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Summary: A Wild Ride with a Space-Age Knight & his "Mount."
Review: Steven Coonts takes every would be fighter pilot on a ride not soon forgotten. The story is fast moving and covers the techinal aspects of flying today's high tech war planes in such a way that even a student pilot would feel right at home in the cockpit of the Navy A-6 Intruder. The combat missions are fierce and realistic to the point the listener dosen't relax until Jake Braxton lands safely on the Aircraft Carrier deck after each flight.
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Summary: WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Review: The classic debut novel of the Coonts/Grafton series will make you grit your teeth and hold on to the seat of your pants as you fly through the trials and tribulations of being a carrier pilot in the Vietnam Conflict. As you read you begin to understand Grafton as if he were real and feel anything and everything that the characters experience like the loss of a shipmate and best friend to a man dying so others could survive. If you want a more exciting ride than this you'll have to be strapped to the nose of a bullet
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Summary: One of the New Naval Classics
Review: There are many authors who have scads of good stories in them; others only have one. I'm afraid Mr. Coonts falls into the latter category. "Flight" is the sole good work out of his series of novels following the career of Navy bomber pilot Jake "Cool Hand" Grafton, but it is a doozy. It's a thoughtful, insightful, vividly descriptive account of a man struggling with the frequently conflicting tugs of fear, conscience, and duty as he ventures daily into the hellish skies over North Vietnam. Coonts understands intimately and relates ably the joyful frathouse of a Navy squadron, with its gibes and pranks and silly nicknames, and the closer-than-a-marriage relationship of the pilot and bombardier as they must venture, alone but for each other, into utterly black nights to find their targets. But more than that, it's a tale for the Everyman in all wars, a guy who just wants to live through it, or, failing that, at least die for something worth his life and the lives of his friends. Along with the better works of David Poyer and P.T. Deutermann, and the Vietnam trilogy of Gerry Carroll, "Flight" deserves its place as one of the modern Naval classics, up there on the shelf with Melville and "Mister Roberts".
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Summary: Book was very well writen and exciting.
Review: This book was a very thrilliing and tradgec story about a fighter pilot named Jake Cool hand Grafton. It tells the story about how buddies can stick togtehter and fight things together.
Rating: 
Summary: Phony Fly-Boy crap
Review: This book was recommended to me by another Vietnam Vet who was also an A-6 pilot. In his words it was the most realistic book about war he had ever read. I was Marine Corps infantry platoon commander, and if this is what their war was all about, they will never have an understanding of combat. Zooming around for a couple of hours at 400 knots and then going back to the ship for hot showers, hot food, and cold booze in your air conditioned room sitting on your mattress does not constitute combat in any traditional sense of the word. "Look at me, I'm a pilot". Narcissistic aviator crap. A complete waste of my time and money.
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Summary: Excellent, Outstanding, Exciting, Etc.
Review: This book was referred to me by a friend who knew I liked planes and I read it through in a couple of days. Having been in the Navy, I could almost hear the sounds of the ship, feel the roll as she moved through the seas. It brought back a lot of memories of duty in the south China Sea in the early sixties. I've since read all of his novels of the Jake Grafton saga. All of them are excellent. I can't wait for another to come out
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous with Vietnam
Review: This excellent novel took place in Vietnam. As a controversial time for our country, Coonts captured this theme well. The protagonist, a humble, but typical flying ace, Jake Grafton became sick of the war. He was frustrated with losing friends for a cause he didn't understand. He eventually pairs up with a hotshot navigator/bomber, and they fly up to the "no-fly zone" of Vietnam, (Hanoi) to bomb something "important" for a change. Something worth "going for." The ensuing plot is accented by a casual romance with an American girl Jake met in Hong Kong, which eventually develops as a substitute family/friend during the war. Many flying sequences are included, and the majority of the novel is in a combat naval context.Stephen Coonts' first novel, Flight of the Intruder, was superb. A Vietnam flyer himself, Coonts depicted historic naval aviation very accurately and compellingly. Not only did he include accurate and detailed facts about the technological aspect of carrier aviation, but a unique and flowing writing style that captures the reader. His beautiful and simple descriptions of the sky, the sea or flight were powerful and intriguing. Action-packed, well-paced, and worthwhile plotline and cast made this novel the best seller that it was. Anyone at all interested in the military or Vietnam would find this novel to be thought provoking and meaningful.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous with Vietnam
Review: This excellent novel took place in Vietnam. As a controversial time for our country, Coonts captured this theme well. The protagonist, a humble, but typical flying ace, Jake Grafton became sick of the war. He was frustrated with losing friends for a cause he didn't understand. He eventually pairs up with a hotshot navigator/bomber, and they fly up to the "no-fly zone" of Vietnam, (Hanoi) to bomb something "important" for a change. Something worth "going for." The ensuing plot is accented by a casual romance with an American girl Jake met in Hong Kong, which eventually develops as a substitute family/friend during the war. Many flying sequences are included, and the majority of the novel is in a combat naval context. Stephen Coonts' first novel, Flight of the Intruder, was superb. A Vietnam flyer himself, Coonts depicted historic naval aviation very accurately and compellingly. Not only did he include accurate and detailed facts about the technological aspect of carrier aviation, but a unique and flowing writing style that captures the reader. His beautiful and simple descriptions of the sky, the sea or flight were powerful and intriguing. Action-packed, well-paced, and worthwhile plotline and cast made this novel the best seller that it was. Anyone at all interested in the military or Vietnam would find this novel to be thought provoking and meaningful.
