Scream of Eagles: The Creation of Top Gun and the U.s Air Victory in Vietnam

From Publishers Weekly

Wilcox's gripping narrative describes how a handful of Navy fighter pilots established a special school called Top Gun at the Miramar Air Station in California in 1968 and virtually revolutionized air combat training. Top Gun doctrine was fully validated when Randy Cunningham and his radar interceptor officer, William Driscoll, became the first American aces of the Vietnam war. By the time of the U.S. pullout in 1973, Top Gun's kill ratio was 12 to 1, compared with the Air Force's "dismal" 2 to 1. Wilcox ( The Shroud ) contends that Top Gun training forged the only clear-cut victory America won during the 1965-1973 war. The book features breathtaking accounts of aerial duels--Wilcox is very good at describing the three-dimensional world of dogfighting. His account of the school's ad hoc origins and the effort to develop ways of meeting the MiG challenge in Vietnam is equally exciting. Screaming Eagles ranks with the best of the books about air combat. Photos. Military Book Club dual main selection.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The F-4 Navy Fighter Weapons School (nicknamed "Top Gun") was founded in March 1969 to train Phantom jet pilots to better fight Soviet-supplied MiG-17s in Vietnam. While no book can match the electrifying big-screen flight sequences of Top Gun the movie, this account capably describes the creation of the school at Miramar Air Station, California, and the combat tactics taught there. It shows soldiers undergoing dangerous training for a deadly game, with a pilot a month killed, often in a ball of fire. Much of the narrative depicts gripping combat action over the skies of Vietnam, where pilots seeking to push to "the edge of the envelope" were frustrated by rules of engagement. Recommended.
- Richard W. Grefrath, Univ. of Nevada Lib., Reno
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.