Dan Pedersen

March 1969.American jets are getting shot down at an unprecedented rate over Vietnam. In an urgent effort to regain the advantage the Admirals turn to a young naval aviator called Dan Pedersen.Officially, the programme he set up was called the US Navy Fighter Weapons School. To everyone else it was known simply as TOPGUN.Pedersen's hand-picked team of instructors - the Original Eight - were the best of the best. Together, they revolutionised aerial warfare and rediscovered the lost art of fighter combat.This is the extraordinary, thrilling story of how TOPGUN saw America reclaim the skies, by the man who created it.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER"If you loved the movie, you will love the real story in the book." -- Fox & FriendsOn the 50th anniversary of the creation of the "Topgun" Navy Fighter School, its founder shares the remarkable inside story of how he and eight other risk-takers revolutionized the art of aerial combat. When American fighter jets were being downed at an unprecedented rate during the Vietnam War, the U.S. Navy turned to a young lieutenant commander, Dan Pedersen, to figure out a way to reverse their dark fortune. On a shoestring budget and with little support, Pedersen picked eight of the finest pilots to help train a new generation to bend jets like the F-4 Phantom to their will and learn how to dogfight all over again. What resulted was nothing short of a revolution -- one that took young American pilots from the crucible of combat training in the California desert to the blistering skies of Vietnam, in the process raising America's Navy combat kill ratio from two enemy planes downed for every American plane lost to more than 22 to 1. Topgun emerged not only as an icon of America's military dominance immortalized by Hollywood but as a vital institution that would shape the nation's military strategy for generations to come. Pedersen takes readers on a colorful and thrilling ride -- from Miramar to Area 51 to the decks of aircraft carriers in war and peace-through a historic moment in air warfare. He helped establish a legacy that was built by him and his "Original Eight" -- the best of the best -- and carried on for six decades by some of America's greatest leaders. Topgun is a heartfelt and personal testimony to patriotism, sacrifice, and American innovation and daring.

For a writer, the line between truth and fantasy can be hopelessly blurred -- just the way I like it. I promised myself I would tell the truth in this memoir, and have some fun doing it. But fantasy keeps nipping at the margins.

On a snowy Christmas Eve, Detective Shane Lindstrom is on his way home to Whidbey Island on the Port Townsend ferry. A few miles away, a woman's body is dumped by the roadside in Greenbank. For Lindstrom and his young associate, Kat Brown, it looks like a straightforward case. But the more they dig into it, the deeper the mystery grows. They find themselves tangled in a complex web of online dating, two-timing spouses, voyeurs, evangelical hucksters, a creepy backwoods gnome and a Russian, mail-order bride. Is the key suspect being framed? Or did he murder his wife in a fit of passion and temper he'll regret for the rest of his life?

"Top Gun" became a household name with the worldwide success of the film of the same title. The 1986 blockbuster starring Tom Cruise as a hotshot U.S. Navy fighter pilot was so popular (drawing $356 million worldwide) that recruiters set up desks in theaters that were showing it, looking to attract the next generation of combat aviators. The movie did for Navy pilots what The Right Stuff did for astronauts. With the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the real TOPGUN-as the U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons program was known-approaching in 2019, and with Jerry Bruckheimer's sequel, Top Gun: Maverick, set to shoot next year, this is the time to publish the real story of the actual risk takers, disruptors, and innovators who revolutionized the art of aerial combat and created the center for excellence and incubator of leadership that thrives to this day. Here is the inside story of TOPGUN, told by the man who was picked to lead it at the start, from war to peace and back to war again, on and off the flight line, and through all six of our decades. Though Pedersen was a part of it at the beginning, some other great pilots carried on our work and he is eager to pay them tribute and make the book a celebration of our whole community. It's a great story, full of interesting characters and exciting history that American should know.

Five thousand dollars is missing, there's a body in the lake, and somebody's being framed. This taut, fast-paced thriller is the crown jewel of the five books in the Brad Haraldsen Mystery Series. For Whidbey Island Detective Shane Lindstrom, his getaway to the lake country of New York's Adirondacks was to have been a restful vacation at an idyllic family hideaway. But now it's spiraling out of control. Join Shane and his friends as they work with an unlikely ally, a cabin prowler, and the old lady next door to unravel the secrets of this hidden world where more happens at night than in daytime.

When a woman mysteriously disappears on Whidbey Island, it hits close to home for sheriff's detective Shane Lindstrom. Friends arrive for a lighthearted reunion to find protests in the park and police searches on the ferry. In this fourth book in the Brad Haraldsen series, Shane and his friends must race against time to stop domestic terrorists from taking hundreds of lives -- if they only knew where As readers piece together the clues, Final Justice takes them exploring old growth forest and beaches, into a paramilitary compound, to a former brothel turned B&B, on the ferry to Port Townsend and Hurricane Ridge, and across the Deception Pass Bridge to the picturesque communities of LaConner and Fir Island. The story is both troubling and hopeful. It draws from historic events and also looks ahead at competing visions for America. Through the eyes and actions of its characters, it calls for a more just, compassionate and inclusive democracy.

A reunion of friends becomes a battle of wits with a psychopath in the mountains of Central Idaho.This third book in the Brad Haraldsen series brings together Bellingham, Washington, detective Shane Lindstrom and Alaskans Robert Yuka and Marie Martin as they hunt the hunter who is stalking a guest at Brad and Irene Haraldsen's ranch.It is a taut and fast-moving thriller that transports the reader into the heart of Idaho's breathtaking Sawtooth Mountains country. It is a must-read for all who love the Stanley Basin, Redfish Lake and the Wood River Valley.

A round trip from Bellingham to Skagway on the Alaska Ferry Matanuska becomes a race against time. Can Brad Haraldsen and his detective friend Shane Lindstrom put away the people who killed Brad's first love? Amid the raw beauty and mystery of the Inside Passage, Brad and his artist-wife wife, Irene, play a serious game with powerful adversaries. The vacation of a lifetime becomes the chase of a lifetime as they team up with Alaska authorities to run the murderers to ground.Travel to Alaska in these pages and find new discoveries at every turn. If you've ever taken the Alaska Ferry, or dreamed of it, you'll never look at your fellow travelers the same again

When a woman's body washes ashore near Deception Pass Bridge on Whidbey Island, it looks like suicide. Brad Haraldsen, her long-ago lover, isn't so sure.Decades after journalist Bella Morelli disappears from Brad's life, she is back and in trouble. She travels 3,000 miles to seek refuge and a new life on Whidbey Island, only to find conflict with powerful interests as she prepares to write the most important story of her life.That conflict continues today.