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Phantom in the Sky
- A Marine's Back Seat View of the Vietnam War (North Texas Military Biography and Memoir Series, Book 15)
- Narrated by: Chaz Allen
- Length: 11 hrs and 44 mins
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Summary
Phantom in the Sky is the story of a Radar Intercept Officer (RIO) in the back seat of the supersonic Phantom jet during the Vietnam War - a unique, tactical perspective of the “guy in back”, or GIB, absent from other published aviation accounts. During the time of Terry L. Thorsen’s service from 1966 to 1970, the RIO played an integral part in enemy aircraft interception and ordnance delivery. In Navy and Marine F-4 Phantom jets, the RIO was a second pair of eyes for the pilot, in charge of communications and navigation, and great to have during emergencies.
In combat, Thorsen felt angst when he saw the sky darken around him from anti-aircraft artillery explosions high above the Ho Chi Minh Trail. On his first close air support mission in support of ground troops (the majority of his Marine aviation missions), he witnessed tracers whiz by his canopy. On one harrowing sortie, he and his pilot purposely became the target to save an Army unit battling an enemy just a hundred feet away.
On secret missions with secret weapons, they dove at anti-aircraft artillery muzzle flashes and flew as a low as fifty feet off the deck during close air support sorties, “scraping” the napalm off their plane. For one mission a friend survived a crash landing, but a training instructor vanished without a trace.
The book is published by University of North Texas Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.
Critic reviews
"Rings with authenticity." (VVA Veteran)
"Highly recommended." (Midwest Book Review)
"A tour de force of one man's look back upon his service in the Marine Corps." (Journal of America's Military Past)
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What listeners say about Phantom in the Sky
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- G Mills
- 15-10-22
Worst Narration I’ve Ever Heard
This could be a good read/listen. However the story so far seems to be all about air sickness and little detail about any of the operational flying.
The real issue though is the utterly awful narration and the incredibly poorly produced audio book.
One thing that I would consider important when choosing a narrator would be to ensure they know how to correctly pronounce commonly used terms.
I’ll give you an example. The book is written by a US Marine Corps F-4 Phantom Radar Intercept Officer (RIO). So the term RIO is used all the time.
I have never heard the term RIO pronounced by anyone in the military as anything other that REEOH like the city in Brasil. However, every single time in this audio book it is pronounced as ARR EYE OH. Maddening.
Don’t even start me on the clunky AS HELL edits where odd words or phrases have been re-recorded and edited into the book - shame the volume, tone and voice are considerably different to the main audio track. What does it mean? It means they stand out like a sore thumb and totally ruin the listen
I’m about 3/4 of the way through it but I think it’s extremely unlikely that I’ll finish it. Terrible.
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- Karen Sue Trexler
- 08-01-23
Very Interesting!
I really enjoyed this audio book. It is a really interesting story with great narration. Highly recommended! Chaz Allen's narration is very well done and adds much value!