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Riveting accounts from the pilots who flew such planes as the F-15, B-52, C-130, and many more. Dozens of in-the-cockpit photos.
- Sales Rank: #1487960 in eBooks
- Published on: 2005-07-06
- Released on: 2016-02-11
- Format: Kindle eBook
About the Author
Robin Higham is a veteran of the Royal Air Force and professor emeritus of history at Kansas State University. Former editor of Aerospace Historian, he has written or edited numerous works on aviation history.
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
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By william morris
Had this and wanted it for the kindle
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
Not the best book on the subject
By Bill Hensler
This book looks impressive when you first get it. There are over 422 pages. But reading this book goes quickly because there are numerous pictures and more than a few blank pages. So, while the book has 422 pages you only get about 220 of actual reading material. If the type set had been changed it would have fallen to less to 200 pages.
Second, the stories are a little disjointed. The cover of the book says "real battles, real soldiers, and real stories". Well, there are few stories and little of a common theme. Indeed, many of these stories were published before by "Flying Magazine" or other such publications during the 1950s. Then some of the stories are either some old pilot writing up what he had done twenty or more years past or another story that was freshly printed in the 1950s.
There are a few good chapters. I quite enjoyed the write up on the F-105. That chapter starts out fast when an F-105F goes on a hunt for a SAM site in Vietnam. The pilot kills it and has the first recorded victory over the very dangerous SAM sites in Vietnam by an F-105 Wild Weasel. Well done! And had the rest of the book followed this very fast writing then it would have been a really good five star book.
There was one depressing chapter on the F-89 Scorpion, the worst fighter ever made in post war USA. I was surprised to find out that the F-89 under full load could only climb at 1000 feet per minute at combat thrust with two after burners which added only a few thousand pounds of thrust to a grossly overweight aircraft. The reader should know that this state-of-the-art '50s interceptor only had the climbing ability of the dreadful 1940s era Brewster Buffalo that was shot down in droves during the Battle of Midway.
Many of the write ups are not bad and are somewhat worth while. I didn't know that most pilots really didn't care for the B-47. Read the book and find out why. Additionally, the B-47 pilots had to carry their flight gear in their POVs to the aircraft on the ramp. Aircraft security was primitive during the 1950s. The pilots liked the F-94A and B models. A reader will wonder on how many unexploded 2.75 inch rockets are at the bottom of Lake Superior by Michigan. The F-106 gets a great write up. The F-4s and F-16s that replaced the F-106 during the 80s were not really better aircraft for the job of air defense.
Now, this reviewer knows about the F-15. The pilot who reviews the F-15 flew it at Luke AFB in the mid-1970s. The problem is this was in the early life of the F-15 before several problems come out that are very dangerous for the pilots. First, the F-100 engine stagnation problem gets far worse as the engines aged and the USAF seriously considers putting new engines in the whole fleet. (The F-100 problems nearly killed the F-16 program in the early '80s) Second, the F-15 airframes start to crack like mad. The weird write up on the Jet Fuel Starter is incorrect. The JFS was called the APU at every other base. The crew chief at other bases must have given this pilot a weird look when he wrote in the log books. Now, it's true the F-100 did make a "whump" sound at ignition. Also, that pilot leaves out the story that vortexes (small tornados) would jump out of the jet inlets and suck the rain water into the engines and scare the devil out of the poor ground crews.
I also enjoyed the write up on the A-7. The book incorrectly calls the A-7D "Crusader" when it's actually called the "Cosair II" but everybody really called the A-7 "SLUFF", short little ugly fat f*****. We all liked the aircraft and it came with a very advanced bomb aiming computer for the time. Sluffs could beat the Aardvarks (F-111s) and the Rhinos (F-4s) in bombing competition any time, doing so until the arrival of the very advanced F-16 Falcons (nicknamed "Vipers", the name coming from the old TV show Battlestar Galactica ship fighters).
Now, I've given you some of the good stories in the book. Now I'll have to give you the bad stuff that costs two stars. First, lots of the flight reports are from the fifties era peace time USAF. The stories are like reading about somebody taking the laundry to the dry cleaners. Another reviewer warns the reader about a multi-page print out of the check list for flying the KC-135 and this check list idiocy goes from page 222 to 229. Why not publish a copy of the Dash-1 with the book and add another $10 to the cost? Next, there is some weapons confusion between the pilots. One pilot refers to CBUs as "Chemical Bomb Units" and the F-105 pilot calls the CBU a cluster bomb. Since the F-105 kills the Vietnam SAM site with a full bomb rack of cluster bombs I'll let the reader of this review decide which pilot was right.
The pictures in this book are so poorly arranged that some editor should lose his job over it. A picture of an F9F-7 Cougar is called an F9F-4 Panther. O.K., remember this little helping item: if the wings go back on an F9F it's a Cougar and if straight it's a Panther. Don't worry; the mistakes are not limited to the Navy aircraft. The editor does not know the difference between an F-84 with a straight wing and the F-84F with the swept wing. But it does not matter in a way because all the models of the F-84s were called either lead sleds or pigs.
