Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat
*Starred Review* This autobiography of a retired USAF F-16 pilot will remind seasoned readers of Jack Broughton’s classic Thud Ridge (1969). It certainly offers the same gripping cockpit view of modern air combat, in this case over Iraq in two wars and patrolling U.S. skies after 9/11. Hampton recounts his training as a pilot, then his selection for F-16s—officially the Fighting Falcon but known in the USAF as the Viper—and finally his training for the most demanding flying done in the F-16, the Wild Weasel missions. These missions are dedicated to the neutralization or, preferably, destruction of enemy air defenses and date back to the first encounters with SAMs, in the Vietnam War. As the radars and missiles on the ground have improved, so have the technology and skills of the Wild Weasel pilots, who must keep themselves and their comrades alive in an air full of high-tech hostility. Hampton is a vivid writer and an unabashed warrior, and, like most such, he has doubts about the future of American armed forces if they are to be commanded by men who are neither warriors themselves nor particularly empathetic toward those who are. An outstanding work. --Roland Green