There are so many. Chickenhawk, by Robert Mason, might be my favorite, concerning combat aviation. No glamour here for a Tom Cruise movie and box office jackpot: no 500 knot jets, ejection seats, parachutes or ability to dive lower and faster to dodge bullets, shells or SAMs. Just a slowing Huey helicopter with terrified pilots and crew going into a landing zone with nowhere to hide, or struggling to climb slowly out while the enemy (often waiting) is blasting you from thick undergrowth with AK-47 machine guns or worse. And the Army supposedly took a long time shipping chest protectors for the exposed crews, trapped behind their large plexiglass windows, costing even more lives. Fastjet pilots at least had little chance of getting hit by cyclic rates of fire while at almost zero airspeed, other than random rocket attacks (not including accidental rocket on USS Forestal), it seems-or bad burritos for breakfast.
[This message has been edited by Ignition Override (edited 08 September 2000).]