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Average Customer Rating:

Awful

Customer Rating:

This has to be the worst book I have ever read, any military historian reading this will cringe at the inaccuracies and at the very least question some of the acclaimed facts. It was so painful that I had to keep reading, just to see what fantastic claims were made next. Daft ideas like, the Sea harrier was supposed to take over the role of UK air defence from the tired F3 Tornados as it could do a better task, even though the author then went on to say that the Sea Harrier struggled to carry weapons; there were many mentions throughout the book referring to the tired aircraft of the RAF, don't think the author likes the RAF at all. The story that made me laugh the most; The Sea Harriers were sent to guard Cyprus during the Gulf conflict. Cyprus is the island with the biggest RAF base in the world, occupied by fully armed Phantom and Tornado aircraft during the conflict as opposed to the Sea Harriers, which by the authors own admission, could carry nothing. Another "fact" that puzzled me, and basically made me wonder whether the author really is in the military; "the temperature from the Harrier cold nozzle is between 300 to 400 degrees". It is my belief that the air coming out of the cold nozzles (the front pair) has not been through a combustion chamber so surely these figures are farfetched? The author kept telling strange non stories, such as "as I stepped out of the mess I heard a C130 buzz into life"......and that's it nothing else, the man heard a Hercules start up...so what! Generally the writing style is similar to that of a ten year old, dialogue such as "I said to him, he said to me, so I said", made this hard to read at times. Overall this book bored me to tears and I do find it hard to believe that the writer was ever in the military let alone a squadron commander.

Must read	Customer Rating:
This is a first hand insight into the afghanistan war, from the eyes of a RN pilot. It is very well written, with Ade's sense of humour it makes for a thrilling book. I cannot reccomend this enough.

Joint Force harrier Review	Customer Rating:
Such an immature book, almost like boys own, one of the worst military history books I have read. I am sure that it will not be missed.

As good as it gets in a Harrier.

Customer Rating:

First of all I would like to thank Peter Thompson for his review which prompted me to purchase and read this account by Commander Ade Orchard on the part played by the Gr7 crews in the Afghan theatre of war. It has been well written and is a documented account of the time spent by the Royal Navy on a land based, ground attack tour of duty. This is a very educated read and comes without all the humerous anecdotes of life in the mess rooms and bunk houses. No accounts of wives, children or what they are missing back home. This is what the reader wants to hear...scrambles to get airborne, pressure on crews to direct attacks at the right targets, life in the cockpit of a Harrier jump jet and what happens when the going gets tough and things go wrong....this hero stayed cool, calm and collected under immense pressures and it is an honour to have read his book. Much like the pilots during WW2 they remain a cut above the rest and have a quality that few of us share. A damm good read...this will become essential reading for many many years to come.

An excellent read, un-put-downable!	Customer Rating:
An excellent book that will appeal to military historians and those just looking for a good, genuine read. The pace and detail is just right, a real human story.