Product Details
This is the history of fighter aircraft that transitioned the United States Air Force into the supersonic era. By 1952, fighter designations that started with the Curtiss P-1 in 1923, reached the century mark with the North American F-100 - thus the term Century Series. This occurred at the very point where operational fighters could exceed the speed of sound. The useful lives of the six century series aircraft that saw operational service were long and varied - one performing its military role almost fifty years after its prototype first took to the air. Even today, current production fighters barely surpass the speeds and altitudes at which these aircraft flew. The Century Series story is also one that moves past their initial operational period and into the war in Vietnam. This book includes first-hand accounts by the men who flew intercept missions in the F-102 and F-106.
