Fly Low, Fly Fast: Inside the Reno Air Races [Hardcover]

Robert Gandt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

This first-ever insider foray into the world's fastest and most dangerous aviation sport is as thrilling as Ernest Gann's classic Fate Is the Hunter or Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff

In Fly Low, Fly Fast, Robert Gandt takes us into the high-risk world of airplane racing, chronicling the 1997 and 1998 championships at the Reno Air Races, attended every year by more than 100,000 spectators and featured on scores of web sites. Flying wingtip to wingtip around pylons at 500 mph, just feet above the sagebrush, Reno's killing machines are piloted by an adrenaline-addicted, type-A elite whose big talent and big egos spawn a hundred stories. With the same vivid reportage of his Bogeys and Bandits --"about as close as you can get (to the cockpit) without arming the ejection seat," said the San Diego Union-Tribune--Gandt traces the history of this exhilarating but often deadly sport. He follows the evolution of competition planes from the 1930s custom exotics to today's big, throaty warbirds like the Mustang and Bearcat, still the fastest piston-engine planes ever built. Gandt also looks at the evolution of the pilots from famous laconic old-time air cowboys to the younger, slicker hot shots, the jet-fighter-trained "top guns."

Fly Low, Fly Fast ignites with fierce rivalries, the struggles to keep the vintage warbirds flying, the heart-stopping drama of the races themselves...with winners, losers, close calls, spectacular crashes, and glorious victories. It's a book for aviation buffs, armchair adventurers and anyone fascinated by the passions that drive men and women to test their limits--and risk their lives--in the quest for speed.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The high-risk sport of unlimited air racingAin which racers fly wingtip-to-wingtip around towers at high speedsAis extolled with a focus on the 1997 and 1998 Reno Air Races, which are held annually in September and draw as many as 150,000 spectators. A former navy pilot and current Delta Airlines captain, Gandt (Bogeys and Bandits) shares his knowledge of the planes, but his detailed descriptions of the former warbirds will appeal mainly to hardware junkies. And his comprehensive account of the sport's history and evolution, which could clarify much for the reader, doesn't appear until the second part of the book. But Gandt does succeed in portraying the bravura of the flyers, who are traditionally male (the first woman entered in 1990), and their rivalries in colorful depictions of the Brethren, the sport's elite pilots, ranging from former astronauts and ex-military pilots to Bill "Tiger" Destefani, an ex-farmer who has won the race six times. In trying to understand why unlimited air racing hasn't caught on like stock-car racing ("Wasn't stock-car racing a redneck thing... ?" he has flyers wondering. "By comparison, air racing attracted a rarefied class of mostly college-educated, affluent aviation enthusiasts"), Gandt examines the differences between the two sports, but one similarity emerges: "the prospect of mayhem." Fans want to see action and possible destruction. Many accidents are mentioned, including a fatal 1949 crash in which a plane hit a home, killing a mother and child, an occurrence that halted air racing for 15 years. Gandt's souped-up, jargonized writing is for fans of air racing and warships and lovers of extreme sports, not for the average sports reader. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A history of Unlimited AirRacing over 35 years at Reno, Nev., an annual high-risk competition among veteran top pilots of propeller-driven planes that are mostly hyped-up WWII surplus fighters innovatively improved to drive their original wartime speed to close to 500 miles per hour. Gandt (Bogeys and Bandits, 1997, etc.), a former navy pilot and a current Delta Air Lines captain, writes of the successors to old-time daredevil speedsters and test pilots like Jimmy Doolittle and Roscoe Turner. The modern racers, who may be friends and comrades, try to outdo one another while competing to win the big race near the desert at Reno. The best fighters of WWII, such as the P-51 Mustang and the P-38 Lightning, were worked on by expert, creative pit crews and investors to win the coveted race and the fat purse. Professional air racing has been called the most dangerous sport in the world, one that sometimes claims the lives of the most adroit and experienced pilots. The Reno event attracts as many as 100,000 grandstand spectators. Some form fan clubs around favorite celebrity pilots. The majority of the contestants are former military and airline flyers, ``hotshot'' test pilots, and a few former astronauts. Gandt describes some scary situations, when even the best equipment, stressed and strained by the tremendous speed, can result in crashes and loss of life despite the superior skills of flyers and ground crews. Gandt points out that WWII relics gradually wear down and become too valuable as antiques and collectors items to be risked in demanding competition. Included are colorful descriptions of characters driven by their love of planes and flying. May well appeal to aficionados of flying and those who enjoy adventure stories, but not necessarily the general-reader population. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670884510
• ISBN-13: 978-0670884513
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #597,341 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Flying and Writing: These have been the dual passions of Bob Gandt's life. He published his first story at age sixteen - the same year he first soloed an airplane. Since then he has logged something over 25,000 hours, written thirteen books and published countless articles.

