Flight of the Intruder, Stephen Coonts
Flight of the Intruder, Stephen Coonts
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Flight of the Intruder

Author: Stephen Coonts

Narrator: Benjamin L. Darcie

Unabridged: 12 hr 9 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/04/2013

Synopsis

Hailed as the finest combat aviation novel to emerge from the Vietnam War, Flight of the Intruder spent twenty-eight weeks on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list and became one of the top twenty bestselling first novels of all time. An instant classic, the book was translated into more than twenty languages and made into a major motion picture. Its hero, Jake Grafton, became a household name and the star of many more Coonts’ bestsellers.Without question, the strength of the book lies in its flying scenes when Jake Grafton straps himself into the cockpit of his A-6 Intruder. Jake’s love of flying is contagious whether you are hearing the book for the first time or listening to it for the third. No one better captures the world of Navy carrier pilots than Stephen Coonts. An Intruder pilot who flew combat missions off the deck of the USS Enterprise in the Vietnam War, Coonts lived the life he writes about, and he puts readers inside the hearts and minds of the pilots to reveal a world unknown to those outside the naval aviators’ fraternity. Few will forget the book’s final gut-wrenching scene when Jake’s once-innocent love of flying gives way to guilt and frustration and the need to give meaning to the deaths of his comrades.

About Stephen Coonts

This biography could be entitled, West Virginia Boy Becomes a Very Successful Author....... but that would be too obvious. Author, Stephen Coonts was born and raised in Buchanan, West Virginia, a small town of 6,000. He led the typical life of any boy growing up in the 50's and 60's.

He was born in 1946, and ended his childhood by graduating from West Virginia University with a degree in political science. As happens with many poli-sci grads, he had a law degree in mind, but first he served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy and began flight training in Pensacola, Florida.

Coonts received his wings after completion of fleet replacement training in the A-6 Intruder aircraft. After serving in the Vietnam War as an attack fighter, he served as a flight instructor, and did a tour of duty on the USS Nimitz. Upon leaving the Navy, he entered the University of Colorado School of Law. After receiving his law degree, he moved back to West Virginia to practice for a couple of years. But, his career took him back to Colorado where he specialized in oil and gas law.

Finally, in 1986, he published his first novel, Flight of the Intruder, which became a huge success, being on the New York Times bestseller list in hardcover. Later, a movie by the same title was produced based on his novel, and was released nationally in 1991. All of his books have been published in several different countries.

Currently, Coonts lives in Colorado with his third wife, Deborah, He continues to write novels from Colorado.

Reviews

Goodreads review by David on October 12, 2019

Loved this book. Read it when it came out. I put it on the same level as Hunt for Red October. Great book. d.......more

Goodreads review by Colin on January 31, 2009

This was interesting to me because it was written by and based on the combat experiences of the author who did exactly what my father did in Vietnam. He was even in the same squadron and might have flown some of the exact same planes as my dad. Unfortunately, I can't get my dad to read it or see the......more

Goodreads review by Bob on January 28, 2020

The second novel ever published by Naval Institute Press-- Hunt for Red October was the first. It was an instant success bringing readers inside the cockpit. From the opening scene where the mantra of "big sky, little bullet" goes tragically wrong through the climactic scene its a fast paced, realist......more

Goodreads review by Stefan on March 19, 2012

I don't know why, but I had expected more from Flight of the Intruder. I vaguely remembered the movie of this novel from the early 1990's and had the book sitting on my shelf, so I thought that I'd give it a read. Overall, it's not THAT bad, but it's not really that good either. Flight of the Intrude......more

Goodreads review by Ramon4 on October 31, 2023

This book was published in 1986 and concerns events that happened in 1972. I first read this book in 1991 and enjoyed it very much; I gave it 4 stars. The story is about an American Navy pilot who flies an A6 Intruder bomber off a US carrier and bombs targets in North Vietnam. I’d kind of forgotten t......more

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