Fiction Foreshadows History

The Killing Sky was the fifth novel in Gandt's military adventure series featuring fighter pilot Cmdr. Brick Maxwell.  It was also an ominous prophecy of a war in Israel and Gaza. 

In The Killing Sky, Maxwell's wingman is shot down and taken prisoner in Gaza by a Palestinian terrorist group.  The American president's shadowy envoy, Rick Solares, negotiates the airman's release, but Maxwell suspects something sinister is going on behind the scenes.  When the woman Maxwell loves falls victim to the same terrorists, Maxwell's devotion to duty becomes a desire for vengeance.  War erupts in the Middle East.  Maxwell will risk everything to make the enemy pay.

Get the new audiobook narrated by the author at Audible.com.   Or read the Kindle edition available at Amazon.com

 

Gandt writes for all of us Walter Mittys who know we could fly the hot jets and save the world if only life gave us the chance.

--STEPHEN COONTS, author of Flight of the Intruder

Fact Imitates Fiction

 Last week the Air Force unveiled their exotic new warplane, the B-21 Raider.  It’s a space-age machine conceived in the top-secret laboratories of Northrop Grumman.  Its development was one of the most closely guarded secrets of the last few years.
           
Or was it?

An equally exotic stealth warplane, eerily similar to the B-21, was also conceived a few years ago.  Its name was Black Star.  Not until the novels Black Star and Black Star Rising were published by Penguin/Signet was this exotic warplane revealed to the public. The Black Star's development occurred mostly late at night in the top secret bar of the Gandt enclave. It has been suggested that multiple cases of India Pale Ale contributed to the design.

How much does the B-21 resemble the Black Star?   Notice the tailless airframe.  The delta-shaped wing.  Notice how the cockpit and air scoops blend into the airframe. Is the B-21 a knock off design?

Perhaps.  Here's your chance to relive the tale of the Black Star stealth aircraft and its pilot, Cmdr. Brick Maxwell.   Black Star and Black Star Rising — as well as the other novels in the Maxwell series — are available now in e-book and audio.  Click here to find them on Amazon.com.

Last Lap at Reno

Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

After six decades, the legendary Reno Air Races are about to become history.  The Reno Air Racing Association has declared that this September, 2023, will be the final year that the Reno-Stead Airport will host the annual races.  Their reasons include “rapid area development, public safety, and the impact on the Reno-Stead Airport and its surrounding areas.”

In other words, civilization.  Newly developed neighborhoods don’t want full-throated race planes roaring over their roofs at 500 mph.

Will the races move elsewhere?  Race fans — and the racing association — fervently hope so.  The problem is finding an airfield with space for a ten-mile-circumference race course and happens also to be close to hotels and facilities that accommodate a hundred-thousand spectators.

A very long shot.

Thus will end a classic era in aviation history.  And for this occasion the classic book about air racing, Fly Low Fly Fast: Inside the Reno Races (Viking Press) will be released again.  This book is NOT a current history of the races -- it ends with the dramatic late-90s battles between legendary pilots Tiger Destefani, Lyle Shelton, Darryl Greenamyer and their rivals -- but it chronicles the rich history of American air racing back to the post-war years at Cleveland. The new edition comes in soft cover, e-book (Kindle, Apple, Barnes&Noble) and an Audible version narrated by the author.

Fly Low Fly Fast is available at Amazon, Smashwords, and Audible.com.

Top Gun, Maverick, and Déjà vu

You've seen “Top Gun: Maverick,” right?  And each of you, especially current and former miitary aviators,  couldn't help wincing at the over-the-top story line.  Just as you did with the original “Top Gun.”

Some things never change.  Here’s a passage from Bogeys and Bandits: The Making of a Fighter Pilot, written a few years ago when I accompanied a class of new pilots through F/A-18 training.

 .... Every Navy fighter pilot will tell you that one of the silliest aviation movies ever made was "Top Gun."  He would say the film was cartoonish, adolescent, sexist, technically erroneous, simplistic, farcical.  He would also tell you he had seen the movie maybe, oh, eleven times.

That was the peculiar paradox about "Top Gun."  It had a story line that might have been constructed by Dr. Seuss.  The Tom Cruise leading character was something out of MTV, a cocky, swaggering, motorcycle-riding bad boy named "Maverick" Mitchell, who broke all the rules.  Maverick buzzed towers and ships and busted altitude limits and pursued women into the ladies' room, and he got away with it because everyone thought he was as cute as a cockatoo.  Maverick's only problem was, he wasn't a team player, which caused him a few problems with his work. . .

