Book review by Dennis D. McDonald

I was most interested in the operational details of the aircraft here as post-WWII jet aircraft have interested me since childhood. Bryans does not spare details about what it was like to fly the early Naval jets but also incorporates some (occasionally embarrassing) details about the stupid things he did as a young flyer. (He was lucky to survive some of these incidents.)

That said, we get a good picture of the grind involved in military flying both away from and in the middle of warfare. Especially harrowing are the details about aircraft carrier landings at night and bombing runs in Vietnam. If the North Vietnamese had possessed anything like the accurate and portable anti-aircraft missiles and guns available today, Bryans and his comrades with their A-4 and A-6 aircraft would have suffered horrendous losses. We need to keep that in mind when sending our military into harm’s way.

I had only two compalaints with this Kindle edition:

• Operations Research. Content wise Bryans does not provide a lot of detail about the time he spent at the Pentagon on “systems analysis” and data analysis. Having studied Operations Research (OR) in grad school and having spent the first decade or so of my professional life on statistical research and data analysis I would have enjoyed more detail. What he does say, though, is very interesting and he does give a tip of the hat to the origins of OR during WWII.

• The photos. It’s not unusual for Kindle editions to contain photos and this one does. Unfortunately they are fairly low resolution and lose much detail when expanded in size.

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