There has never been a novel of man and flight

like this one. Eagles flies into and beyond

today s headlines to tell a brazenly exciting

story about the Air Force s new supersonic

F-15 Eagle, a space-age fighter superior to all

others, sleek, brutal, sophisticated, perilous.

And Eagles is also a human drama of the

men and women who fly it, maintain it, love it,

hate it, and sometimes die in it:

Major Eric "Topper" James, the fighter

pilots fighter pilot, top of his class at the Air

Force Academy, the icy paragon picked by the

computer to fly the supersecret Nightwing

Eagle to the limits of the earth s atmosphere

but a man who carries a dread, unknown

secret within him that could destroy him at

any moment.

Candy James, his wife, beautiful and de-

spairing, enmeshed in an illicit affair that can

bring only more heartache to her marriage.

Captain Simon "Moonbird" McAllister,

Topper s wingman, the "space freak" from

MIT whose contempt for the military is

matched only by his talent for trouble and his

consuming desire to qualify for experimental

test pilot school and assignment to the top-

secret "Hot Victor" spaceship program and

to that eud, his plans include marriage to

NancyGlass, the jaunty daughter of the pow-

erful Chairman of the Senate Armed Services

Committee.