Trotti wrote this book as a response to the question "What was it like to fly one of those thundering smokers in combat", and he excels in doing so. With two tours of duty and over 600 missions, Trotti knows his stuff, and he manages a delicate balance between the sheer exhilaration of flight, the mental strain of staying ahead of a twenty ton supersonic war machine, and the overall senselessness of the war itself.

Rather than a day by day diary, Trotti takes a more literary approach, focusing in detail on a few exemplary missions. One is a Rolling Thunder strike over Vinh, a precisely timed operation involving aerial tanking, ECM support from Willie the Whale, and dodging SAMs to strike a flak site so the F-105s can hit a truck park. The second is a check-out flight in a fresh Phantom, taking a clean plane out just to see how fast it can go. Trotti also talks about BARCAP, flying guard for Navy ships, and close air support with napalm and snake-eyes for troops in contact just outside Danang.

The F-4 Phantom is my favorite airplane for reasons I cannot explain or justify, and Trotti has written an amazing book that describes what it felt like to fly one of them when it mattered most.

Bonus: Paradise of the Phantoms