Air Combat Fiction

Zigzag Men captures the dark humor of an unruly cadre of loosely led, overworked helicopter pilots, reluctant warriors who commute into combat from a remote airfield in Vietnam, zigzagging over the jungle, around one another, and through the indelible intensity of war. Quan Loi is their staging-point for flight operations during the day and a disreputable haven for hardcore, drug-altered malcontents during the long hours of darkness. When Newbies arrive at Quan Loi, the inevitable friendships and animosities become amplified by exhausting hours of combat flying, followed by immoderate ...

A World War II Military Thriller Inspired by True Events of the Winter War In the frozen skies of 1939 Finland, death doesn’t come from above—it hunts in formation. As the Soviet invasion begins, Finnish fighter ace Lieutenant Veikko Niemi takes to the air in his outclassed Fokker D.XXI, battling overwhelming numbers in defense of his homeland. But something is different this time. The Soviet pilots aren't flying blind bombing runs—they’re coordinated, precise, and deadly. Led by the enigmatic Major Grigori Chernyavin, a disgraced stunt pilot returned from Stalin’s purges, the ...

He hunts by night. But it’s the ghosts of war that won’t let him rest. From the award-winning author of Sunward I’ve Climbed and The Shouting Wind comes the heart-pounding third novel in Frank A. Mason’s acclaimed Sunlit Silence series - an unflinching portrayal of sacrifice, vengeance, and survival in WWII’s deadliest skies. Flight Lieutenant Trip Gibson has lost more than comrades. The war has taken friends, lovers, and pieces of his soul. Now flying with the RAF’s elite night fighters, Trip takes to the skies under cover of darkness - haunted, hardened, and hell-bent on ...

In the war-torn skies over Europe, fate thrusts an unlikely squadron into the fight. When Captain Jack Carson and his pilots arrive in England, they have no aircraft, no missions, and no way to join the battle. That is, until the British make an unprecedented offer—Spitfires, the finest fighter planes in the world. With this golden opportunity comes immense pressure: the Americans must prove themselves against the best pilots Germany has to offer. Through the eyes of the cautious yet steadfast Jack Carson, the daring young ace Tommy Baker, the brilliant mechanic Stella Ward, and the ...

He’s survived the Blitz and the desert. His hardest battles are still to come. From award-winning author Frank A. Mason comes On Silvered Wings, the breathtaking fourth installment in the critically acclaimed Sunlit Silence series. This is an unforgettable journey through duty, desire, and the shifting skies of World War II. Major Trip Gibson has stared death in the face from Spain to France and Britain. Now, with America fully at war, he’s handed a new mission. Help shape the future of air combat and train the next wave of U.S. fighter pilots. His weapon is the P-38 Lightning, sleek ...

The mighty, iconic A-10 Warthog was first thrust into battle in Operation Desert Storm. The men who took it through walls of flak and surface-to-air missiles to help defeat the world's fourth-largest army were as untested as their airplanes, so they relied on personal determination and the amazing A-10 to accomplish their missions, despite the odds.

A lone squadron. A frozen front. And the might of the Soviet Union overhead. When Stalin’s bombers strike without warning, Finnish pilot Veikko Niemi leads his understrength squadron into the teeth of the Soviet onslaught. With nothing but outdated Fokker D.XXIs and frozen courage, Niemi launches daring intercepts against overwhelming odds. But a new threat emerges, Colonel Kozlov, a methodical Soviet commander who turns the air war into a calculated game of attrition. As the temperature plummets and tensions rise, Veikko must adapt or watch his men vanish into the frost and fire. Blood ...

Germany is on the brink of defeat, it's armies pushed back on all fronts. The air force turns to wonder weapons to try turn the tide. No, this is not 1945, it's 1918 and will result in what became known as Black September for the Allies. Felix Wolff would rather not kill his cousin Ted. But if he gets the chance, he will. Ted is an American fighting for the British, while Felix is flying for the Germans in Fokker DVII, an aircraft far superior to Ted's. Both men love the same woman. The three had grown up together and were closer than brothers, and it was she who caused the rift between ...

