VIPER PILOT The Autobiography of One of America's Most Decorated Combat Pilots

John Pruden gives a confident and steady reading of LTC Dan Hampton’s memoir of a twenty-year career as a U.S. Air Force F-16 pilot. The listener gets a literal birds-eye view of both wars against Iraq, the bombing of the Khobar Towers, the War in Kosovo, and the immediate response to the 9/11 attacks, in addition to the end of the Cold War. Hampton’s specialty was to intentionally draw fire from surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft guns and then destroy them, and he was very good at his job. Pruden’s baritone voice has a resonant quality that is a good fit for this hard-charging memoir of a hard-charging life. Complementing the narrative, he skillfully affects distinct, credible voices in the passages containing dialogue. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine [Published: DECEMBER 2012]