Flight of the Old Dog
that launched the phenomenal career of Dale Brown. It is the riveting story of America's race for technology, overtaken by our greatest enemy's mastery of "Star Wars." The U.S. arsenal of nuclear missiles has been neutralized. America's only hope: The Old Dog Zero One, a battle-scarred bomber fully renovated with modern hardware - and equipped with the deadliest state-of-the-art armaments known to man... When the Soviet Union masters "Star Wars" technology, rendering the U.S.'s arsenal of nuclear missiles impotent, America's only hope lies in The Old Dog Zero One--a battle-scarred bomber fully renovated with enough weaponry and stealth hardware to earn it the nickname, "Megafortress." -From Goodreads
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What Hacker News says
- Read "Flight of the Old Dog" by Dale Brown. It's a bit dated by modern standards (it was written in the 80s, when the Soviet Union was still a thing), but still good. I won't spoil it for you, but the book features a heavily modified B-52 saving the day.
- It's been all downhill since "The Flight of the Old Dog".
- Dale Brown - Flight of the Old Dog
- I read a lot of Science Fiction for fun. These are a few of my favorites that I've given to other people:
1. Vacuum Diagrams by Stephen Baxter. When I think of epic hard science fiction, the Xeelee Sequence books spring to mind. With a story line that spans millions of years (and a few dozen books), this collection of short stories is a good introduction to one of the best and most underrated sci-fi series out there. Baxter's Manifold trilogy (Manifold: Space, Manifold: Time and Manifold: Origin) are also fantastic.
2. Foundation by Isaac Asimov. The whole Foundation series is wonderful, but this book is a landmark of sci-fi that should be on any fan's bookcase.
3. The Martian by Andy Weir. This book is what I've been giving the last couple years to people who don't think they like sci-fi. Everyone I've given it to has loved it.
4. Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. Another hard sci-fi staple. The rest of the Rama books he "co-wrote" with Gentry Lee are decent but become more space opera than hard sci-fi. I enjoyed them but many sci-fi fans find them polarizing.
5. Silver Tower by Dale Brown. More of a military thriller than sci-fi (Flight of the Old Dog is another favorite of mine by him) and terribly dated by modern standards (it was written when the Soviet Union was still a thing). But it's the first "adult" sci-fi book I ever read as a kid, so it'll always have a special place for me.
EDIT: Another one:
6. Coyote by Allen Steele. I love stories like this one: primitive, longshot interstellar exploration and primitive, first generation colonization. Especially for desperate reasons. The first two Coyote books were good, but I just can't get into any of the subsequent ones.
- If computer-controlled aircraft have the advantages of high maneuverability, small size, fast reactions, and disposability, what do you get if you turn the knobs on all of those up to 11, and then fit the simplest possible kill mechanism? A very effective AI controlled airborne machine that already exists - called a missile!
The only question is how you get the missiles to the battle (because being small makes it hard to make them long-ranged), and how you get slow-but-powerful human brains and large-aperture sensors near enough to them to make effective use of them.
So far, we've got two ways of doing this. Firstly, by slinging missiles beneath manned fighter aircraft which carry the brains, and sending those out along with airborne early warning aircraft which carry the sensors (and more brains). Secondly, by fitting them to warships big enough to carry plenty of brains and radars themselves. The aircraft have the advantage of speed (and altitude, if that matters), whereas the ships have the advantage of range (and a few other things).
This battleplane idea can be seen as either converging the fighters and AEW aircraft, or as transferring some of the attributes of the warships to the fighters.
Alternatively, the idea could be seen as converging reality with a 1987 techno-thriller:
- Kinda reminds me of Flight of the Old Dog - in that case it was 80's high-tech stuffed in to a B-52, giving it 'escort' capabilities...
As many have pointed out, this type of air-to-air platform may make sense for knocking out our current opposition, but when that opposition is all drones?
That's the real game changer - a drone wouldn't even have to 'launch' a missile, you could build one with a secondary impulse engine that would turn it in to a missile. Have dozens/hundreds flying on-station in high-efficiency/high-boredom flight paths, all controlled over-the-horizon, or from a standoff AWACs stop platform 100s of miles away.
The potential impact on naval warfare may be even greater...
