Last Pilot

Winner of the Author's Club Best First Novel Award A Finalist for the East Anglian Book Award for Fiction “The Last Pilot made me cry and brought back all my old Right Stuff feels. A brilliant debut. I loved it.”—Helen Macdonald, author of H is for Hawk Jim Harrison is a test pilot in the United States Air Force, one of the exalted few. He spends his days cheating death in the skies above the Mojave Desert and his nights at his friend Pancho’s bar, often with his wife, Grace. She and Harrison are secretly desperate for a child, and when, unexpectedly, Grace learns that she is pregnant, the two are overjoyed. America becomes swept up in the fervor of the Space Race, while Harrison turns his attention home to welcome his daughter, Florence, into the world. But as he and Grace confront thrills and challenges of parenthood, they are met with sudden tragedy. The aftermath will haunt the Harrisons and strain their marriage, as Jim struggles to make life-and-death decisions under circumstances that are altogether new. Set against the backdrop of one of the most emotionally charged periods in American history, The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock is the mesmerizing story of a couple’s crisis of faith—in themselves, and in each another—and the limits they test to rediscover it.

"My Last Flight Out" is a real story from one of the last pilots (the author) who escaped Viet Nam, a day after the new South Vietnamese government unconditionally surrendered on April 30, 1975. It was a riskiest attempted escape during the country in a chaotic situation a day after American evacuated Saigon. The author traded death for life in his series of actions to do-or-die. Fortunately, he saved not only his life but also his family and about the other 80 women and children left on the remote island Con Son in the last hours. He picked them up and flew his Chinook one-way-out without return to the Pacific Ocean and landed on USS Okinawa carrier at the end of April 30, 1975. "My last Flight Out" is an incredible long survival journey against overwhelming all odds. The story of selfless military leadership with guts, creativities, and perseverance overcame death to live. It is an extraordinary true story of the long and hard surviving journey after the war.

Resulting from the authors’ deep research into these two pre-Shuttle astronaut groups, many intriguing and untold stories behind the selection process are revealed in the book. The often extraordinary backgrounds and personal ambitions of these skilled pilots, chosen to continue NASA’s exploration and knowledge of the space frontier, are also examined. In April 1966 NASA selected 19 pilot astronauts whose training was specifically targeted to the Apollo lunar landing missions and the Earth-orbiting Skylab space station. Three years later, following the sudden cancellation of the USAF’s highly classified Manned Orbiting Laboratory (MOL) project, seven military astronauts were also co-opted into NASA’s space program. This book represents the final chapter by the authors in the story of American astronaut selections prior to the era of the Space Shuttle. Through personal interviews and original NASA documentation, readers will also gain a true insight into a remarkable age of space travel as it unfolded in the late 1960s, and the men who flew those historic missions.

*A NATIONAL BESTSELLER!* The New York Post calls The Last Fighter Pilot a "must-read" book. From April to August of 1945, Captain Jerry Yellin and a small group of fellow fighter pilots flew dangerous bombing and strafe missions out of Iwo Jima over Japan. Even days after America dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, the pilots continued to fly. Though Japan had suffered unimaginable devastation, the emperor still refused to surrender. Bestselling author Don Brown (Treason) sits down with Yelllin, now ninety-three years old, to tell the incredible true story of the final combat mission of World War II. Nine days after Hiroshima, on the morning of August 14th, Yellin and his wingman 1st Lieutenant Phillip Schlamberg took off from Iwo Jima to bomb Tokyo. By the time Yellin returned to Iwo Jima, the war was officially over—but his young friend Schlamberg would never get to hear the news. The Last Fighter Pilot is a harrowing first-person account of war from one of America's last living World War II veterans.

Flying at 18, demobbed at 20, Semple's astonishing experience has been meticulously put into context. How do you fly a Handley Page across France in total darkness? The answer is the 'Lighthouse system', just one of the revelations in this unique record of ingenuity and courage.

This paper addresses situation awareness (SA) as it relates to surveillance activities in commercial air carriers. The concept of SA in aerospace operations and relevant literature are reviewed and critiqued. Four different approaches that are used to explain SA are examined, and the three major SA measurement techniques and their respective subcategories are described. Research that has explored these techniques is reviewed, and the shortcomings of the measures are discussed in terms of relevant psychology measurement criteria (e.g., validity). Several components of SA also are discussed because they appear to relate to surveillance activities. Research related to these components is reviewed, and a summary that focuses on the current state of SA research is provided, along with an evaluation about the future of SA research and applications.

World War I air warfare as told by a 20th century paraplegic pilot and the two guardian angels that protect him in flight. One angel is German and the other American.