Flight of the Old Dog

Cover torn and ragged - not what I consider to be very good condtion!

The beginning of the series. Purchased it to complete my collection. Brown’s knowledge and writing talent is wonderful. Happy he’s still writing

More James Bond than Jack Ryan. Expect nothing but over the top thrills and you wont be disappointed, as a super B-52 crew wages a one plane war against the Soviet Union. Exciting. Fun. Light.

Without a doubt, this is one of the best aviation thrillers ever written. It is technically accurate, the characters are human, believeable and funny and the story will keep any reader riveted to the pages. You will not put this book down until you have finished it.Thought-provoking and suspensful, it does not fall into the predicablility and anti-claimax of many thrillers. Read it today. Ypu will never forget your ride in the belly of the Old Dog!

I read this novel as a Junior in High School at Harlingen's Marine Military Academy. It took me about seven hours (it would have taken less but I had to go to chow). I stayed up after "lights out" with a flashlight and hid under my blanket until I finished it. This is an incredibly engrossing story. The characters are interesting and identifiable (you truly find yourself caring about them), the narration is first rate (you'll actually feel as if you're in the old B-52), and the pace is breathless. It's still hard to believe this is Brown's first novel. Perhaps it is beginner luck that makes it so good. If you haven't read this one yet, please do. ("Day of the Cheetah" isn't bad either, by the way.) Guaranteed to be worth every nickel spent buying it and every second of lost sleep spent reading it!

There is nothing like picking up a book where you have literally have no idea how it's going to turn out and FOTOD is that kind of book. Back when I first read it years ago, I was simply amazed of Brown's command of literary fictional prose combined with technial jargon, ala Mr. Clancy, but more toward the technical side. Also, I wish that HBO would have made an adaptation of this novel instead of "...By Dawn's Early Light", which was an excellent movie in the vein of FOTOD. Simply put, the best first novel I've read since The Hunt for Red October.

This is Brown's debut novel, and to truly "dig" his others, you should read this one first. It's got an action filled, ambitious plot, even if some of the technology seems a little far-fetched. But who knows? Maybe the USAF has something like the Old Dog EB-52 in Area 51. The story kind of lost a bit of the suspense when the endpaper map clearly shows the Old Dog landing in Alaska at the end of the mission, but still you can truly get into the story after maybe a dozen pages or so. Flight of the Old Dog definetly hooked me onto Dale Brown novels. Bravo to Brown