LIMITED EDITION • 1,000 NUMBERED HARDBACKS
Own the Strike Eagle story
A book to leave open on the coffee table, read for an evening and return to for years. Be Afraid of the Dark brings the origins and early combat of the F-15E together in a substantial illustrated hardback, with around 95,000 words and full-colour photography throughout.
This edition is limited to 1,000 numbered copies. The large 242 × 300 mm landscape format gives the photographs room to work, while 170 gsm silk-coated paper gives the pages the weight and finish of a book made to be kept.
A place on your table
Open it at a favourite aircraft photograph. Read a pilot's account. Follow a technical question through the cockpit and systems chapters. The combination of an illustrated coffee-table format and an extensive written history makes this a book to browse, study and display.
For an aviation enthusiast, it is a physical record of the aircraft and the people behind it—and a gift with enough depth to keep its reader coming back.
The making of the Strike Eagle
Before it could hunt Scuds over Iraq or strike through the Balkan night, the F-15E had to prove that an air-superiority fighter could become a long-range attack aircraft. Original research in Boeing's archives and interviews with programme veterans explain the arguments, engineering decisions and testing that shaped the jet.
Pages 22–23: the aircraft's development story, presented alongside full-colour photography.
Inside the cockpit
Explore the airframe, engines, conformal fuel tanks, APG-70 radar, LANTIRN and cockpit displays. The technical coverage connects each system to the work of the pilot and weapon systems officer: finding targets, navigating at low level, employing weapons and bringing the aircraft home.
Pages 60–61: the depth of the cockpit and systems coverage.
From training to combat
Follow the crews from the demands of training into Desert Storm, the no-fly zones, Allied Force and Afghanistan. Extended first-hand accounts put the reader inside the planning, pressure and decisions behind the Strike Eagle's early combat record.
Pages 144–145: combat history supported by photographs and the experience of the crews.
Pages 150–151: an extended aircrew account from the no-fly-zone operations.
Your hardback edition
Limited print run of 1,000 numbered copies.
Hardback coffee-table format, 242 × 300 mm.
204 printed pages; around 95,000 words.
Text and jacket on silk-coated 170 gsm paper; 150 gsm uncoated endpapers.
Full-colour photography throughout; book weight approximately 1.7 kg.
ISBN 9781738471423.
The text is based on Steve Davies's F-15E All Weather Attack Aircraft, originally published by Crowood in 2003, presented here in an illustrated coffee-table format.
Read a PDF sample before choosing your hardback
Delivery
Your order will be posted using a Royal Mail tracked and insured service.
Continue the collection
Twenty Years at War follows the aircraft into two more decades of combat and modernisation. Its matching hardback format brings the two volumes together as a substantial illustrated history of the Strike Eagle.
Reviews
As a retired, light grey, F-15 Eagle pilot I thought I knew a fair amount about the F-15E. Not so fast, Steve Davies has done a wonderful job of comprehensively capturing the F-15E Mud Hen's (respectfully) technology, development, culture, and combat stories. Photographs are gorgeous and brought back many great memories of my days flying the single-seat Eagle. A captivating read, HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION.
There is probably no other author with so many friends inside the F-15E community than Steve. His disciptions never end with commonplace statistics and data, which are fairly easy to come by, but he always incorporates the experiences and sentiments of those, who breathe life into the jet and let it become a living thing: the aircrew, maintainers and ops folks.
Steve not only reproduces their accounts, but he really understands them, which to me makes all the difference.
Highly recommended !
Be Afraid of the Dark is the seminal F-15E reference and a must read for every aviation enthusiast. Illustrated with stunning professional quality photos, the book details the Strike Eagle’s birth and how it replaced the F-4, F-111, and F-15. It weaves technical specifications with aircrew interviews to tell the story of how the jet became a beast in both the air-to-air and all-weather strike roles. Steve’s writing reminded me of the great aviation writer Bill Gunston.
Fantastic book with plenty of first hand accounts from front line operators and fantastic detail.
Really looking forward to the next instalment.
As a current Weapons Director in the Air Force, I've always worked with Eagle's as my primary platform through not only stateside training but deployment to CENTCOM, so of course there was no hesitation when Steve asked for support through pre-orders for this book. He does an amazing job capturing not only the humanity behind this platform through not just facts, but the visceral personal connections recalled that have helped turn this aircraft into a dominant force multiplier for years to come!