I greatly enjoyed this book.The author presents a great picture of the workload and commitment it takes to fly the USAF's advanced fighters.

Oh,and to Capt.& Mrs. Quattlebaum,methinks you protest too much!

I didn't buy this book. I started reading it one day out of boredom and it belongs to my son who was also very disappointed in the reading. I couldn't even finish it. All the talk about the instructors being angry about having to be stuck teaching "punks" while they are missing out on "their war" and how they are just so "gung ho to kill the enemy" was nauseating. Of course, we want our troops to be WILLING to kill the enemy. Those that are gung ho to kill have some serious mental health issues. The instructors came across as at best very mean-spirited and awful men and at worst sadistic. I guess I've always believed that pilots were atleast as professional acting as the enlisted men and women who I have so much respect and admiration for. Some of the instructor pilots described in this book make me wonder if they wouldn't sale their daughters to get ahead in their careers and I don't admire that quality in people at all. Like as if "spending 15 hours a day at the squadron" so that they could finish off each day by hanging out at the bar to "bond" abandoning their family in the process and ending up divorced is perfectly respectable. If I had been one of those students, I'm afraid I would have gotten kicked out for telling the instructors to take their particular brand of humor and shove it up their collective A$$es. My high-school son dreams of becoming a fighter pilot one day and if he does, I hope he will be the kind of man my Dad was who retired from the Army rather than ever emulate those instructors who obviously don't understand that being arrogant is not an admirable trait and that it means they think they are better and more important than they really are. True heros don't need to be arrogant, they are willing to kill because they love their country not because they get off on the thrill of it, and they don't hang out at bars instead of going home to their wives and kids who need them too.

I didn't buy this book. I started reading it one day out of boredom and it belongs to my son who was also very disappointed in the reading. I couldn't even finish it. All the talk about the instructors being angry about having to be stuck teaching "punks" while they are missing out on "their war" and how they are just so "gung ho to kill the enemy" was nauseating. Of course, we want our troops to be WILLING to kill the enemy. Those that are gung ho to kill have some serious mental health issues. The instructors came across as at best very mean-spirited and awful men and at worst sadistic. I guess I've always believed that pilots were atleast as professional acting as the enlisted men and women who I have so much respect and admiration for. Some of the instructor pilots described in this book make me wonder if they wouldn't sale their daughters to get ahead in their careers and I don't admire that quality in people at all. Like as if "spending 15 hours a day at the squadron" so that they could finish off each day by hanging out at the bar to "bond" abandoning their family in the process and ending up divorced is perfectly respectable. If I had been one of those students, I'm afraid I would have gotten kicked out for telling the instructors to take their particular brand of humor and shove it up their collective A$$es. My high-school son dreams of becoming a fighter pilot one day and if he does, I hope he will be the kind of man my Dad was who retired from the Army rather than ever emulate those instructors who obviously don't understand that being arrogant is not an admirable trait and that it means they think they are better and more important than they really are. True heros don't need to be arrogant, they are willing to kill because they love their country not because they get off on the thrill of it, and they don't hang out at bars instead of going home to their wives and kids who need them too.

I don't care what KQ or Mrs.KQ had to say..this book was fantastic! I'm going to have to agree with the gentleman down below...KQ quit your whining....for god sakes man your a fighter pilot!!...act like one!...:)

The author puts indecent language in every page (that I have read so.) Normal readers will the gratuitous filth unpleasnt.
Otherwise, the stories interest me.

From reading the reviews already here, it looks as if there is a rift between the readers. Hopefully I can clear some of the confusion up.

I am not a fighter pilot and have never been in a fighter jet. Like most guys, I think they are extremely cool. One of my most vivid memories of being a child was seeing an F-15 demonstration at the Keesler Air Force Base open house in about 1978. I will never forget the shock of seeing a huge chunk of metal stand on end what seemed like a few feet above the runway, hit the afterburners, and disappear into the sky. So although I am not a fighter jock, I do admire the machines and the people who fly them.

This book was, overall, pretty good. The writing was decent and it covered some of the technical aspects of flight in a way that the average reader could understand them at some basic level. What this book was not:

1. A technically detailed (i.e. Tom Clancy) showcase for F-16s
2. A minute by minute account of training.
3. A full picture of fighter pilots or their training.

I can understand Mr. Quattlebaum's disappointment with this book. But you have to understand that a writer can only do so much and still have broad appeal to non-fighter pilot types. It would be this way with any highly skilled or technical profession. Whether you are a stock broker, brain surgeon, computer programmer, or hacker, a book that the average person will pick up and read (and more importantly, pay for) is not going to do you justice. I would suggest that Mr. Quattlebaum write his own book on the true F-16 pilot training experience. Yes, I would buy that one too...so you have one sure sale and I suspect that many, many people would be interested in this topic from a trainer's point of view!

The book lightly follows a group of F-16 pilot trainees through training at Luke AFB. Right up front the author acknowledges that because of a variety of writing, editing, and marketing constraints he was not able to produce the book he really wanted to. He also admitted that the story lines may be skewed, compressed, rearranged and otherwise tweaked to make the book readable and not be too long for casual reading. It is the nature of the business. That said, I think he did a very good job at giving the reader a taste of what the pilots are expected to do, the pressure that is on them to get it right, and the concerns that the trainers have during the process.

I do agree that for my personal taste, a little too much space was given to the various "entertainment" aspects such as the parties. I don't think that detracted from the book but I think it shoved out room for some of the more play by play flight action which I would have found more satisfying.

After reading this book, I did not feel that I had a whole lot of knowledge about fighter training. It was more like the "Space Camp" version of the space program. You get a taste. A reader interested in the technical, tactical, and emotional aspects of being a fighter pilot will probably continue their reading with more in-depth books on the same subject.

Overall a decent book.

M@

Reading this book is like watching Iron Eagle or Top Gun, I think we are a little over the 80s, this book is intended for people that definitively likes that hollywood accuracy to depict stories.

I guess this wasn't what I was looking, maybe it's a good book for someone who doesn't know much about the military. For my part I was looking to track the path of the F-16 Pilot training and many other details. I'm a very avid fan of the viper and I have been fortunate to see vipers from 4 different countries.

All have to say that I am still looking for such book. I'm really not very interested in knowing too much about partying and rituals. And being myself in the military I know that it's a very small part of the whole picture.

I've bought this book because I love military aviation. Having read a lot of other books about the subject, after reading this I felt like I had watched a cheap Hollywood movie...
I didn't like Mr. Aleshire writing style. He uses too many superlative words and after a while it becomes alittle boring. OK...they are the best, the super, the smartest, all the "est" stuff. But it is not necessary to repeat it all the time.

I've learned many things, and I admire even more those who become Viper Drivers, but the writing style could be a little different...