Earlier Days Flying

The gripping memoirs of United States Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Thomas McElmurry: fighter and test pilot; NASA's Chief, Flight Crew Operations, Office of Manned Space Flight and Director of Flight Crew Operations, Skylab.

Join McElmurry as he takes you on his journey from the early days of military flight (enlisting in the Army at the age of seventeen before the founding of the Air Force), through his assignments and close calls around the world with the Air Force, to the inception of NASA. Obsessed with the skies, this adrenaline junkie only ever wanted to fly. So that's what he did.

In his memoirs, McElmurry talks about his escapades with Frank Borman, Buck Buchanan, Jim McDivitt, Chuck Yeager, Deke Slayton, and other legends; his involvement with the Sidewinder Missile Project, and a host of other fascinating accounts - many of which are relayed here for the first time.

Immerse yourself in McElmurry's adventures in times of war and peace. You are guaranteed to smile at times and open your eyes wide in shock at others. Over six decades of flying are brought to life in these pages.

"My plan was to put down 20 degrees of flaps and come over the tops of the hills with the aircraft nose depressed and all guns firing. I never pulled the trigger. Every gun in the battery must have had their barrels lowered waiting for me to appear."

"One day when things were a bit slow, we decided that changing seats in the BT-13 in flight was something that we should try..."