Customer Reviews

Bandits Over Baghdad: Personal Stories of Flying the F-117 Over Iraq

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'Bandits Over Baghdad' is a fresh and revealing look into the usually secretive operations of the F-117 Stealth Fighter. Warren Thompson has assembled several recollections from the pilots and support personnel who flew and maintained the F-117 during Desert Storm. All of the stories and interviews are new, although a few of the principal pilots have been interviewed in other books about the F-117. However, the insight and information in this book is very satisfying. Most of the photos are from the private collections of the 37th TFW's pilots and have never been published before. The only drawback of the book is the relatively short yet concise length. This book would be ideal for anyone who would like a more personal view of the F-117 during the Gulf War. The forward by Col. Al Whitley further lends credibility to the stories that follow.

This one is hard to put down until you are finished reading it. It gives insight into just how hard Desert Storm would have been without these mounts of Darth Vader, and the unbelievable dedication and hard work the ground- and aircrews put fore in those months of 1990-91.
All through the book there are plenty of pictures, both posed pilot shots and pictures taken by 82nd Airborne after the cease fire showing the damage done to Iraq by the F-117 community.

There is one small error in the book though. There is a picture of a fighter in it where the caption claims it's a damaged Iraqi Jaguar. Anyone that sat through aircraft recognition in any service around the world will recognize it as a MiG. Not a very big issue, but an error nonetheless.

I can recommend this book for anyone interested in getting a glimpse into a world only a few hundred people inhabit on a day to day basis. It's no wonder the F-117A was considered the star of the show after the Gulf War was over. This book explains why.

Warren Thompson, a F-117 "Nighthawk" pilot, has put together a superb book, one of those that the aviation enthusiast will consider a "must" for his reading collection. This book covers the development, maturation and wartime employment of an aircraft unique in the annals of airborne warfare, and which is still relatively unknown as to its capabilities and potential for further application. The personal stories of the pilots who learned how to use this very different airframe, flying exclusively at night in a very demanding tactical environment, tell a compelling story of how men and airplane come together to become an awesomely effective war machine. Many of the pilots who flew "Downtown" to Baghdad on the opening night of the Gulf War, and many subsequent missions as the war progressed, tell their riveting personal stories as they faced some of the densest Anti Aircraft Artillery and Surface to Air Missile threats ever. Their determination, professionalism, camaraderie and teamwork are clearly articulated in a most readable fashion. They give every detail, short of Classified Information, about how they planned, adjusted and ultimately executed some of the most demanding bombing missions ever completed. The book also covers the intricacies of mission planning, sortie generation and a myriad of other challenges faced by those who put together the air attack plan and those who were charged with its execution. The book contains many excellent and previously unpublished photographs, including 7 in color, of the aircraft, aircrew, ground support personnel and results of bombing attacks in Iraq. A number of illustrations, photos of unit patches and maps augment this excellent text. This is a great book about superb aviators and a new and deadly form of air warfare told in a wonderfully personal and particularly readable manner.

If you are looking for a book about the F-117,well you better don't hesitate to think twice,buy this book,its worth for your money,this book contains lot of photo from the exterior to the interior of the F-117,plus this book tell the operation conducted by the F-117 in the gulf war. Before I close my message, all I can say about this book is that,if your fond of F-117 then better get this one roght now before it run out of stock.

The book is a fine collection of personal stories of the pilots who flew the F-117 in the Gulf War (1991) and has numerous black and white (and a few color) photographs. The "black jet" was a terrific new weapon the American arsenal and paved the way for the air strikes hitting the most dangerous and well protected targets. The book recounts the initial training of the three F-117 squadrons before and during the deployment to Saudi Arabia, the conditions of front line life, the meticulous planning of the strikes and the tactics used. The wealth of first hand accounts gives an excellent picture of the way the operations were carried out. The cases where the GBU-10s and -27s scored direct hits causing tremendous secondary explosions are very well described, as are the feeling of the pilots when flying in the midst of terrible flak barrages. The weak points are the many repetitions (like how many waves were used each night and how many hours long were the missions near the Turkish borders) and the absence of technical information about the aircraft and the stealth technology generally. Even the table of characteristis at the end of the book is so general that becomes useless (like: "range unlimited, depending upon aerial refuelling", or no data about empty weight, speed, ceiling etc).