Robert GandtCritiques

NF

Entertaining if not very explanatory account of how Pan Am, the most prestigious airline in the world, ultimately withered and died. Its very success and global reach made it arrogant, which left it politically isolated and also without domestic routes to feed into its international ones. Also there appears to have been essentially no one able to do accounting to figure out what was actually costing too much money, or to act on it if they did find out. Another version of “private enterprise isn’t more efficient than government, there’s just survival bias because failed businesses disappear.”

Flying wingtip-to-wingtip around pylons at nearly 500 mph, just yards above the desert floor, the Mustangs, Bearcats, and Corsairs of the Reno Air Races are the fastest, loudest, baddest piston-engined aircraft in the world. Using the same fly-on-the-wall reportage as in his Bogeys and Bandits, Gandt tells the story of Reno's 1997/1998 championship season. A wealth of anecdotal material, going back to the early days of air racing, provides the underpinning of the story, but the book focuses on the year culminating in the 1998 races. Gandt illuminates the fierce, colorful rivalries between the elite pilots, their struggles to keep airworthy their million dollar monster machines, the danger and the drama of a high-risk (often deadly) sport, and the obsessive drive for more speed. Like Wolfe, Krakauer, and Junger, Gandt explores the passions that drive men and women to push their limits -- and tells a hell of a good yarn in the process.

At times, this book becomes rather tedious. The same facts seem to be repeating themselves over and over with little progress. From this and other sources, one has to raise the question: was it necessary to fight this battle? It is clear that while the top brass of Army and Navy saluted the same flag, they weren't always on the same course. Once into the battle, for fear of igniting another episode of Navy vs. Army leadership, a World War I type general was allowed to plod along in his own way.

But as one reads the same scenario over and over, one begins to see a foretelling of what the next step (the invasion of Japan proper) would be like. The things that might provoke a western-style leadership to think of ending the war were utterly foreign to the Japanese mind. Briefly, there was in Japanese thinking a sense that dying for the Emperor was the highest honor a person could achieve. Where the western mind would call for great sacrifice to protect home and family, the Japanese mind seems all that can possibly be done for the Emperor should be done.

If there ever was an object lesson for Harry Truman to convince him to use the Atomic Bomb, Okinawa provided that lesson. Our losses there were extraordinary for the end achieved. One would have to be very gullible indeed to think that at this stage of the war with Japan that Japan would suddenly reverse itself. The morality of dropping the bomb has to be measured against the morality of not dropping the bomb. It is argued that Japan was on its last legs and that it couldn't prosecute the war much longer -- one need only study the use of a device utterly foreign to western thinking: the kamikaze. Every type of aircraft that could get a man into the air with a bomb was used and this even included bi-planes! Okinawa proved beyond doubt that Harry Truman did the right thing.½

Robert Gandt does a fine job retelling the oft-described Battle for Okinawa through the stories of the Twilight Warriors. These men were late to WW2 and were quite concerned that they might be missing it. The conflict for this Pacific Island was the most savage and costly battle ever for the US Navy. For the first time, the Japanese defenders had all the elements for fighting a well-equipped battle against American military. power. They had 100,000+ troops, artillery, food and ammunition as well as a new and devastating air weapon, the Kamikaze. Amazingly, he was able to interview survivors in 2009 testifying to how young they were during this difficult time.

Interesting covering ww2 pacific battles, torpedoed, kamikaze multiple times, Korea war, Vietnam, astronauts retrieval, becoming museum

SEE HARDCOVER P. 84 (PAPERBACK P. 83) --- In Skygods, Robert Gandt, a Pan Am pilot for twenty-six years, gives the first inside account of Pan Am's unprecedented demise. To tell the complete story, Gandt interviewed hundreds of former Pan Am airmen and executives. Gandt reveals what really happened in the cockpits, where Pan Am's captains, dressed in Navy-style uniforms, once ruled their ships like petty tyrants. Though Pan Am captains were considered the best and the brightest in the industry, Skygods tells disturbing stories of captains who let stewardesses land their planes, who flew at the wrong altitude and in the wrong direction, and who tragically disappeared along with their planes into the night. Gandt takes readers behind the scenes at Pan Am's executive offices in the landmark Pan Am building - a massive edifice to the founder's personal vision. He shows how a series of impulsive and short-sighted CEOs succeeded in destroying one of America's greatest companies. Pan Am employees were rocked by the company's decision to purchase a domestic carrier - at an eventual cost of nearly a billion dollars. Strapped with debt and flying half-empty planes to places like Monrovia, Rabat, and Lagos, Pan Am then stunned its employees by selling its profitable Pacific routes. The airline that could bend the wills of American presidents was reduced to relying on the Shah of Iran for the financial salvation it would never receive. Ultimately, it was a senseless terrorist act over Scotland that shattered Pan Am forever - and ended an era in American travel.

