Air Warriors: The Inside Story of the Making of a Navy Pilot
4.5/5
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About this ebook
Waller, who was granted permission to participate in the pilots’ grueling training regime, has written an absorbing behind-the-scenes account of the physical and psychological trials endured by the most specialized group of pilots in military history.
From his bird’s-eye view in the passenger’s seat, Waller follows pilot trainees through two years of intense preparation. He offers vivid illustrations from the fray: hair-raising aerial dogfights; stomach-swallowing dive-bombing runs; high-speed tactical maneuvers grazing the desert floor; and numerous nerve-twisting aircraft carrier takeoffs and landings. In addition to his own experiences and those of the group of trainees he joins, his research is based on interviews with hundreds of other students and their instructors. Hurtling through the air at death-defying speeds, these pilots-in-training struggle to maintain their composure while withstanding conditions that are designed to challenge them to the very limits of human endurance.
Waller’s deftly drawn portraits of the men and women he encounters in this singular culture of elite pilots are as satisfying as his adventure narrative. The pilots, whose grit, determination, and mental agility operate on an elevated threshold, come into sharp focus behind Waller’s keen lens: their aspirations, awe inspiring. Air Warriors combines an examination of the modern Navy, recovering from past sex scandals, with a portrayal of a privileged cadre of men and women whose ambition and commitment coexist within a tightly knit group. Waller is able to capture images of these pilots training, living, and fighting with an acuity and intelligence that are often absent from Hollywood and television treatments of this diverse and fascinating subculture.
Air Warriors takes us inside the cockpit and behind closed doors for the real story of the making of a Navy pilot.
Douglas Waller
Douglas Waller is a former correspondent for Newsweek and Time, where he covered the CIA, Pentagon, State Department, White House, and Congress. He is the author of the bestsellers Wild Bill Donovan, Big Red, and The Commandos, as well as critically acclaimed works such as Disciples, the story of four CIA directors who fought for Donovan in World War II, and A Question of Loyalty, a biography of General Billy Mitchell. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.
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Reviews for Air Warriors
3 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Interesting personality oriented tale. The impact of the book is seriously impaired by significant errors. "wing flaps" is used throughout the book. Only the wings have flaps. There is no reason to include the location modifier "wings" once, let alone forever. A pilot qualifies "on" the carrier not "at" the carrier..The author continually refers to "jargon" or "lingo". Voice radio has rules because of the low fidelity and the pressure filled context. This vocabulary is formally published in several pubs called things like Allied Communication Publication, Naval AviationTraining and Operations Publication and Joint Chiefs Publication. Appropriate recognition of this framework would have made this a much more believable story.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Talk about your Walter Mittys. Waller has a heck of a deal going here. He has written books about commandos, submariners and now navy pilots. As a writer for first Newsweek and now Time, it's no wonder he got to fly with the boys and girls in the back seat of F-18s and dive in nuclear subs. OK, so maybe I'm just a teensy-weensy bit jealous. Waller, who wrote The Commandos after observing the training of special forces soldiers, reports on his intimate experience with the training program for navy pilots in this latest book. He was granted permission to participate in the pilots' grueling training regime in order to produce this absorbing behind-the-scenes account of the physical, academic and psychological tests endured by pilot wannabees. It's almost as good as being there as Waller takes us through the grueling "Helo-Dunk" test where students are dumped in a pool in a helicopter body. Because helicopters are top-heavy, they flip immediately when forced to ditch in the ocean, and the navy discovered that if pilots were prepared for the fear and darkness they had a much better survival rate - of course, almost anything was better than the close to zero survivor rate they had had before. Students wear blindfolds and lose points if they try to shove anyone out of the way in their haste to make the exits.
Grading of all their tests is excruciating. Everything is graded on a curve that is generated against their fellow students to compute the average. "Students were graded not on how well they did, but rather on how well they did compared to other students. The numerical scores a student made on each test were totaled up, divided by 1,000, then plotted on a bell curve against the scores of the past 300 students who took the test. Competition between recruits is thus intense and just one bad day can ruin a recruit's chances. The difference between the trainee who was number one in one of the classes and the trainee who was number fifty in class rank was a mere two points."
Air combat is vastly different than it was just thirty years ago. Today everything is done at vast distances, and the rule is that if a pilot hasn't eliminated the enemy plane within sixty seconds, he should run away because his odds of survival fall drastically. The systems on an F-18 require the sensitivity of a piano player, and landing on an aircraft carrier at night - read the chapter "Practice Bleeding" for a very realistic account of the fear and skill involved - commands minute movements of the hands and eyes to constantly detect changes in altitude, angle of attack, and speed. For the first landing on a carrier, there is no instructor in the back seat. It's "too nerve-wracking. The instructor would be too tempted to grab the controls and pilot the aircraft himself." It is just too dangerous. The students have to concentrate so hard on what they are doing that many forget their names and plane numbers.
Despite the dangers, the navy has drastically reduced the number of accidents by emphasizing safety. Hot-rod pilots get thrown out immediately for stupid stunts. Nevertheless, the most extreme strains can come from stress on family relationships when the pilots are gone at sea for long periods. Two of the students Waller followed were married to each other. Both became F-18 pilots, but navy regulations prevented them from being assigned to the same squadron, so they would be lucky to see each other for more than six months every twenty-four. Waller also discusses the changes in the navy after Tailhook. The older sailors hate what they consider the PC mentality while the younger ones seem to have adjusted well, but it has made dating in bars really difficult because of the ban on officer-enlisted personnel fraternization. Unless in uniform, many officers won't go near an on-base, mixed enlisted/officer club for fear of asking out an enlisted woman and risky severe censure.
This is a really stunning book. Absolutely fascinating.