Bogeys and Bandits: The Making of a Fighter Pilot

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Summary: Bogeys and Bandits is an excellent non-fiction book
Review: Bogeys and Bandits by Robert Gandt is without a doubt the best non-fiction book I have read. It follows a group of men and women right out of college going through flight school. It goes through each phase of training, and tells how each student did, what they did, and how their lives change going through training.The book is very detailed. In every page, there is such good elaboration that you can paint a picture in your mind of every scene. It tells how the pilot feels in the jet, and what their state of mind is. The book is not sugar-coated at all. It tells EVERYTHING. I recommend this book to anyone interested in flying a jet. But it probably should not be read by anyone under 11. The book contains many quotes, and many contain profanity. The book deserves five stars and 2 thumbs up. It's awesome!

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Summary: Shift your career into high gear
Review: Bogeys and Bandits gives the real life accounts of the training of F/A-18 Navy fighter pilots. The book jumps around each of the characters as they progress through their training -- from accomplishing difficult missions to getting medically disqualified. To anyone that wants to be or dreams to be a pilot or astronaut, this is a must-read. Perhaps the only downfall is that the story begins with all the characters already set for jet training. Personally, I would have liked to know how the characters also got into the training program for jets. Overall, the book is very fast paced and will surely enthrall you with the unbelievably exciting training and manuevers that these men and women have to go through to become FIGHTER PILOTS.

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Summary: Really great book - exciting and action-packed!
Review: I loved this book and recommend it as the best in its category of books about Navy pilots. A lot happens to each of the pilots-in-training that are covered. I learned a lot about how pilots are trained and what their day-to-day life is like (very busy!). A lot of the parts were very interesting, such as when the author talks about pilots who quit the Navy after all the expensive and difficult training has been given to them, and about going in front of review boards in danger of losing your wings after a particularly scary performance in the air, or even giving up your wings voluntarily if you grow to fear the "smoking hole in the ground" too much (what you'll end up as if you crash your jet and can't eject safely.) Could easily be made into a great movie.

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Summary: Syruppy version of undertreated topic
Review: In technothrillers and memoirs about fighter pilots, the man (or women) at the controls is either an experienced and fearless aviator or becomes one in the sort of leap of capacity that is unknown in the real world, but in any case, is anything but the nervous, insecure nugget who looks at the older hands and thinks that there's no way in hell he'll be able to so much as taxi an airplane let alone fly it at the edge of its performance specs. In "Bogey's and bandits", Robert Gandt takes on the job of detailing just who manages to go from one-of-us to King of the Sky by following the pitfalls and triumphs of a class of Navy and Marine aviators learning to fly the F/A-18 fighter, aka the "hornet". The most souped up jet in the Navy's inventory - until the arrival of a souped up version of that plane tentativelt called the "super hornet" - the Hornet was designed to handle a variety roles once filled by several planes - interception, dogfight, and a number of distinct strike roles. To compensate for the workload, the Hornet's controls are computer augmented - the pilot's commands go through a computer that actually controls the plane. The potential for flying virtually any type of mission insures that training will be expansive, and the lack of attentiob given undergraduate flight training in any service means that "Bogeys and Bandits" won't read like any book you've ever read about military aviation.

Unfortunately, Gandt's monopolization of a subject doesn't cure some flaws in the book - some admittedly impossible to avoid. Gandt's class of trainees covers the gamut - two whiz kids who chose naval aviation when they couldn't get into nuclear subs; two women - one of whom adjusts better than the other to training; an aging marine with unremarkable but dependable flying qualities, who's only recently transitioned from helicopters; and "Highway", an African American pilot meant to inspire memories of the "Tuskeegee Airmen" of WWII. None of these ever dominates the book, but going between them does little to make them the flesh-and-blood people that their flaws. Gandt's treatment needs fleshing, but failing to do so, it only sounds fake and syruppy - like the trainee who gets killed while his family is visiting the base, or Highway's return home in an F-18 at the book's conclusion. Highway's return is meant to vindicate those who helped him as a child - a repayment of a debt, but that's pat and conclusory, and shows the mis-focus of the book. Training to fly anything isn't about conclusions like a made-for-TV-movie; it's about proving your ready for the next step and the step after that. As in "Top Gun", the inhabitants of "Bogeys and Bandits" seem to have no inkling that they are becoming warriors, and not just the drivers of 600 MPH Porsches. Unfortunately, Gandt offers no inkling of this either, and once a trainee is brought up to highlight a particularly difficult segment of training (like flying treetop level at 400 MPH, or carrier-landings), it's back on the backburner.