the story of Pan American World Airways from its meteoric ascent to its plunge to extinction. Pan Am blazed the way across the world's oceans with its magnificent Clipper ships, launched the first international jet service, was the first to fly the behemoth 747, was the lead customer for America's SST and the Concorde, and was even taking reservations for the first commercial flights to the moon.SKYGODS is the true story of an American legend.
A veteran pilot's affectionate, anecdotal take on the slow death of Pan American World Airways, which, in the unsentimental language of the trade, went ``Tango Uniform'' (``tits up'') at the end of 1991. Before recounting the global carrier's lengthy descent into oblivion, Gandt (who made a host of friends and contacts during the 26 years he flew for the airline) recalls its glory years, when legendary Juan Trippe ruled the roost. An often infuriating innovator, Trippe (known in-house as the Great Dissembler) helped found Pan Am in 1927. With wise counsel from Charles Lindbergh, he pushed his company from the flying boats and stratocruisers that bracketed the WW II era into the jet age, in the process convincing Boeing that it made economic as well as operational sense to build the 747 jumbo jet. Under his visionary, if occasionally vague, stewardship, Pan Am prospered. But, according to Gandt, the company became convinced that it was as much an institution as a commercial enterprise. The author dates the painfully slow eclipse of Pan Am's Skygod status from the mid-1960s, when the company bought more jets than it could fly at a profit. Trippe stepped down about this time as well, and his successors weren't up to the job of running an international carrier. During the competitive period that followed deregulation of the US air-transport industry, in fact, several made fatal mistakes: ill-advised acquisitions (in an attempt to gain domestic routes); market miscalculations; adversarial labor relations; and divestiture of crown-jewel assets (including Pacific routes) at fire-sale prices. The terrorist bomb that blasted flight 103 from the skies over Lockerbie, Scotland, along with the Gulf War, caused even more passengers than usual to shun Pan Am and finally put paid to its very existence. With a full ration of fine yarns from the cockpit and flight line, a genial requiem for a once consequential heavyweight.

A history of the boats, their builders and operators, with an emphasis on the most famous Pan American's Pacific flyers.

When the China Clipper shattered aviation records on its maiden six-day flight from California to the Orient in 1935, the flying boat became an instant celebrity. This lively history by Robert Gandt traces the development of the great flying boats as both a triumph of technology and a stirring human drama. He examines the political, military, and economic forces that drove its development and explains the aeronautical advances that made the aircraft possible. To fully document the story he includes interviews with flying boat pioneers and a dynamic collection of photographs, charts, and cutaway illustrations.

recaptures the history of flying boats with detail, data and accurracy. Gandt's insight is remarkable on the mover and shakers of this era, how the history unfolded, the politics and why. You learn who were the visionaries and who were the luddites. How the barriers to aviation, flight and design were overcome. And you learn about airplanes that you didn't know existed (such as the Latecoere 631) and what happened to them. This book is not solely about the Martin M-130, the China Cliiper, but all significant aircraft of that era, their designers and why and how they were designed. It is another Gandt book you can't put down and while Gandt paints a vivid picture, the book is well illustrated (including the mammoth Latecoere 631). One thing I did figure out was the actual China Clipper a Martin M-130 must have been so named a model M-130 for its wingspan of 130 feet as a later model an M-156 (called the Russian Clipper) had a wingspan of 156 feet.
its future was eclipsed when the German-built Condor made it over the Atlantic flying from Berlin, Germany to the USA with fuel to spare and made a hard surface landing.

All the activities in this non-fiction chronicle of Israel fighting for its independence are true! Robert Gandt is a sock-em – rock-em type of writer. His descriptive passages of the how non-Israeli pilots delivered their flight expertise to the enemies of Israel earned them the title of Angels in the Sky!

In 1947 and 1948, Israel had to fight for credibility to become a State of Israel. It was not enough that the United Nations partitioned Palestine creating both Jewish and Arab States, which were to exist side by side. No, it was a time when even with this mandate, Israel had to physically fight with its surrounding neighbors in a death struggle both on the ground and in the air. This book is about the air battles, how they fought, how pilots flew, and most of all where the planes came from. Angels also is a memorial to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice in pursuit of freedom for the Israeli people.

Though many of the pilots who died were Israeli, many came from other countries. Britain, Canada, United States, and South Africa were the countries of origin for members of fellowship of conscientious air force fighters tagged with the title of “Bagel Lancers.”

Robert Gandt describes with exacting detail the airfields, which housed the many different planes flown by this specialized squadron. He visited each of them and spent considerable time doing his research chronicled in the extensive bibliography, which lists not only his sources, but also describes life after the war of many of those who he wrote about in the pages of this epic tale.

What you will like best about this book is the manner in which history is interspersed with descriptive passages about air battles and bombing raids. How the ingenuity of some men in acquisition of planes from Czechoslovakia led to the founding air force. Planes obtained from the United States government had their own unique acquisition.