Then there are the weird aircraft in the book. There is a write up on the B-32 Dominator. This aircraft was used in small numbers during WWII and had the bad luck of being the last heavy bomber shot down over Japan in the last day of the war. The point is the B-32 was actually a WWII aircraft and not a "Cold War" aircraft. None were flying past 1946.
The write up on the XR-12 and the T-29 are just a waste of space. The T-29 was an uninteresting aircraft and while it did do a good job in its role the paper could have been used for the B-36, F3H Demon, F2H Banshee, or any Navy fighter. I disliked the write up on the XR-12. The aircraft had little effect on design because it came out about the same time as the B-45 and B-47 jet bombers and they did the XR-12's job both better, faster, and higher.
Two writes up that I was more than happy with were the ones on the F-111 and the F-104. It was surprising to learn the F-111 was fighter like in operation and was not a runway hog like the F-105, F-84, and the B-58. The pilot gives a good record of the F-111s combat record over Vietnam and refutes the bad press the bomber received. Most of the strikes to the more well defended areas were done by the F-111s. The second good write up was on the F-104. The pilot of this aircraft admitted it's short comings. But the aircraft was nearly as fast as the much more powerful F-15 and the seating also was nearly as good af the F-15. One has to wonder what history would have been like had Lockheed done the redesign of the F-104 to F-107 with a bigger "F-5" type wing and a single F-100 engine. The aircraft would have been 95% as good as the much more expensive and much later F-16. Well, the pilot report on the F-104 makes this writer wonder about the road not taken.
So, this book is sort of worth it. Half of the stories are good to very good. Half of the stories are just a cut above a weather report. You'll get few "war stories". Seriously, most of the pilot reports are from peace time in the 1950s and they make a big deal about an F-94 brushing a target cable while you hardly get any stories about the OV-10 Broncos dumping "Willie Pete" rockets on NVA positions in Vietnam. This reviewer would have liked more stories about the O-2 Skymaster (called a "mix-master" by the crews) trading rocket fire with lone Vietcong soldiers shooting AK-47 fire at the aircraft. Every pilot report comes with paragraphs of information on starting the aircraft's engines.
So, this review can be summed up this way. There are some good stories, lots of fluff, and the pictures have a randomness that one gets when shuffling a deck of cards.
Three Stars.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
At the Controls of Classic War Birds
By Michael L. Shakespeare
Editor Robin Higham has compiled "Flying American Combat Aircraft: The Cold War", choosing 32 flyers to write about the war birds they personally flew. Each essay features their impressions in short chapters of about 13 pages each -- complete with full page photographs. Mr. Higham has included the memories of trainer, transport, bomber and fighter pilots in no particular order. He knows the readers are very interested in what it was like actually flying these aircraft -- his chapters are crafted to do just that.
Beginning his story on the ground with the preflight inspection of his aircraft, Brig. Gen. Robert Messerli describes readying his red-hot Lockheed F-104 Starfighter for takeoff. "Once strapped in, it was one of the easiest aircraft to start. The entire procedure only took about one minute once electrics and air were connected."
At the other end of the spectrum Col. Alton Brewer Jr. lists in detail the approximately 45 minutes of pre-departure time that is routine for the massive C-141 Starlifter."
Lt. Col. Joseph Vogel describes engine startup of the Republic F-84F Thunderstreak, "no warm-up was necessary unless the engine was being started in extreme cold. Pilots took the precaution not to move any hydraulic controls until the fluids circulated enough to warm the seals. Premature movement was almost certain to cause a leak in the vital fluids and an abort of the mission."
"Starting the engines of the versatile B-57 Canberra light bomber is a rather unusual procedure, says Lt. Col. Roy Carrow Jr. "A gunpowder cartridge is inserted in the starter, which is mounted in the center of the engine intake."
Most early jet fighter's performance suffered because of low powered engines. Lt. Col. Charles Bright remembers takeoffs in the Republic F-84 Thunderjet, Though it was powerful, it gained speed slowly and felt heavy even at liftoff. Under the worst conditions, with full fuel and armament loads on a hot Korean summer day, the takeoff had no margin for safety."
Another early jet, the F-89 Scorpion was dreadfully underpowered, according to Col. Wayne Gatlin. "Takeoff in the F-89 was not one of its finer points. The aircraft would barely stagger into the air -- the ground seemed to refuse to release the airplane. The climb to cruise was long and tortuous -- almost 30 minutes to 30,000 feet."
To boost engine power on the Boeing KC-135 tanker, "Practically all takeoffs were made with the aid of water injection. A tank in the right wheel well held 670 gallons of distilled water," says Phillip Brown. When asked for more distilled water, unfamiliar ground crewmen would often return with a quart bottle.
On the other hand, according to Col. Robert Hinnant, the Convair B-58 Hustler had plenty of power for a four-engine bomber. "At sea level the fully loaded B-58 climbed at a speed in excess of 17,000 feet per minute -- a rate of climb that would have been creditable for a fighter of that day. When lightly loaded, the Hustler shot upwards at 46,000 feet per minute with afterburner!"