Outnumbered. Outgunned. Never Out of the Fight. December 1939. Finland stands on the edge of annihilation. Soviet bomber formations grow larger by the day and fighter escorts strike with machine-tight discipline. The architect behind the onslaught, Colonel Kozlov, studies the Finnish air force with a scholar’s patience and a butcher’s efficiency. Lieutenant Veikko Niemi has survived longer than most, flying a fighter held together by scavenged parts and willpower alone. His latest mission, a near-suicidal strike on a Soviet airfield, buys Finland a few precious hours, but it also ...

North Korea gets real quiet when the Chinese Communist Party Kingpins die in an orbital strike from the US Space Force. South Korea gets presented with a once in a generation oppertunity to reunite Korea with Seoul in charge. Will crossing the DMZ going noth present that much of a problem? What can be done to prevent the NKPA from rushing reinforcements to the DMZ? The NKPA has special forces that can enter the South through invasion tunnels. What about the North Korean leadership and the nucelar weapons? Will the US get directly involved or sit on the sidelines? What in the heck is "Rapid ...

Silver Wing: Code Red Skies is a pulse-pounding, character-driven military suspense novel that brings together six unforgettable tropes: the Fearless Female Pilot (Samantha “Silver” Mercer), the Loyal Mechanic (Dutch, who knows her jet better than anyone), the Tech Genius (Blaze, who can hack or fix anything with a pulse), the By-the-Book Strategist (Lillian, balancing logic and moral lines), the Rogue with a Heart (Jackal, the unpredictable trickster with deadly instincts), and the AI Conscience (Piper, Silver’s voice of logic and silent partner in survival). Each character plays a ...

In this gripping Dieselpunk war story, a Tesla-powered weapon threatens to shift the balance of World War I—not just between empires, but within the hearts of those ordered to deploy it. Verdun, 1916. Beneath the smoke-draped skies of the Meuse, Lieutenant Louis Carrel climbs into the freezing night with orders to intercept a German bomber wing. But his payload isn't shrapnel or gas. Slung under the wing of his aging Voisin is a weapon born of secrecy and lightning, a beam device too unstable for doctrine, too powerful to control. Command calls it progress. The crews on the ground call it...

It’s 1968. Hamilton Hancock is the Distinguished Graduate at his undergraduate pilot training class at Laughlin Air Force Base. He is on the fast track to become a fighter pilot, slated to fly an F-100, F-105 or F-4 in Vietnam. Then, the “needs of the service” intervenes, and he is assigned to fly one of the smallest, slowest aircraft in the Air Force inventory, the O-2A.

RUSSIAN EUROPEAN WAR 2027 A near-future technothriller where the first strike arrives without warning—though everyone saw it coming. June 22, 04:00. The Suwałki Gap—long feared, long studied—finally triggers the war no one wanted but everyone expected. The Baltics come under attack by hybrid forces and freshly declared “people’s republics.” Gotland is blockaded and hit without a declaration of war. New “republics” appear overnight across Europe. Drone swarms cut into harbors; fake “embassies” issue real ultimatums; a civilian Il-76 declares an emergency landing. NATO ...

A NATO reinforcement exercise held at a British airbase in West Germany brings British, American, and French fighter crews together to practice the air corridor policing mission. When a Pembroke transport aircraft engaged in a covert reconnaissance mission is intercepted by a MiG fighter and forced to land in East Germany, events escalate. Will the crew become a pawn in the relentless confrontation as the Soviets increase the rhetoric?

Colonel Yuri Andrenev, a respected test pilot, is trusted to evaluate the latest Soviet fighter, the Sukhoi Su27 "Flanker", from a secret test facility near Moscow. Surely he is above suspicion. With thoughts of defection in his mind, and flying close to the inner German border, could he be tempted to make a daring escape across the most heavily defended airspace in the world?

Flying the Jaguar bomber in a Cold War West Germany, Nick Gleason is, perhaps, at the peak of his career but he is a loner struggling with his conscience and he begins to question the morality of his role. If war in Europe breaks out, he would be tasked to deliver a thermo-nuclear weapon to a target in the East.

U.S. Army Captain Kimberly N. Hampton was living her dream: flying armed helicopters in combat and commanding D Troop, 1st Squadron, 17th Cavalry, the armed reconnaissance aviation squadron of the 82nd Airborne Division. On January 2, 2004, Captain Hampton was flying an OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter above Fallujah, Iraq, in support of a raid on an illicit weapons marketplace, searching for an illusive sniper on the rooftops of the city. A little past noon her helicopter was wracked by an explosion....