CoolPix: Looking Back At Pilots Who Were Looking Ahead

NACA test pilot George Cooper with a North American F-100 Super Sabre

(click pic for hi-res) 

 There's something so very cool and special to me about the images from the big experimental jet age of the 50's and 60's, images like this one showing NACA test George Cooper suited up in front of a NACA F-100. Maybe it's the fact that many of these images are black and white... maybe that adds a mystique or intrigue to me that color doesn't. But I think it's bigger than that. This era was so incredible for how we as a nation were advancing forward, pushing the limits of what could done at the time, and somehow the images reflect that to me. There's a different way the people hold themselves and a special look in their eyes.

 It's such a journey into the past to see these images, especially when they are available in hi-res like the one I posted here as a CoolPix. If you like this stuff like I do, I've got good news. Hop over and check out the test pilot category at Jet Pilot Overseas for an impressive collection of vintage images from this amazing era. Test pilots are very special people who live life on the bleeding edge... and in this past era, there was a lot of that bleeding edge to go around.