Early jets could be very temperamental to fly. Cdr. Scott Jones remembers, "The Grumman F9F Panther was a solid beast built in the tradition of other Grumman fighters, but was limited to Mach .83, which could be achieved only in a dive, and was easily recognized by severe buffeting and almost uncontrollable pitch-ups."
The Republic F-84 Thunderjet required careful flight management, Lt. Col. Charles Bright points out. "If a ham-handed pilot ignored the pre-stall warnings, he could suddenly find the aircraft trying to swap ends, with the nose rising rapidly and a loud bang announcing a complete stall. If forward stick was not immediately applied, especially at high mach numbers, pieces of aircraft, including the wings, would soon begin to shred off."
The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter was a "terribly unforgiving aircraft for the ham-fisted jock who refused to handle and treat it gently," states Brig. Gen. Robert Messerli.
"The Republic F-105 was an easy aircraft to fly as long as you did it fast. It was built to operate at low level and very high speed," explained Lt. Col. Jerry Hoblet.
Maj. Peter Dunn shows the reader a little known fact about the Aardvark. "The range of the General Dynamics F-111 is astounding, especially for a flyer coming from another fighter. F-111's have crossed the Atlantic nonstop and without in-flight refueling on internal fuel only."
We learn from Maj. Donald Jones, the single-engine Douglas A-1 Skyraider could carry as much ordinance as the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress of World War II fame -- 15 stations in all. The slower speeds allowed us to complete 60-70 degree high angle strafing passes and nearly vertical dive-bombing passes from 3,000 feet above ground level. Weapons delivery accuracy from that level was phenomenal in comparison to that of the F-100's and F-4s."
Temperamental aircraft had to be flown with great care and not operated outside accepted parameters. Once stalled, the F-106 Delta Dart suffers lateral instability "causing the nose to wander in yaw -- a violent roll and pitch-up maneuver know as post staff" resulted. "The aircraft will oscillate about all three axes and if not recovered will likely enter a flat spin. Once established, the developed spin can be difficult to break," argues Capt. Patrick Gamble.
"In an emergency, the KC-135 was capable of towing a fighter on its boom, and in Vietnam, at least one case was recorded of a disabled fighter carried in this manner to an emergency base where it disconnected and glided down to a successful landing," says Phillip Brown.
Escaping military aircraft is always dangerous and how air crews faired hitting the silk varied widely. The ejection procedure for the Grumman F9F Panther "required a series of independent manual steps that made the probability of a successful low-altitude ejection very poor," speculated Cdr. Scott Jones.
Early Republic F-84 pilots were killed by canopies that remained attached after the ejection seat was fired, reveals Lt. Col. Joseph Vogel.
Col. Wayne Gatlin discloses that he was injured bailing out of his crippled jet fighter. "Tall pilots could break their knees on the windshield bow while ejecting from the tight cockpit of a F-94 Starfire."
Escaping a large transport can be time consuming and problematical. Emergency egress from the Boeing KC-135 tanker is done by crew members hanging from a chinning bar and one by one dropping down through the crew entry chute, reveals Phillip Brown.
General Dynamics designed a unique solution for their F-111 Aardvark. "Explosive charges sever the crew module from the aircraft. The module has two rocket motors to maintain trajectory. G-sensors and barostatic devices initiate deployment of the parachute," explains Maj. Peter Dunn.
Getting back to flying, "the Hercules is a dream to land," says C-130 transport pilot, Maj. Robert Clark. "Approach speed varies depending on gross weight from 150 knots down to 115 knots for a short field. Landing rolls could be as short as 1,500 to 2,000 feet if need be."
To land the touchy Lockheed Starfire, "holding a minimum of 145 knots on final approach, the F-94C would quit flying abruptly, and no two birds were alike. After touchdown, you pulled the drag chute handle and braked to a stop. Use of the drag chute was recommended for all landings except those in strong crosswinds," advises Col. Wayne Gatlin.
For the North American F-100 Super Sabre, says Col. Garth Blakely, a drag chute failure required all of a 10,000 ft. runway. Hot brakes and tires could explode shortly after landing.
What is the favorite aircraft in the cold war? This book shows even the most difficult aircraft were eventually admired by their crews once they became acquainted with its peculiarities.
Cdr. Scott Jones tells a humorous tale about his F9F Panther. "With warm outside temperatures and maximum cooling selected for inside cockpit temperature, ice would form in the duct until it was obstructed to the point where pressure would launch a small snow ball over the gun sight. This missile would strike in the vicinity of the forehead of the average-sized pilot."
Maj. Donald Jones proudly describes life with his favorite bomber: the Douglas A-1 Skyraider. "You could always identify the A-1 pilots by the oil on their faces. Mission endurance at times became a function of how much oil you had on board instead of how much fuel you had."
"The Starfighter was always the first aircraft to deploy during any crisis," declares Brig. Gen. Robert Messerli. He proudly points out, "The F-104 was the first operational jet aircraft to exceed Mach 2 in level flight. The F-104 became the only aircraft ever to hold world records for speed, altitude and time-to-climb, simultaneously."
After reading the 32 chapters of this book the reader will learn a pilot's favorite aircraft is the one his is flying.
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