G-Force: Flying the World's Greatest Aircraft

Book excerpt: Read what military pilots have to say about flying some of the most incredible fighting aircraft ever built. "It's like a $20 million strap on carnival ride," - AH-64 Apache Pilot "I had high expectations, and it's beat eery one of those. The whole jet is awesome." - F/A-18F Super Hornet pilot. The role of the pilot has changed hugely in the last sixty years of military aviation. Jet pilots in the 1960s, flying types such as the Harrier and F-102, would have spent a huge portion of their concentration just keeping the aircraft under control. That left little spare mental capacity to locate and engage the enemy. Today, the opposite is true. Computers have made flying so simple that it is now considered very easy to fly the SAAB Gripen or Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, allowing the pilot to focus fully on his or her mission. G-Force Flying the World's Greatest Aircraft is a celebration of the experience of flying some of aviation's most spectacular, powerful, and dangerous machines, from early jet fighters such as the F-86 Sabre and MiG-15 to today's F-22 Raptor and Eurofighter Typhoon. Packed with first-hand interviews with test and combat pilots from the world's air forces, and illustrated with extensively researched and striking imagery, G-Force Flying the World's Greatest Aircraft is thrilling ride alongside the pilots who fly the aircraft every day. Featuring first-hand accounts of combat over Korea in the MiG-15, endurance missions in the B-2, and bombing Iraqi targets in the Tornado, this book puts the reader directly in the pilot's seat, and will appeal to aviation enthusiasts of all ages.