TOP GUNS reveals what being a jet-age pilot and navigator is all about and captures the excitement and stress - and the prestige - of belonging to one of Britain’s leading fighting units: the RAF’s 29 Squadron. Against the background of Exercise Maple Flag - a Canada-based NATO operation during which aircrew trained under war conditions - Hugh McManners looks at the independent and tough-minded men who fly the squadron’s F3 Tornado jets. He records the huge workload with which they have to cope: controlling radar and weapons systems, flying and navigation as well as working out how to defeat an often technologically superior enemy. And he tells how the engineers and technicians on the ground maintain exacting schedules of perfection for each aircraft on every flight.

The book initiates us into the mind-bending world of fast-jet war fighting. It details the state-of-the-art systems that provide pilots with life-saving knowledge of where the enemy is and what is going on; and takes us on to runways as jets take off and land. We discover what the aircrew think about the dangers of their job, how they cope with disorientation problems that make them feel as if they are outside the cockpit watching themselves flying - and the psychological effects of these stresses. Above all, however, it is about the ethos of the ‘top guns’: a special breed, descended from ‘the Few’, who are today at the cutting edge of making war - and keeping the peace. Illustrated in colour, hardcover

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