The New York Times bestselling author of Viper Pilot and retired USAF F-16 legend Dan Hampton offers the first comprehensive popular history of combat aviation--a unique, entertaining, and action-packed look at the aces of the air and their machines, from the trailblazing aviators of World War I to today's technologically expert warriors flying supersonic jets.

One of the most decorated fighter pilots in history, U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel (Ret.) Dan Hampton goes back 100 years to tell the extraordinary stories of the most famous fighter planes and the brave...

At the height of the Cold War, America's most elite aviators bravely volunteered for a covert program aimed at eliminating an impossible new threat. Half never returned. All became legends. From New York Times bestselling author Dan Hampton comes one of the most extraordinary untold stories of aviation history.

Vietnam, 1965: On July 24 a USAF F-4 Phantom jet was suddenly blown from the sky by a mysterious and lethal weapon--a Soviet SA-2 surface-to-air missile (SAM), launched by Russian "advisors" to North Vietnam. Three days later, six F-105 Thunderchiefs were brought down...

"GRIPPING. ... AN HOUR-BY-HOUR ACCOUNT." -- WALL STREET JOURNAL - From one of the most decorated pilots in Air Force history comes a masterful account of Lindbergh's death-defying nonstop transatlantic flight in Spirit of St. Louis

On the rainy morning of May 20, 1927, a little-known American pilot named Charles A. Lindbergh climbed into his single-engine monoplane, Spirit of St. Louis, and prepared to take off from a small airfield on Long Island, New York. Despite his inexperience--the...