Why am I passionate about this?
Since I was a child, I wanted to be a pilot. I started flying when I was in high school, and now I am a captain for one of the world’s largest airlines. My journey has been the greatest adventure I could ever imagine, but so many others are out there. Far too many adventures for one person to experience. Through great books, I have been able to visit so many facets of the profession I love so much. I treasure so many of the amazing books about flying that have been written and greatly anticipate the many more that are just beyond the horizon.
Robert's book list on pilots in the greatest profession known to man
Why did Robert love this book?
I was never a fighter pilot. Through timing and happenstance, I was never able to make this journey. Yet, through the magic of the written word, I was taken on an adventure I could never make on my own.
It is great when you can find a book penned by an author who is an expert on a subject, but it is amazing when you find a writer who has lived the experience. For me, Jake Grafton's experiences outside the cockpit are secondary to the flights he makes in his A-6.
Thanks to Stephen Coonts, I feel I have sat on the deck of an aircraft carrier off the coast of Vietnam and launched into the sky to face my own mortality.
2 authors picked Flight of the Intruder as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
In Flight of the Intruder Jake Grafton is an A-6 Intruder pilot during the Vietnam War who flies his bomber on sorties past enemy flak and SAM missiles, and then must maneuver his plane, often at night, onto the relatively small deck of an aircraft carrier. Former Navy flyer Stephen Coonts gives an excellent sense of the complexities of modern air raids and how nerve-wracking it is, even for the best airmen, to technically solve sudden problems over and over, knowing that even a twist of fate like a peasant wildly firing a rifle from a field could wipe out…