Dan Hampton

“Lords of the Sky” was my introduction to Dan Hampton. But now, as I write this review, I’m immersed in my sixth consecutive Dan Hampton book, “Disappearing Act.” I inhaled “The Flight,” “The Hunter Killers,” “Operation Vengeance,” and “Chasing the Demon” – one after the other – all in a row!

Hampton’s “Lords” span a wide range of aviators—from daring World War I fighter pilots without parachutes, sometimes dueling with pistols, hand grenades and even show more attempting to bring down their enemies with grappling-hooks, to Russian female aces, mercenary aviators, to F-4G and F-16 Wild Weasel pilots over Iraq, to today’s (err…yesterday’s) Hornet drivers.

When reading Dan Hampton, you’re not a passive observer—you’re in the fighter pilot’s cockpit. You “feel” the flimsiness of the 80-horsepower, canvas-covered World War I monoplane, its simple wired controls, the cold-soaked oily steel and wooden charging handles of the two 30-caliber machine guns mounted right in front of you, above the remarkably barren “instrument” panel. The open cockpit’s freezing drizzle and oil-tinged propeller blast becomes palpable.

Hampton’s meticulous attention to detail is captivating. His groundbreaking research – which includes pilots’ personal letters, logbooks, maps, personal interviews, and government documents and reports not just from the U.S. and our allies, but also from the archives of our former enemies – allows Hampton to incorporate the actual words and thoughts of individuals. But there’s more to his books than mere cover stories; Hampton skillfully connects his subjects to the broader global events of the period. These details, along with his vivid, tactile descriptions, resonate deeply. I feel smarter after each read. Hampton’s nonfiction history reads like a fast-paced novel.

Whenever possible, I review both the e-book and audiobook. Over 30% of the e-book is dedicated to “extras” not available to the audiobook listener including several aircraft drawings, 12 high quality maps, two excellent appendixes: Anatomy of a Dogfight and Anatomy of a Surface Attack in which Hampton breaks down the intricacies for the lay fighter pilot, photographs of the original 1931 Eyewitness Account of the Death of the Red Baron by Major A. E. Beavis of the Australian Staff Corps, highly detailed End Notes and Bibliography, and footnotes. Narrator John Prude does an excellent job having the perfect voice for this book.

In summary, all of Dan Hampton’s books are outstanding and highly recommended! show less

Covering the Gulf Wars, but mostly the second one, the pilot tracks his lineage in the "wild weasel" ancestry that started with Vietnam era techniques to expose and eliminate ground crews bringing down American planes. Hampton discusses techniques and armaments while also discussing mundane and social aspects of fighter pilot life outside of the cockpit. He also quite plainly deplores drone usage for roles historically done by human pilots. He calls them "cyber desk-jockeys" and observes,

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UAVs were becoming fashionable with the bespectacled computer-screen officers living in fortified operations centers. These little things, called Predators (which was also funny), were singularly useless in any kind of environment with SAMs, MiGs, and anti-aircraft artillery. In other words—a war.

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Dan Hampton is a F-16 pilot and author, who offers an entertaining, if flawed look at the elite brotherhood of fighter pilots, starting from the First World War and moving through the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. The style intersperses novelist accounts of combat with historical sketches, and analysis of changes in aircraft and tactics.

The book starts well enough, with Roland Garros using an machine gun shooting through the armored propeller of his Morane-Saulnier scout to destroy a German scout show more plane. Soon, famous aces like Boelcke and Lanoe Hawker were dueling over the trenches, and planes began getting faster and more heavily armed. The first section, on the Great War and aerial mercenaries in the interwar era, is a delight, joyfully written and comprehensive. The basic qualities of the lords of the sky are laid out. Excellent flying skills, good gunnery, confidence and aggressiveness, and some qualities of leadership to train and command aerial armies.

But as Hampton gets closer to the present day, the quality declines. WW2 is the Battle of Britain, Midway, and the tales of Nazi super-ace Hans-Joachim Marseille and female Soviet ace Lilya Litvyak. Post-WW2, we have Korea, Vietnam, the Yom Kippur War, and then Desert Storm and Iraq II. Hampton gets lost in jargon, and doesn't clearly get across what air combat with guided missiles, electronic warfare, and a hostile integrated air defense environment is like.

And then there are the errors. The B-29 is not a "large jet", an elementary mistake. In the description of the forces on an airplane in flight, lift counteracts drag, and thrust counteract weight, which a basic force diagram shows is nonsense. While it's impossible to give a complete history of air combat in a single volume, at 623 pages, this book feels both too long, and also incomplete. show less

This is an account of the 18-or-so hours that Charles Lindbergh spent crossing the Pacific from New York to Paris, and it's a riveting one.

Let's be clear that the author isn't about to defend the man's politics, or to go over the kidnapping of his son. It's strictly about the flight, and it's a good thing.

The perilousness of his feat is well illustrated by the forward, which follows the attempt by two French aviators to make the crossing from Paris to New York two weeks before. After using show more the best plane, a concocting a solid game plan, and leaving nothing to chance - they disappear.

Lindbergh's margin of error was small, and the story illustrates the many times it could have gone wrong. Using his own account of the flight and other contemporaneous accounts, you're in the cockpit with "Slim," and find yourself rooting for him, too.

The story does correct and unearth some forgotten information, such as the fact that he flew combat missions during WWII, which, of course, he opposed. That opposition didn't, and doesn't, make him a Nazi or Nazi sympathizer, any more than those in the 2010s who oppose action in Iraq are automatically ISIS or ISIS sympathizers.

This book lets you revel in the triumph of flight, when it was still a wonder, and marvel at the people who stretched the boundaries.

I received this book for review from Goodreads.

Read more of my reviews on Ralphsbooks. show less