Some treatment just makes me wince, as when one of Gandt's female charachters, declining in performance, lashes back with allegations of chauvanism. Gandt's respinse - not found in any dialog from his trainees is along the lines of - oh no, not more of that. Without any substance lent to allegations of sexism in the wake of tailhook, Gandt sounds patronizing and condescending. The crash of F-14 driver Kara Hultgreen, ultimately blamed on pilot error, underlines that women are being rushed into service to satisfy political correctness, and the satisfactory performance of the class' other female trainee suggests (not conclusively however) that sexism is not a factor. But Gandt's femaile pilots remain one-dimensional, one to cry foul, the other to negate allegations of sexism.

The title refers to two types of flying targets - Bogeys being unknowns, possibly friendly or hostile; Bandits are definately dangerous - meant to symbolize the transition of the trainees from unknown quantities to proven fighter-pilots. But Bogyes they remain.

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Summary: The Roar of the Hornet
Review: It's got to be every kid's dream - to be one of those gods who fly the fast metal, the hot jets, the fighter planes that command the skies.

And then to go that Top Gun step beyond and be one of the two thousand pilots in the entire world who are qualified to land a jet on an aircraft carrier.

This book tells how it's done, and it's a collection of yarns and descriptions and portraits and moments, some poignant, some routine, some heart-stopping, some heart-pounding that puts the reader through the process.

The author is an old aviator and knows his stuff. He's not fooled. You or I would get a lot of tall stories if we tagged along with a notebook, but Robert Gandt knows what's going on, and he gives us the good guff as he follows a class of "nuggets" learning how to fly, fight, strike, and carrier qualify with the F/A-18 Hornet.

Along the way he looks at some if the issues facing the US Navy. Race, education, sex, safety. And warfighting. This is deadly serious stuff, and these people are the cream of America's crop just to have got to the stage where they are even considered for fighter training.

It's a hell of a lot of fun, to live that little boy dream, but also a hell of a lot of work, and I take my hat off to the aviators Gandt describes. I also took my shoes off and put my feet up for a day while I read the book, and though the world outside was calm and sunny, inside my head the windows were rattling and the floor shaking with the roar of these high performance aircraft flying off the pages of this most excellent book. Strap yourself in before you read it!

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Summary: very very good writing, on one of my favorite subjects
Review: Really an enjoyable book! I have to confess I was actually in a squadron with two of the characters, though in one case the name was changed to protect the guilty party :) 'Nuff said, but I would like to thank the writer profusely for "rubbing it in" to her poor thin skin. She had it coming........ :) Actually Jugs (her REAL callsign) was kinda a nice gal in some ways, but the Gender Thang is something that is going to haunt the US Navy for a while to come. I don't know what the answer is, and I say that as a former WAVE. Hello to any of my shipmates reading, who shared those "best of times, worst of times" and "Have a Bandit Day".........

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Summary: Excellent detailed account of fighter pilot training
Review: The book was a fascinating insight into the making of a modern Navy fighter pilot. As a former Navy pilot I found the detail very real. The female students and the other for that matter were quite similar to what I experienced as a flight instructor in flight training for the airline business. I encountered a somewhat similar cross section of pilot types and skills and gender situations in commercial aviation. Mr. Gandt defined some of the things I had witnessed. He has opened some interesting questions in regard to gender integration in the work place. It could be that some genetic differences should be considered for work assignments etc when the differences can raise questions of saftey. In all I found this a wonderful account of modern hight tech aviation

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Summary: Just a great book
Review: the man got his info from other men aboard ship. NONE of them like women pilots and hated the one he talked so much about. If you want the truth, read Hornets Nest by Missy Cummings. She was drummed out of the Navy and this man that wrote the book didn't make it any easier for her, shame on him. She mentioned him in her book and he's "way" out of line. He's in the "good ole boy" club, nuts.

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Summary: A RAG like no other
Review: This book takes you on a journey through a fighter jockeys training and life. It follows the line of 8 piolets going through the training system call RAG. It is the FA/18 fighters training program. It is a true, real life story and is a great read for anyone who was,is or want's to be a fighter piolet. It shows the bores of inside the classroom learning, the thrill of one of the piolets first flights and the way it affects the wives and children of the piolets. A great story and great read!

Rating:
Summary: Compelling story
Review: This is not a story about Tom Cruise in Top Gun. Mr. Gandt takes the reader on a compelling journey into the lives of intelligent and committed pilots learning to do an incredibly difficult job. You will have a love/hate relationship with some of the pilots making you wish you could share your own personal insight with a friend that you never met. Mr. Gandt's ability to write combined with his knowledge and background of the subject make for a book that reads very fast and leaves you waitng for its real life sequel.