 
So here we are thirty-six years after “Top Gun,” and Maverick is at it again, filling the screen with the thunder and glamour of Navy fighter pilots in action.  A bit long in the tooth, Maverick still breaks rules and buzzes towers and flashes that dazzling grin at foxy barmaids.  We still wince at the over-the-top antics and farcical story line. 

And we still love it.
 
Maverick endures, and so does Bogey and Bandits.  See the movie, then get Bogey and Bandits from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Audible.com, Smashwords, and Apple Books.  You'll love it.

The High-Flying Life of Scott MacLeod

It would be tough to write a novel as packed with adventure as the real life story of Scott MacLeod, who took his final flight west on April 12, 2021.  Scott was a classic example of the Greatest Generation:  WWII Navy fighter pilot, aeronautical engineer, Korean war veteran, test pilot, astronaut, government agent in the Middle East, airshow pilot, airline executive.

 Still a teenager in WWII, Scott survived being shot down in a Hellcat fighter.  Back in action in Korea, he survived more shoot-downs, then went on to be a notable test pilot.  Selected as the test astronaut for the Apollo lunar module, he was in the queue for one of the upcoming moon missions.  MacLeod’s dream of landing on the moon ended in 1970 when NASA abruptly canceled the last three missions — Apollo 18, 19, and 20.

MacLeod’s adventures continued elsewhere.  After NASA he worked in the Middle East for a government “agency” (he would never call it by name).  On one occasion he survived an assassination attempt in Teheran.  On an undercover mission in Baghdad, he was arrested, escaped, and made a harrowing dash across the desert to the border. 

Eventually Scott and his wife, Joyce (notable in her own right as a record-holding submariner and SCUBA diver) made their home here at the Spruce Creek Fly-In near Daytona Beach.  Last month we celebrated Scott MacLeod’s remarkable 95-year life with a rousing all-hands hangar bash.  It was the kind of party Scott would have approved.

Remembering McCain

John McCain and I were in Navy flight training at approximately the same time, but I didn’t know him then.  Not until 2008, when I was writing the book Intrepid, did we become acquainted through correspondence.  I knew that Intrepid was the first carrier McCain deployed on, and his father and grandfather, both four-star admirals, had been aboard her.  I asked McCain if he’d be willing to write a foreword for the book.  He immediately agreed. 

And then weeks passed.  No foreword.  With a deadline from Random House looming, I nudged him.  Was he close to having the foreword done?  McCain apologized, saying that he’d been a bit busy.  In case I hadn’t noticed, he was running for president.

A couple more weeks passed.  Then I suggested that I give him a rough draft that he could amend as he saw fit.  As an added inducement, I said, hell, I’ll even vote for you.  We had a deal.  A week or so later the foreword came back with a few editings and some beautiful paragraphs he’d added about his father and grandfather.  McCain kept his word, and so did I.

Over the years I disagreed with probably half of John McCain’s positions.  He was stubborn, contentious, funny, principled, idealistic, right on several critical issues, wrong on a few others.  Above all else he was a supremely honorable American hero and patriot.  I’m glad I voted for him.  I wish I could again.

Another Hero Flies West

My list of living heroes from the Greatest Generation continues to grow shorter.  Wesley Hays was a classic member of his generation:  modest, generous, fiercely patriotic, courageous beyond measure.  Wes died last week shortly before his 97th birthday.

On the morning of 7 April, 1945, Lt. (jg) Hays was leading a flight of F4U-3 Corsairs as part of a massive air attack on a Japanese task force.  The flagship of the enemy force was the super-battleship Yamato, the largest warship ever constructed at the time.

The weather was lousy, with a low ceiling and rain.  The bomb-laden flights of warplanes became separated from each other and had to make dangerous, solo attacks on the enemy force. 

When Wes’s flight broke out of the low clouds, they found themselves aimed almost directly at a massive warship, the cruiser Yahagi.  Hays led his Corsairs down through heavy flak to plant their 1000# bombs on the deck of the enemy ship, then they opened up with their .50 caliber machine guns.  Minutes later the Yahagi was sinking to the bottom of the East China Sea.

For his actions that day, Wes Hays would be awarded the Navy Cross, a medal second only to the Medal of Honor.

I met Wes and his squadronmates a few years ago at a VBF-10 reunion in San Antonio.  With Wes’s encouragement, the old fighter pilots opened up with me, sharing stories, letters, photos, manuals.  It was a treasure trove that would eventually become an award-winning book, The Twilight Warriors.

