Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat Paperback – May 14, 2013

What a great read! Plenty of authentic "There I was...felt like this...smelt like that" narratives that will keep the reader spellbound. The first chapter is the most concise, complete and readable history of the Wild Weasels I have ever seen. No boring technojargon. Just thrilling personal accounts of modern warfare, which is a concoction of Technology and old-fashioned guts.I flew with the Wild Weasels in Vietnam (I would say North Vietnam, but that's redundant since the Weasel mission is against SAMs and the only area SAMS were located in that war was the North). The technological advances since those early days are cosmic, and we old-timers can only wonder how many of our comrades would not have been lost in battle, or consigned to years as POWs, if we had had anything like this available to us back then. But the essence of Weaseling has not changed over the years. The pilot still has to fly around where the SAMs are and ferret them out by offering himself as the bait to get them to reveal themselves. And then kill the SAM site before the SAM kills him.And some reviewers wonder why that pilot might seem a little overconfident, maybe (horrors!) even arrogant and egotistical? YGBSM! This is not a task for wimps.Sure, Hampton is willing now and again to step into the age-old dispute between those few at the tip of the spear and those many back in support (the REMFs). This dichotomy, sometimes over-simplified as rated vs non-rated, is internal (but not unique) to the Air Force. The reviewer who thinks Hampton is disparaging infantry and marines is way off base. Even Snoopy in Peanuts has the good grace to respect and pity "the poor blighters in the trenches." No, Hampton's beef is legitimately with those Air Force weenies who have never flown in combat but consider themselves qualified to set priorities. They are the supercilious types who think it's crucial that creases be straight and boots be polished when the real problem is bad guys trying to kill us. And note that Hampton is very complimentary to the tanker crews who disregarded standing orders and instead flew out of the safe tracks into hostile territory to rescue fuel-critical fighters who had pressed the fight even after reaching Bingo. This happened frequently in Vietnam, too, and we greatly respected the courage of those who were willing to hang it out in their slow-movers.Hampton is a very talented writer as well as a sh*t-hot fighter pilot and an outstanding Wild Weasel. I was very pleased with his preference for DEAD over mere SEAD. And I applaud his questioning why the term ACE is restricted to fighter pilots who have shot down five enemy planes. The fighters who tackle SAMs have, in many ways, an even hairier mission, and there ought to be a similar heroic appellation for 5-SAM killers. Maybe SAM-Ace? I know, I know, problems with confirmation of kills. There will always be doubters. Let's just hope there will also always be self-assured fighters of Hampton's caliber whom America will occasionally need to keep us safe and free. In my opinion, they're entitled to swagger.

Dan Hampton has "seen the Elephant" for the first time in 1991 fighting Saddam's troops for the liberation of Kuwait, and then again in 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. In this book he relates his dramatic career, his achievements, his combat experiences and also his pride for being a member of an elite warrior caste - a "Patchwearer" that is. Several anecdotes stand out: his troublesome encounter with a stern but fair colonel in a bar at Incirlik, his interception (and almost shooting down) of a Turkish F-104 in the skies of Northern Iraq, his funny experiences while being an F-16 instructor with the Egyptian Air Force in the '90s, the several SAM killing missions over Iraq, how he led 9 other F-16s to land safely in Kuwait during a terrible sandstorm in the region, and -the most astonishing of all- how he avoided the launch of multiple SA-3 missiles over Iraq doing some terrific aerobatics in order to confuse their radar guidance and force them to spend their energy before hitting him. Although many details of the actual DEAD tactics of the USAF are of course deleted in the book by the Pentagon proof readers, one can almost taste the battle terror that a modern pilot feels when he is faced with the large array of "robot killers" produced by the Soviet and French weapons industries. Dan Hampton faced rarely the more modern SA-6 and ROLAND missiles (but he defeated repeatedly the older SA-2 and SA-3s) and he recounts in general terms some of the tactics used, but I wonder how more difficult and complicated must be to do the same today against the monstrous S-300 missiles or the murderous Kub. Hampton believes that the manned fighters have certainly a future in the world's air forces and that the drones can't survive in the modern combat environment. It's almost certain though that modern pilots face a much wider range of lethal surface to air weapons which have become the cheap antidote of the poor nations to the military air might of the superpowers.

This is a riveting, engrossing account of the path of a true professional warrior. I could not put this book down and read it in a weekend every chance I had. Multitasking at 500 knots while attacking multiple targets and leading the mission. The attention to detail about the training, the personalities involved along the way and the candid accounting of the missions, is truly amazing. This is the best book I've ever read about the Viper and the fantastic pilots that fly them. Thanks for everything Dan.

I'm savoring this one - no more than a chapter each night. Dan Hampton really brings the F16 cockpit alive in VIPER PILOT. There could easily be three or four books in his story from flight school through Gulf War II; in fact, I hope he goes back and writes more. The combat scenes are lightning fast, all the more tense because you know they really happened. Dan has as fine a touch with words as he does the flight stick in the Viper, navigating the reader through the inevitable bureaucracies of the military to the knife's edge of real-time combat in the blink of an eye, painting a great picture in your mind along the way. Most of us lived Iraq through the liveshots from CNN or Fox News; Dan Hampton takes us back there at 500 knots and 1000 feet AGL with the bingo fuel alarm sounding, multiple threats in the air, and a wingman to track. This is the real deal. The near zero-zero landing of several groups of fighters in the midst of a howling sandstorm is worthy of a medal or two and makes for great reading. Through actions like that and the multiple attacks on a SAM site near Baghdad with weather closing in, Dan and his fellow Weasel pilots helped a lot of guys come home to their wives and kids. This book is an often gritty, sometimes funny, and always brutally honest tale of one of America's finest contemporary aviators and many of the characters surrounding him. My only complaint is that I want more.

Informative, inspiring, dramatic, funny, iconoclastic, interesting, sarcastic and deep. This book is a lot of things, and I greatly enjoyed reading it again and again. I really admire Dan Hampton's ability to make you feel like you are flying with him, I think he's a really gifted writer, something also evident from his other books. Recommended!

Thrilling, captivating, fun to read and hard to put down. Above all, it brought back (more sweet than bitter) memories of a time I was working at the same base at the same time in Germany, dating what he calls a: “peculiar form of life, something called an EWO …” (I like his sense of humor). On the other hand, I can very well understand the 1-star ratings who criticize the language, the obvious arrogance and what they consider disrespect or racism. However, thinking about it, isn't it exactly this kind of attitude and ego that helps fighters win a battle? And, as far as I remember, this was the kind of language most fighter pilots used at the time. Overall, a very personal, authentic and certainly subjective view about the life and adventures of a fighter pilot. Thank you, Dan Hampton!

Extremely well written, this first hand account of what it is to be a modern military aviator puts you in the cockpit of an F-16 Viper in the war torn skies of Iraq.Wild Weasel missions are the most dangerous and demanding flying a pilot can do in the modern battle space and this book takes us, the reader along for the ride.If you enjoy aviation read this book. And the authors other works, you will not be disappointed

Real deep insight about Air combat that you would never get from a non-professional. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the subject.

Frankly written and straight to the point. If you like fighter planes and have an interest in how wars are fought from the air this is your reading.