No story about the foundation of the Jewish State would be complete without mentioning the various transporting of guns, ammunition, and crews that performed the day-to-day laborious tasks involved. These people are front and center, but one element not left out is that many of those who were a part of Angels in the Sky were not Jewish! They were patriots who felt the need to insure freedom to the people of Israel!

This is a FIVE Star book you cannot put down; highly recommended.

I have a soft spot for naval aviation and albeit the language style is a bit too much to the 'pop-side' for my taste I actually like the book. It leaves you in no doubt that the days of 'kick the tyres, light the fires' are no more. As well as the extremely extrovert, testosterone laden, hard drinking fighter jocks from the 50s, 60s and 70s. Surely fighter jocks still has to be aggressive but an element of science has been added. Pure talent doesn't count anymore.

Can't help thinking of the WWII JGs, leftenants and flight officers who as mere teenagers set to fly the temperamental first line fighters of the time. And of how much that has happened since then (Wonder if the F-35 will ever be a success I ask a bit polemically ;-)

Bottom line: Go ahead, read the book if you have the remotest interest in fighters and naval aviation.

As a history, this book is a fair job; as for painting the continuum of a popular naval vessel, it is very good. The history is straight forward, almost like a diary. There came a time when the Intrepid, and others like her, were needed so they were built and they fought. They got hurt and they lost crew members. Captains came and wen, Air Groups came and went,t but the ship continued on. And then they were no longer needed so the were set aside until they were needed again. Intrepid was unusual in that it twice came back from the backwaters of the mothballed fleet. And then she put out again, this time to await the cutting torches, only she survived again, this time in the improbable role of museum ship. Scientifically, it can be said that steel and the other materials used to build a ship are totally inanimate and yet any sailor who served aboard her will insist she has a soul. Who can prove otherwise?½

OK, I admit it, I like airplanes and let's face it, fighter jets hold more than a little allure. So I like stories about fighter jocks, assuming they are reasonably well written, don't confuse they're and there, and have a plot that has some coherence. Gandt is a former Navy fighter jock, flying A-4s off a carrier and then for many years as a Pan Am pilot (he wrote an account of the rise and fall of Pan Am, Skygods.)

His fighter jock novels follow the career of Brick Maxwell (I didn't realize there was a sequence when I started this book so I'm a bit out of order.) In addition to Maxwell we have DeLancey, the hotshot squadron commander (a hotshot in his own mind and vindictive SOB); Claire, former GF of Maxwell, now a reporter looking for insider information; Tyrwhitt, Claire's estranged husband who write a column supportive of Saddam but who's really a CIA plant, and assorted other pilots.

There are constant political machinations among the squadron, petty jealousies, harassment of the female pilots, manipulations in return by the some of the women, and pilots with hangovers, problems at home, and many other distractions. Makes you wonder if drones aren't such a bad idea. I'm not such if it was the author's intent, but goodness, WW III could be just a hangover away. I truly hope what DeLancey does is not representative of what Gandt experience during his time flying carrier jets.

A young man, raised on a farm collective, studies the stars and dreams of space travel. A murder sends him to the big city where the sudden appearance of an alien race with the power to destroy the world thrusts him into the long vacant position of President of the United States.

A small team of humans uses the alien wormhole technology to visit the alien world to find out why the aliens want to come to the aid of an America destroyed by nuclear war and rescued from oblivion by the Chinese.

Fredrick Pohl shows us once again why he is a renowned scifi writer. The cast of characters, not even including the aliens, were unique and fallible and pushed a very interesting plot forward.

I was quite pleased with this novel.

By the halfway point of reading this book, my opinion was very low. This is warmed over stuff that has been collected from other, earlier books. But, then, just this morning, I had a short conversation with one of my coffee shop friends who had been on a destroyer, USS Gwin, which had taken a kamakazie hit while on picket duty at Okinawa. I am disturbed I was able to go further with the conversation because this was the first time in more ten years that he said anything about it. And that brings me to the service of Mr Gandt. The stories of these folks needs to be told, and told soon considering their ages. Each story is very precious. This not a matter of being warlike or of being a war monger. These are real flesh and blood people who, for a short period of their lives, were required to do what no person should have to do.
Yeah, there is still a lot of repetition in Gandt's book, but I'll read that sort of repetition any day to hear of these exploits by ordinary folks in a most extraordinary task.½

A condensed view of the pressure and risks involved in the everyday life of fighter pilot training. A good insight for the non pilot.

Because we both enjoy watching Battlestar Galactica, my husband suggested I read Bogeys and Bandits to get a better handle on some of the terminology and procedures of military aviation. This book, which follows a class of strike fighter trainees through the qualification process, does provide a good sense of what it is really like to be a fighter pilot. Gandt does a nice job of balancing the technical details of flying with the personalities of each pilot.

Stylistically, this book is a little rough around the edges. Gandt jumps around from person to person and chapter to chapter in a relatively disorganized way, and there are more than a few typos and grammar mistakes. However, these things don't take away too much from the compelling subject matter.

An interesting read for those interested in naval aviation, but probably not something with a large general audience.

3