Any former or current BUFF crews whom may have served with the author of the bestselling Flight Of The Old Dog or Day of the Cheetah, Hammerheads, Storming Heaven, Tin Man, Act of War, Rogue Forces etc etc. IMHO, he's the more high tech version of Tom Clancy!
Having read most of his books, and having a sizable collection in paperback and on Kindle on one's ipad, its interesting to see at the time current news which links to the plots.
I imagine the MV and CV-22 crews are chuffed as they always feature in his books as well as citing Dreamland as the High technology Advanced Weapons Centre known as HAWC where the modified B-52, B-1 and other exotic hardware such as the Forward Swept Wing fighter based on the X-29 or the then ATF concept, and a modified F-15E Strike Eagle with Canards nicknamed 'Cheetah' (as in the NASA F-15 ACTIVE program)
However strange as it sounds (imadvertantly the Emma Thompson / Jeff Goldblum film Stranger Than Fiction comes to mind!!)
The detail of the aircraft and systems of some of which have made up designations but can see they're based on whats out there such as the Soviet space fighter plane in Silver Tower about the AFSPACEOM orbiting space station monitoring the Soviet invasion of Iran and controlling the 2nd and 7th fleet as well as the modified B-52 known as Megafortress - (made famous in Flight of the Old Dog and apperaring in practicaally all of his novels.). The Soviet space fighter in his book was based on
Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-105 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anyhow - reading Hammerheads which is about a drug smuggler who has Soviet Air Force training in fast jets and gunships who decides to aggressively push the drgs into the states by shooting down US Customs Air Branch Citation interceptors aircraft with Mig 21 (he's based out of an island off Haiti) and attacking USCG HU-25. Our hero who is not the General Brad Elliott and Colonel Patrick McLanahan from HAWC (but they do assist later on with supplying a CV-22 and using a defecting Soviet SU-27 - re Red Eagles to fool the drug smuggler) but an USCG Admiral. The final straw is the attack on an offshore rig used as a surveillance and FOB for the US Customs Blackhawk and USCG HH-65.
So the USCG and US Customs disband and form the Border Security Force -
The book was written in 1988/89 - and post 9/11 like in the above - The US Customs and US Border Patrol disband and form Department of Homeland Security Force, with Customs Border Patrol being the enforcement arm and subsequently the Air Branch. Also in Hammerheads, the introduction of UAV for border surveillance as in now with the Predator and Guardian now.
In Storming Heaven - which was written in 1994, our Coast Guard hero returns still as the head of the fictional Border Security Force equipped MV-22 and HH-65 to deal with a cunning terrorist who uses airliners as weapons not in the suicide role but more of bombers. around the USA. The bad guy was a teenage offender roughed around in his native Belgium by USAF SFS after peddling drugs to airmen. The character given a choice of prison or military service by the Belgian authorities, ends up growinng up in the Belgian system then commissioned and ends up as a Special Forces officer then going through for flying training and his hatred of the USA.
However the book does draw attention to the post Cold War drawdown of fighter units assigned to NORAD as the hero mentions in an interview with the CBS lady. Then the NORAD response with Avenger, Patriot units and all F-16/F-15 units while difficulty in managing US airspace, identifying which civilian airliners may pose a threat. Unfortunately tragedy strikes as one ANG driver shoots down an airliner due to a misunderstanding near the Capitol in the book and ends up taking his own life.
Again 7 years later from book being published, it was 9/11.
In Sky Matsers, he introduces the Sky Masters corporation with its modified DC-10 launching NIRTSat (Need-it-Right-Now satellite) rocket from its belly which I saw as based on the Orbital Sciences L-1011 Tristar modifed by Marshall Aerospace to launch the Pegasus rocket with satellite on board.
Any thoughts here?
Cheers