Chickenhawk by Robert Mason

[Ray Luxury-Yacht]

g3org3y said:

Just started this at the weekend. I have high hopes.

We all liked it.

Just suspend your own life / belief whilst you're reading (as any good book should make you) and as you absorb the narrative, try to imagine that you're actually there, experiencing what those guys did.

Makes it a moment to imagine that!!

[g3org3y]

Finished about 15 mins ago.

What a great book. Very well written and incredibly insightful. What an ending too. Lives up to expectations.

Anyone read the sequel?

[stuartmmcfc]

anyone read the complete thread?

[g3org3y]

stuartmmcfc said:

anyone read the complete thread?

[MK1 GIT]

Justin Cyder said:

I'm a couple of dozen pages into Matterhorn. It's looking like a seriously good read already.

I thought this was brilliant. So is Chickenhawk for that matter and We Were Soldiers also mentioned in this thread. Low Level Hell and A Lonely Kind of War also get recommendations from me

[firemunki]

MK1 GIT said:

I thought this was brilliant. So is Chickenhawk for that matter and We Were Soldiers also mentioned in this thread. Low Level Hell and A Lonely Kind of War also get recommendations from me

Just reserve them from the library. I'm sure I read chickenhawk when I was a teen but I'll happily read it again if I did.

[Pothole]

I bought Chickenhawk at the airport before a flight to Australia and read it once on the way there and again on the way back 3 weeks later. I've since read it a further 3 or 4 times in the intervening 8 and a bit years and recommend it in almost every 'recommend me a book' situation I encounter. It's just all round excellence, to my mind.

[RizzoTheRat]

I dug it out and reread it on the strength of this thread, I then dug out Let A Soldier Die by William E Holland (a novel about gunship pilots by a vietnam huey pilot), which I must have bought when I was about 12 or 13. Can't believe how dark it is to have read at that age, given how many of the main characters die!

[Issi]

I'm sure I've read somewhere that helicopter crewmen in Vietnam suffered the most casualties. Great book, must have bought it three times over the years.
I think that everyone in the AAC has a copy.

[funkyrobot]

Got this yesterday and am about 30% through it. Great book so far.

[RDR 838]

Read this while doing my private helicopter licence so I liked it a lot. Lent it to one of my instructors and never saw it again.

I would also recommend Blackhawk Down. Hooah!

Edited by RDR 838 on Wednesday 28th August 18:46

[Elroy Blue]

A superb Vietnam read is 'They bury us upside down' about the Misty FAC Programme flying F-100s. Utterly brilliant book.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bury-Us-Upside-Down-Pilots...

[SBQuattro]

Elroy Blue said:

A superb Vietnam read is 'They bury us upside down' about the Misty FAC Programme flying F-100s. Utterly brilliant book.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bury-Us-Upside-Down-Pilots...

Just ordered on Amazon, will give my feedback when I've read it. :-)

[TheJimi]

Just thought I'd add my own thoughts to this thread since I have now read the book.

I agree with what everyone else has said, it's a superbly written book, sometimes pretty harrowing and others quite funny. Like Ray, being a petrolhead, and an aviation enthusiast, I really appreciated the in-depth details about the actual helicopters themselves and the techniques used to fly them.

One thing I found myself doing was comparing Mason's experience as a Huey pilot in Vietnam, with that of Ed Macy's when flying Apache's in Afghanistan. The contrast really couldn't be more stark - they both flew helicopters in combat within war theatres but that's pretty much where the similarities start and finish.

I enjoyed Apache, but Chickenhawk was superb, a brilliant book.

[ditchvisitor]

It's a right of passage to read Chickenhawk going through Shawbury, it's an awesome book and a thrilling read!