Customer Reviews

When Penguins Flew and Water Burned

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This is a very good book which is both enjoyable to read and interesting for the reader desiring to learn just what the modern military navigator does. The author is a fine wordsmith, and writes in an active style which makes for zero flat or dull moments along the way. Style can make or break a book, and in this book it "makes it". I have been interested in aviation books that deal with the evolution of the navigator, and there are many great ones out there. But in today's age, the vocation has been replaced in commercial aviation with GPS, etc. The military still uses navigators, and I have always been interested in learning how they practice their art today.

Well, this book delivers those facts and more! It starts out at day 1 of undergraduate navigation training school in the late 80's and moves continually through B-52 training and Desert Storm. It's a personal story that weaves the life of the author ( a young Air Force Captain)throughout his military career as a navigator. The deployments, long flights, and the details of the navigator's part of the collective mission are all spelled out, and the reader actually feels like he has - at the end of the book - just completed a 10 year tour as an Air Force navigator.

The equipment of the navigator is all described technically as easy to understand as is possible, although this is not always possible to do...how could it be done? It takes 6 months of training to understand the gizmos and gyros, etc! But, in those rare instances, the reader gets the drift (a navigation term, coincidentally).

For anyone interested in what a B-52 modern day crew does, this book will satisfy their curiosity. It does a fine job of commenting on all the other roles and positions of the crewmembers, so the reader pretty much understands what is going on during flight of all the crewmembers. The author relates actual crew conversations during flight and I found this to be extremely enjoyable. I rate this book as high as Maj Lothar Maier's book "B*U*F*F (fiction but pretty much the real deal). Both authors are highly insightful and observant, which makes both books great reads.

Definitely get this book if you want to know about the B-52, what B-52 crews do and how they think, and what the modern day navigator does in the B-52 or military today.

Finally, the author contributes to the debunking of the myth that navigators are all pilot school washouts. Navigators may aspire to be pilots, but that doesn't mean they actually did not want to be a navigator. The author is proud of his navigator wings, and that's a plus in my book (no pun intended).

This is really a fantastic work of aviation history. The author very skillfully captures the full spectrum of emotions associated with the high stress of flight training, the challenges of combat flying, and the intricacies of flying in a multi-crew military aircraft. The writing style keeps you riveted and allows you to experience a full range of emotions from laughter to cynicism to fear. As a military aviator, I really applaud this work as one of the few out there that perfectly captures what it's like to fight modern wars in modern (or in some cases, not-so-modern) military aircraft. This book moved to the very top of my list of books to share with my sons to give them a feel for my own wartime experiences. Thank you Mr. Clonts for your outstanding work and for your service.

I went through navigator training at the now-defunct Mather Air Force Base just a couple of years before Mr. Clonts went through, and I had to smile as I read the book, as it was like watching an episode of "this is your life" as we had a lot of parallel experiences (just in case you're curious, the Friday JOC nights at Mather really did happen). I too went to Strategic Air Command and crewed on a B-52, albeit as an Electronic Warfare Officer on the upper deck, for several years in the late 80's up until Desert Storm. I too went to Diego Garcia in the frantic rush to get a mission in before the war ended after being shipped out from K.I.Sawyer AFB (we arrived in country literally the day after the B-52 accident on D.G.), and became part the only "H" model crew from the island to fly combat on the very last night of the war. This book is rich with detail on the life and the psychology of what is was like to be an alert-pulling "crewdog" in SAC. The Navigator was often the hardest-working member of the crew during flights, and especially during low level routes, and was often a brand new Second Lieutenant on his very first assignment. Talk about sink or swim! This was just about the toughest job a recent college grad could ask for, and Jim succeeded admirably!

When Penguins Flew and Water Burned is a most interesting ramble about the US Air Force.
It is fairly well written and the author's style does hold the reader quite well.
I would recommend it as a good read. The author certainly possesses a deep knowledge
of all matters pertaining to the US Air Force and the field of aircraft navigation .
What is lacking is a glossary of all the technical and flying terms used in the book.
While the author does explain the abbreviations as he comes to them in his narrative,
a casual reader might easily forget what they mean as progress is made through the book.
The author has at his command a fine choice of words. For the more picky pedants
among us, the quality of the writing is good, however, the proofreading of the manuscript
before publication was not. The book abounds with grammatical errors.

Author Jim Clonts is to be congratulated and thanked for sharing his extensive knowledge
with the reader. May he and his family live long and prosper in his field away from the
US Air Force.

What a great read. I could not put my ipad down. If you want to get a feel for what it is like to be on a B-52 crew thru the years - you should read this book.

Finally, a well written book from the pov of the crews. Lots of details, but very interesting and readable.

This is one of the best recountings of Desert Storm and nav school from the BUFF perspective, and gives such a good picture of the war from the warfighters eyes. Any student of military history or bomber operator would be wise to give this book a read.

A generation or two younger than me perhaps, but Clonts nails his subject. He perfectly captures the attitudes, the gripes, sense of humor, and lifestyle as a crewdog in a Bomb Squadron during the 1990's. This book brought a flood of memories with it. Good job!

i am an avid read and have read a lot of good books, but none like this. i fell in love. i absolutly could not put my kinle down. by far the best book i have read. thank you mr. clonts for this awesome book.