There are always so many ways to die during wartime--some abrupt, some lingering, some the result of carelessness. The survivors were those, like the author, who were willing to take risks but always planned ahead. Preparation for war holds its own dangers--particularly for the Navy carrier pilots who were assigned the task of patrolling the skies conducting airborne spying,--of becoming the eyes and ears of the nation against treacherous enemies. In this tale of the life of a much decorated spy in the sky, civilians live for the moment and learn techniques of piloting skill under extreme conditions that allowed the author to live out a normal life span. It was always much skill and some luck that brought Scott Beat safely through his 27 years in the Navy. Scott Beat, U.S. Navy Retired, experienced four and a half decades of piloting aircraft accruing more than 18,000 pilot hours. He made arrested landings on more than 20 different U. S. Navy attack carriers and was an experienced air warfare officer who specialized in aircraft carrier operations, conventional, atomic, and nuclear weapons delivery. He flew more than 200 combat missions in Southeast Asia and made close to 1,000 arrested carrier landings. He was awarded more than six rows of medals and campaign ribbons. Carrier Pilot Beat is a Centurion on the USS Yorktown (CVA-10) and the USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31). Additionally, he performed more than 200 arrested landings on the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVA- 42) to become a Double Centurion there. He qualified for and was granted the opportunity to fly the U-2 toward the end of his career, a fitting reward for his years of dedicated service.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
So Many Ways to Die: Surviving as a Spy in the Sky,
By Bill Crane (Neenah, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: So Many Ways To Die: Surviving as a spy in the sky (Hardcover)
This book describes some of the very little known but very important aspects of the Cold War. These highly classified missions were the "front lines" of the Cold War. I had the privalege of participating as an Army Crew member with the Army Security Agency 1st Special Activities Detachment assigned to the Navy's Fleet Air Reconnaissances Squadron One(VQ-1) which the author has described. The author has given an accurate description of what we were doing and what it was like. The Navy pilots and crews who fly and who flew these missions are and were the cream of the crop. If you are interested in little known aspects of the Cold War, this book is a must.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
An Embarrassment,
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This review is from: So Many Ways To Die: Surviving as a spy in the sky (Paperback)
This is a book which should never have been published. It is a very poorly written self promoting account which gives a disjointed and warped view of life as a midshipman at the Naval Academy and later as a Naval Aviator flying the SkyRaider (AD) and jet powered SkyWarrior (A3D). The book is full of typos and gross errors such as the caption for the photo of Admiral Hyland pinning a medal on Lieutenant Commander Scoot Beat with the Admiral's name spelled "Highland" or stating that all nuclear weapons had been removed from the aircraft carriers in 1963 which of course they were not and in fact each of our deployed aircraft carriers had an inventory of about 100 nuclear weapons.
I should disclose that I was a classmate of Scott Beat at the Naval Academy but did not know him ( which was not unusual with a class size of 1300) and was a naval aviator but cannot ever recall meeting Scott during my 24 years of active duty. The most striking feature of the book is his account of flying the U-2 and in particular a mission over the North Pole. Clearly he had help writing that chapter because it is quite literate, even poetic in places. But the problem (embarrassment) is that he never flew that high flying spy plane. The association of U-2 pilots, needless to say, were enraged when someone brought their attention to this book and the false claim of Beat's that he was one of them. According to Beat's roommate from the Academy Scott has apologized, said he was sorry etc. and would remove the book from the bookstores (or words to that effect). The wife of his roommate has suggested that perhaps Scott Beat has an aging mental problem, he is now 82, and that, in my opinion, is the kindest view of this sad spectacle. Thomas W. Schaaf Commander U.S. Navy (Retired)
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