Fire on the Flight Deck

This book is absolutely fantastic. We know a lot about USN carrier life...from the aviator's viewpoint...this book offers a great look at carrier life through the eyes of the deck crew...the men and women who work at the most dangerous job in the world in an incredible atmosphere of danger, noise, tension, heat, and motion. Darren Sapp has written a fine story that pulls the reader in and carries us along through a young man's decision to enlist in the Navy and opt for carrier duty. We are in boot camp; specialist training; fire prevention training school, where we learn all sailors(especially carrier sailors) are trained to be firemen on top of all other training;the busy carrier decks; and in below decks areas too. My nephew was on board USS John F. Kennedy and he never related what the life was like. This book fills in a lot of questions one might have about Navy/carrier duty. We also are in the drama of the life and death situations of a major aircraft accident causing a hellish "fire on the flight deck" of the fictional carrier USS Halsey. OUTSTANDING story and efforts by this writer. I'm hoping to see more books from Darren Sapp featuring the characters in his book and others about the Navy and any other subjects he chooses to present. You'll like his writing if you are interested in action adventure books that don't stray from reality. Buy the book and enjoy it! I wouldn't be surprised to see this as a movie in the future...

This is a great book! Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. Having served in the Navy in the late 60's on an aircraft carrier this book brought back a lot of memories. It tells the story of a young man joining the Navy after graduating high school-like me-and follows him through boot camp and his assignment to a carrier. He was assigned to work the flight deck-again, like me-and tells the story of his various jobs as a "roof rat". He is a plane director -yellow shirt - one of the hardest, and most respected, job on the roof. He faces many trials up there, ending with the fire on the flight deck. Fire on a ship is the scariest thing, because you have to fight it as there is nowhere to run. You will not be able to put this book down as you read how a 19 yr old kid becomes a man! I highly recommend this book, especially to non-Navy vets, because it will show you what it's like to work in the most dangerous job in the world!

Reading my fellow Flight Deck Veteran's book, all I could do was keep turning the page. I too served in the same years as him. I too fought fires, not the the extent of the one in the story, but the fear, the thoughts, the actions of others were all brought back to memory.Serving as a flight deck corpsman on two ships in my twenty years, I consider myself an expert on naval aviation operations at sea. This book describes that life in great first and third person views.At one point, I cried as I read the part after the fire , and recalled a funeral I attended in Kentucky for a friend. I was late and his mother would not start with out "Carlos' Navy BROTHER".If you want to feel the excitement, boredom, irony, and chaos that is a US Navy aircraft carrier, read this book. It's fictional, but Some of the events have happened . The Libyian mig shoot down, actually happened twice. That happened on a ship I was on, (January 1989, USS,John F Kennedy). D LEE Hospital Corpsman First Class (Enlisted aviation warfare) USN (RET)

The book Fire on the Flight Deck is outstanding. Brian Donley's experiences during Navy basic training hooked me from the very beginning because of similar experiences that I remember from Army basic training 40 years ago. The story follows his experiences from my naïve young man to becoming a sailor to his courage and maturity that he is forced to display during the fire on the aircraft carrier. I don't have the Navy experiences; therefore, I cannot speak to the authenticity of life and death on the aircraft carrier. Nevertheless, the experiences seem right to me. The major characters have a great deal of depth and are not caricatures. This is one of those books that I had to put on a list of books that I do not ever want to forget the title of and intent to reread in the future. I highly recommend this book and intend to read many more books from this author.

As a former "roof rat" I totally enjoyed the writer and his story. Everything described was as when I was there, the descriptions were as I remember and often I forgot this book was fiction. If you have never been on an aircraft carrier, once you have read this book, you will feel as you have. I could almost feel the heat and see the carnage created by the bombs bursting. Truly this is a dangerous place to work, and I am proud of those young men and women who work on our Navy Carriers. I thank them all. Well done book!

I worked on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier in the early 80's. The book accurately describes Navy life in general, and work on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier in particular. It is no doubt largely autobiographical, and read in that context it is not a bad story. In the context of a novel, I usually prefer more depth. Character development could be stronger. The points of conflict in the story run along fairly predictable lines. It would be nice to see more in the way of mystery or suspense. It could use a few more surprises. The story shifts from first-person to third-person during the climatic phase, which can be a little jarring for the reader. It then shifts back to first person as the story winds down. Nevertheless it's a pretty good story and I cannot emphasize enough how accurately it reflects life and work on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. At the end of the day, I tip my hat to fellow "roof rat" Darren Sapp for telling his story.