Book Review—Fighter Pilot's Heaven

As a Fighter Pilot myself, I enjoyed reading Fighter Pilot's Heaven, which I picked up at the store at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, an Annex of the National Air and Space Museum.  I was visiting the museum with one of my sons and his two sons.  It was a great trip for me.

The book, by Donald Lopez, a retired Air Force Colonel, was a great read for me. Colonel Lopez looks at a few short years, between his time flying combat in the China during World War II and his departure for a Pentagon assignment.  Those few short years were actually a quite long assignment by Air Force standards, some five years.  During that time Colonel Lopez helped to usher in the jet age. His stories of the P-80 and the F-84 and F-86 were great.  I learned a little about the T-33, which I flew in pilot training, which was a modification of the P-80, our first successful jet fighter.

Having been station at Eglin and having flown off the runways at Eglin I enjoyed the stories about the flying and the ranges.

Even if you realize the truth about Fighter Pilots, that they have to work at being humble and rarely succeed (how do you know there is a Fighter Pilot in the room—don't worry, he will tell you), this book was be a good read.  The author tells it like it is, with all the events and mistakes that go into making flying an exciting adventure.

At 218 pages it is a fast read and a good one.

Regards  —  Cliff