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To be sure, that iconic coupling takes its rightful place in this thematic book focusing on the aircraft that enabled flight testing during the prolific post–World War II era. Author Fred Johnsen, who brings a wealth of knowledge from his years at Edwards Air Force Base, has also highlighted all sorts of odd-looking combinations that speak to the unbridled creativity of the aerospace engineering community.

Among the madcap configurations pictured in the book is a General Electric turbojet fitted into a B-24 at the bomber’s waist, with the air inlet placed humpback-style over the wing and with exhaust vented out the former tail gun turret position. Equally peculiar, a couple of B-17s were modified with a huge turboprop engine housed in elongated noses for inflight testing of the new propulsive technology. These strange but productive pairings were periodically balanced, in the aesthetic sense at least, when elegant experimental craft such as the perfectly proportioned Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket was joined to a P2B-1S (the U.S. Navy’s version of the B-29 Superfortress) to enable the rocket plane’s high-altitude release.

In its wide-ranging scope, the book describes what it took to “lift the lifting bodies,” with kudos to brave test pilots like Milt Thompson and mothership commanders like Fitzhugh “Fitz” Fulton, while another chapter showcases a sampling of Scaled Composites’ purpose-built motherships, launch platforms for a new generation of spacecraft. This is a breathtakingly beautiful and learned compilation of unusual aircraft that belongs on the shelf