polytechnic Institute and Cornell Univ. prior to preflight. He was designated a Naval Aviator 1947. Joe flew in VA-1L and VX-3 prior to discharge in 1949 and then the Naval Reserve until 1954. After graduation from Northrop Aeronautical Institute in 1951, he worked as a Flight Test Engineer at McDonnell Aircraft in St Louis; became a production test pilot in 1953 flying the F2H Banshee, and was promoted to experimental pilot after graduation from the USAF Test Pilot's School in 1954. As an experimental test pilot, and later Chief Test Pilot in 1966, he helped develop the Demon, Voodoo, Phantom II, Eagle, Harrier, Hornet and other experimental aircraft and a three jet helicopter. Joe became Director of Test Operations in 1972 and Director of Flight Test and Operations in 1976. Following retirement in 1984, he became Chief Pilot for Wings of Hope, a humanitarian organization where he worked for fifteen years. He flew medical missions in Central America, and also delivered aircraft for missions in Belize, Botswana South Africas, and the Galapagos Islands. With over 1700 hours instructing, he was awarded the FAA Central Region Flight Instructor of the Year 2000 Award. He is a Fellow in the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and was granted an Honorary Doctorate Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. He is actively instructing aerobatics and sailplanes in which he holds the Diamond C award. In 1998, he self-published the book titled "A Sky Full of Challenges" (web page www.omnishops.com/TestPilot). Joe married Virginia Hausmann in 1957 and lives at 1008 Cla-Ter-Ri Drive; Ballwin, MO 63011. Joe and Ginny have four children, nine grand-children and five great grand-children.

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