Eye of the Viper : The Making of an F-16 Pilot

Hand-picked, pressure-tested, and full of astronaut gung ho, the young pilots of Eye of the Viper are poised for the toughest assignment of their career: the exhaustive six-month training course at Arizona's Luke Air Force Base, at a cost of $2 million each. Luke, the world's largest fighter wing, is the only F-16 fighter training base in the United States, and each year it produces one thousand pilots who will fly the F-16 from Korea to Afghanistan to Iraq. But being among the elite pilots who are selected for the course is by no means a guarantee that they will earn the right to fly the F-16. Only a few select individuals will have what it takes. Award-winning journalist Peter Aleshire provides a full blast of the rigors and intensity of the course, not only of the hand- picked students seeking a place in the warrior subculture, but of the veteran pilots who must teach them how to stay alive.

Peter Aleshire is an accomplished historian and investigative writer who has published four books on the history of the Apache Wars. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona.