Chasing the Demon: A Secret History of the Quest for the Sound Barrier, and the Band of American Aces Who Conquered It

Chasing the Demon is a national bestseller that tells the true story of a group of aces who gathered in the Mojave Desert in 1947 to break the sound barrier. The US military conducted a highly classified program on a desolate air base in California to push the envelope of flight to new frontiers. The program was shrouded in secrecy, but two months later, the "barrier" was broken. Captain Chuck Yeager was the first to achieve supersonic flight, but George Welch, a fellow American fighter pilot, met the demon first. The book sets the race between Yeager and Welch in the context of aviation history, allowing readers to learn and appreciate their accomplishments as never before.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 352 pages
Publication date: 11 July 2019
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Inc

At the close of World War II, a group of aces assembled in the Mojave Desert on a top-secret mission to shatter the sound barrier, known as "The Demon" by pilots. The real events of what transpired in those skies have never been told.
Speed. In 1947, it was the difference between triumph and annihilation.
Following Hiroshima, the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon to its target faster than the enemy became the sole obsession of American war planners. As a result, a highly classified program was conducted on a barren air base in California's Mojave Desert in the early days of the Cold War. Its goal: to push the boundaries of flight to new heights. An extraordinary group of pilots, including Second World War aces Chuck Yeager and George Welch, gathered there, risking their lives by flying experimental aircraft to reach Mach 1, the so-called sound barrier, which pilots referred to as "the demon."
The US military reluctantly disclosed that the "barrier" had been broken two months later, after the story was leaked to the press. The full truth has never been fully revealed—until now.
Chasing the Demon, by decorated fighter pilot and acclaimed aviation historian Dan Hampton, tells, for the first time, the extraordinary true story of mankind's quest for Mach 1. Here, of course, is 24-year-old Captain Chuck Yeager, who made history by flying the futuristic Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound on October 14, 1947. Yeager was officially recognized as the first person to achieve supersonic flight, but Hampton presents evidence from new interviews with survivors of the program, including Yeager's former commander, as well as declassified files, that a fellow American, George Welch, a daring fighter pilot who shot down sixteen enemy.

Weight: 292g
Dimension: 134 x 202 x 22 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780062688736