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Summary: This is a great book about the bravery of a warrior.
Review: This is a riveting book on tape. The listener hears every squawk and key of the radio for each mission flown. The listener may want to stay on the Interstate Highways and set the cruise control to the posted speed limit.
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Summary: No More Coonts
Review: This is the story of navy attack pilots during the war in Vietnam. It is also the story of one particular pilot, LT Jake "Cool Hand" Grafton, an A6B Intruder pilot flying off the coast of North Vietnam as part of the Tonkin Gulf "Yacht Club." This is a first novel by a writer who lived the experiences of his fictional character. When I first read this book about the time the hardcover was first published, I felt as if I was in the ready room with Grafton, Boxman, Razor and the others being briefed before "going downtown" to bomb Hanoi. The feel for time and place is all here. The descriptions of the life aboard a carrier on station, the shore leave in Subic Bay and Olongapo City all ring true according to my navy veteran friends. As I read, I felt as if I could have been one of the characters Stephen Coonts wrote about. For a debut novel, this one was extrememly well done. It was the entrant to a series that I hoped Coonts would write, and subsequently did. I like Jake Grafton because he is a man all of us could only hope to be. Most of all, he is a man of honor and integrity and this is demonstrated when he decides to put his career (and freedom) on the line by going after a target "downtown" after President Johnson has called a bombing halt over Hanoi and Haiphong. Another wonderfully drawn character is LCDR Virgil Cole, Jake's B/N (bombardier/navigator). Cole has seen combat before and has the Silver Star. He trusts no one but himself but, does his job magnificently. In the movie version, the casting for this character was brilliantly handled when Willem Dafoe played the part to perfection. Although the book and the movie differ at the end, the characterization was true to Mr. Coonts' intent, in my opinion. Jake and Cole became a team and stuck together in thick and thin. Their friendship and loyalty to each other was proven when they went after their downed squadron commander, CDR Camparelli, were shot down themselves and had to survive. The two, who are bound by a well-defined sense of honor, keep their commitments to each other and their squadron. Although Coonts the writer was also Coonts the lawyer at the time he wrote the novel, he introduces a question of military ethics and obedience when the navy investigates Grafton's and Cole's unauthorized mission against the North Vietnamese capital. Senator Fred Dalton Thompson of Tennessee, in one of his supporting screen roles, does an effective job as the navy Staff Judge Advocate arguing that control of the military must remain in the hands of civilians and elected officials if the United States is to avoid the dangers of military control of the government. Again, this actor turned politician mirrors exactly Mr. Coonts' character in the novel when he and other senior officers attempt to determine the fate of the two aviators who flew side by side in that wonderful Grumman attack aircraft. Stephen Coonts' wrote a novel that begged for a sequel or a series. I am sure that most readers clamored for more of Jake Grafton after reading this book. I know I did. This book proves that Mr. Coonts is a man of many talents. After all, he flew the Intruder, came home to become a successful lawyer and then launched a very successful career doing something he really likes namely, writing popular novels. Even though I first read this book almost 11 years ago, I finally got the chance to thank the author for all the hours of reading enjoyment he's given me. I'd also like to thank him for his service in Vietnam and in the reserves from which he retired not so many years ago. BZ CDR Stephen Coonts USNR (ret) and thank you!
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