As a U. S. Navy pilot, he logged over 300 carrier landings and nearly 2,000 hours in the A-4 Skyhawk. In his 1997 deja vu work, Bogeys and Bandits (Viking Penguin), he joins a Navy F/A-18 training squadron at the same base where he had trained years before.

For 26 years he flew as a pilot with Pan American World Airways, domiciled in Berlin, Hong Kong, New York, and San Francisco. His 1995 classic, Skygods (Wm. Morrow & Co.), recounts the meteoric descent and crash of the once-great Pan Am.

In 1985 Gandt and his partners, Harry Shepard and Carl Pascarell, formed the Redhawk Aerobatic Team. Flying their Siai-Marchetti fighter-trainers (rescued from a military boneyard in the Congo), they performed their formation aerobatic routine for over three million air show spectators.

Gandt's first book, Season of Storms, grew from his acclaimed series in the Far Eastern newspaper, South China Morning Post, about the WWII battle for Hong Kong. His long association with Pan Am and its romantic history inspired the book, China Clipper (Naval Institute Press, 1991 and 2010), which relives the mystique of the great commercial flying boats. His fascination with warbirds and the high-adrenalin world of unlimited air racing provides the background for Fly Low, Fly Fast (Viking Penguin), the inside account of the battle for the unlimited air racing championship at Reno, Nevada.

Gandt's first novel, With Hostile Intent (Penguin Putnam) was followed by Acts of Vengeance, Black Star, Shadows of War, The Killing Sky, and Black Star Rising.

In 1998 he made his screenwriting debut in 1998 on the CBS series Pensacola: Wings Of Gold, adapted from his book Bogeys and Bandits. He worked as writer and technical consultant for the twenty-two-episodes of the show, which starred James Brolin as the commander of a Marine F/A-18 training squadron.

Gandt's book Intrepid, co-authored by Bill White, with a foreword by former naval aviator Senator John McCain, was published by Random House in the autumn of 2008. The Twilight Warriors, his account of the sea and air battle for Okinawa (Random House) is the 2011 winner of the Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature.

Gandt and his wife, Anne, make their home at the Spruce Creek Fly-In in Daytona Beach, Florida, where Anne heads up the real estate firm, Country Club Properties of Spruce Creek.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FLY LOW FLY FAST: INSIDE THE RENO AIR RACES, February 9, 2000

By 

William J. Vitale, MD, USAAF (Hunt Valley, Maryland, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fly Low, Fly Fast: Inside the Reno Air Races (Hardcover)

I have thoroughly enjoyed all five of Robert Gandt's books and, once again, it seems that each has been more exciting than the one before.

In FLY LOW FLY FAST, the author transports you into the pits and into the very heart and soul of those daring aviators and their cutting-edge flying machines that make the Reno Unlimited Air Races the most dangerous and thrilling sport in the world.

Nothing, in my years of watching from the sidelines, had prepared me for the mano-a-mano action behind the scenes that few are privileged to know. Rare Bear, Dago Red, Strega, Tsunami, Tiger Distefani, Bob Hoover, Burt Rutan... All are vividly brought to life by a truly masterful craftsman in a drama of life and death that is certain to keep you spell-bound.

If you liked Gandt's BOGEYS AND BANDITS: THE MAKING OF A FIGHTER PILOT, you're sure to love FLY LOW FLY FAST. An easy 5 Stars! Lookin forward to his next adventure.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great story!, August 16, 2000

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Fly Low, Fly Fast: Inside the Reno Air Races (Hardcover)

In-the-cockpit action is played out vividly, which only further seats my lifetime quest of owning a P-51D. The book was enjoyable enough that I'm about to read it again. Unfortunately there are a few inexcusable technical mistakes (that only an aviation junky like myself would ever catch) along with a few humorous context errors that confirm the book was only proof-read by a software spell-checker. Still an outstanding read, and I highly recommend it! If you're headed to the 2000 Reno Air Races, this book is invaluable advance reading.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You feel like you could be in the seat yourself., January 28, 2000

By 

K. Daigle (Huntington Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fly Low, Fly Fast: Inside the Reno Air Races (Hardcover)

I found this book to be the perfect balance of information about the aircraft and the men who fly them. You learn enough about the planes to understand the dangers involved and also get a good feel for the kind of person it takes to strap into one of these machines. Good insight into the behind the scenes stuff that are all the makings of a pilot soap opera. I only wish it included more discussion of the other race classes at Reno as it focused primarily on the Unlimited Class. But definitely worth the ride.