John Trotti

Trotti served two tours in Vietnam flying Phantom fighters although he spent his trips using bombs and rockets on bridges, gun emplacements, SAM sites and enemy troops and never shot an enemy plane down. Much of the book is about the technology that made up the Phantom and what it was like to fly it. He spends time describing the training that he experienced, detailed description of what the pilot did before and after launch. While Trotti did most of combat flying from a land runway, the Phantom was designed to be landed on a carrier so he was capable of doing that as well.

He does describe combat and accidents but much of the book is about the technical details of the plane including the amount of maintenance in terms of time and knowledge to keep such a sophisticated plane in the air.… (mais)