Wes became a dear friend.  I came to love his dry, Texas humor and his razor-sharp recall of the tumultous events seven decades ago.  He was one of my special heroes, and I salute him.

Farewell to a Warrior

Another of the heroes from my book Angels in the Sky has flown west.  Gideon Lichtman was a classic fighter pilot—swaggering, tough-talking, sentimental, non-politically correct, courageous beyond measure.  Like thousands of his Greatest Generation peers, Giddy stood in line to enlist the day after Pearl Harbor.  He made his way into Army Air Force flight training and distinguished himself as a P-51 Mustang pilot in the Pacific theatre.  Three years later, when Giddy was a student at NYU on the GI Bill, the new state of Israel was besieged by five invading Arab armies.  Again Giddy went to war, joining a ragtag band of volunteer airmen to fly a mishmash of dilapidated warplanes.  Giddy was the first to shoot down an enemy Spitfire fighter with a Czech-built Messerschmitt.  Against overwhelming odds Giddy and his fellow warriors achieved a miracle—and saved Israel.  And then came Korea and Giddy, the quintessential warrior, went back to war.  In later years Giddy became a test pilot, a devoted father, staunch friend to his Machal brothers, famous teller of bawdy jokes, and for thirty years was a beloved high school teacher in Miami.  When my old hero Mitchell Flint passed away last fall, Giddy became the last survivor of the IAF’s original 101 Fighter Squadron.  He died last Wednesday at age 94.  So long, Giddy.  We salute you.

So long to Mitchell Flint

Last week we lost a classic member of the Greatest Generation—and one of my special heroes. In WWII Mitchell Flint answered his country’s call and became a decorated Navy fighter pilot in the Pacific war. Three years later Mitch answered another call: He joined a ragtag band of volunteer airmen who went to the newly founded nation of Israel, which was under siege by five invading Arab armies. Flying a mishmash of contraband warplanes—Messerschmitts, Spitfires, Mustangs, T-6s —Mitch and his fellow volunteers achieved a miracle: They saved the new nation. In his later life Mitch was a successful lawyer, a father, a commander in the Navy Reserve. Until his death last Saturday at age 94 , he remained what he had always been: a modest, patriotic, and kindly gentleman. My book, Angels in the Sky, is dedicated to Mitchell Flint. So long to a great American.

D-Day and the Greatest Generation

Were they, in fact, the greatest?

Not if you listen to them.  One of the hallmark qualities of their generation has always been humility.  Most will tell you that they were quite ordinary, no greater than any other generation of Americans.  Greatness, they would have you believe, was not something they sought. 

Perhaps.  But consider the facts.  This was the generation who, after growing up in the greatest of depressions, was summoned to fight in the greatest of all wars.  Over sixteen million of them lined up to answer their country’s call.  In battles on land, sea, and in the air, over 400,000 gave their lives.  They defeated the Axis powers, freed Europe, crushed the Third Reich, conquered the Empire of Japan.  These were the men and women who, literally, saved the world for democracy.

The Greatest Generation?  Without question.

This week, the seventieth anniversary of the mightiest seaborne invasion in history, is an appropriate time to reflect on the Greatest Generation and our connection to them.  As you reflect, consider this:  today’s young Americans—teens and pre-teens—have the same generational relationship with the Greatest Generation as these old veterans had with . . . imagine this . . .  Civil War veterans.  When the men and women of the Greatest Generation were in their early teens, thousands of Civil War veterans were still alive, telling stories, sharing history. 

This is a powerful concept.  It means that when you shake the hand of one of these heroes of the Greatest Generation, you become part of this generational continuum that goes back to the Civil War and beyond.  It means you are connecting with history.

Time is short.  Take the opportunity this week to seek out one of these veterans.  Clasp his hand, listen to his stories, thank him for his service.  Make your connection with history.  For the rest of your life you'll be glad you did.

THE PRESIDENT’S PILOT flies!

THE PRESIDENT’S PILOT took to the sky this week.  Begun in 2008 when there was much excitement about a woman candidate for President, with Harper Collins (publisher) particularly interested, the proposed novel lost momentum when you-know-who won the nomination and the White House. 

Early last year, as the political landscape again changed, I decided to finish the novel, giving it a slightly different theme and point of view.  The result is a melange of current and future military and political scenarios.  The story and its characters won’t please everyone (no good novel does), but it's guaranteed to tweak and disturb and excite most readers. 

I look forward to your thoughts.  Let me hear.