Many will know the name TOPGUN from the movie of the same name - well, nearly, since it should be styled entirely in capitals - but be far less aware of the real-world US Navy Fighter Weapons School, set up in 1968 as an urgent response to heavier-than-expected losses during the Vietnam War. In a simply enormous tome, Brad Elward charts both the fundamentals of air combat as honed in different conflicts prior to the advent of TOPGUN, and the school's history since. He does so via what must be the widest range of interviews - more than 450 of them - to have informed any aviation book of recent years, and huge quantities of archival papers. Everything is here: the tactics, the aircraft, the facilities, the people, the strategic context. The reader could not want for more.
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