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mburnamfink 's review for:
Piano Burning and Other Fighter Pilot Traditions
by Rob Burgon
I read a lot of air power related books, so this is up my alley. Piano Burning is an apology (in the classical sense) for the strange and unique culture of fighter pilots. Fighter pilots are a rare breed, jet-age warriors beset on all sides by budget cuts, changing technology, dwindling numbers, angry spouses, and an official Air Force culture which doesn't tolerate rowdy individuality. It says a lot that despite the elite selection process, millions of dollars in training, a job which consists of flying the coolest machines in existence, and hundred thousand dollar retention bonuses, the USAF can't retain fighter pilots. As per official policy, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
The F-22 Raptor, Burgon's fighter
The first and most useful part of this book is a description of a day in the life of a pilot, a 14 hour ordeal where a single short training mission is bookended by hours of briefings before hand, and hours of debriefing afterwards. Every shot and maneuver is reworked in exhausting retrospective to ensure that a split second decision in the heat of combat is the best decision. On top of the pilot specific work, there's the kafka-esque requirements of military duty, and the unending bureaucracy.
So what fighter pilots live for is Friday night, and the honored tradition of Roll Call, a rowdy celebration of milestones achieved, stupidity survived, and comrades gone but not forgotten. An air combat mission is a 4-D tangle where things can go wrong very very quickly, and coming out victorious requires skill, luck, aggression, and an unbreakable bond with your bros (Burgon's term of choice for other fighter pilots). Building that bond means challenges, drunken antics, and making sure that you're never the weakest link on the team.
A mission to keep this book PG-13 means that Burgon has to pull his punches in some of the stories. And frankly, fighter pilots are lousy historians who rarely write things down, too much risk of having a document return as Exhibit A; and have a cultural rule that at least 10% of a story must be true which makes it hard to source the true origin of any tradition. Burgon isn't Ed Rasimus, the poet of the Vietnam War generation of pilots, but he's an engaging writer who provides unique insight.
The F-22 Raptor, Burgon's fighter
The first and most useful part of this book is a description of a day in the life of a pilot, a 14 hour ordeal where a single short training mission is bookended by hours of briefings before hand, and hours of debriefing afterwards. Every shot and maneuver is reworked in exhausting retrospective to ensure that a split second decision in the heat of combat is the best decision. On top of the pilot specific work, there's the kafka-esque requirements of military duty, and the unending bureaucracy.
So what fighter pilots live for is Friday night, and the honored tradition of Roll Call, a rowdy celebration of milestones achieved, stupidity survived, and comrades gone but not forgotten. An air combat mission is a 4-D tangle where things can go wrong very very quickly, and coming out victorious requires skill, luck, aggression, and an unbreakable bond with your bros (Burgon's term of choice for other fighter pilots). Building that bond means challenges, drunken antics, and making sure that you're never the weakest link on the team.
A mission to keep this book PG-13 means that Burgon has to pull his punches in some of the stories. And frankly, fighter pilots are lousy historians who rarely write things down, too much risk of having a document return as Exhibit A; and have a cultural rule that at least 10% of a story must be true which makes it hard to source the true origin of any tradition. Burgon isn't Ed Rasimus, the poet of the Vietnam War generation of pilots, but he's an engaging writer who provides unique insight.