Flight Lieutenant Silk, a twice-decorated Lancaster pilot in WW II, rejoins the R.A.F. and qualifies to fly the Vulcan bomber. Piloting a Vulcan is an unforgettable experience: no other aircraft comes close to matching its all-round performance. And as bombers go, it's drop-dead gorgeous.
But there's a catch. The Vulcan has only one role: to make a second strike. To act in retaliation for a Russian nuclear attack. Silk knows that knows that if he ever flies his Vulcan in anger, he'll be flying from a smoking wasteland, a Britain obliterated. But in the mad world of Mutually Assured...

It's 1917, and Captain Stanley Woolley joins an R.F.C. squadron whose pilots are starting to fear the worst: their war over the Western Front may go on for years. A pilot's life is usually short, so while it lasts it is celebrated strenuously.
Distractions from the brutality of the air war include British nurses; eccentric Russian pilots; bureaucratic battles over the plum-jam ration; rat-hunting with Very pistols; and the C.O.'s patent, potent cocktail, known as 'Hornet's Sting'.
But as the summer offensives boil up, none of these can offer any lasting comfort.

Fresh from school in June 1916, Lieutenant Oliver Paxton's first solo flight is to lead a formation of biplanes across the Channel to join Hornet Squadron in France.
Five days later, he crash-lands at his destination, having lost his map, his ballast and every single plane in his charge. To his C.O. he's an idiot, to everyone else - especially the tormenting Australian who shares his billet - a pompous bastard.
This is 1916, the year of the Somme, giving Paxton precious little time to grow from innocent to veteran.