BRAD ELWARD

I am always fascinated at what motivates people to do what they do, especially those who are creative. Whether writers or musicians, I’ve continually found it interesting to learn what made an individual write a particular song or book; how they established themselves in their creative world; how they “made” it; what went on “behind the scenes.” Who doesn’t love the old MTV “Behind the Scenes” series!

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So these next few pages will do just that—share the story of why and how I entered the military aviation writing world.

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I’ve always enjoyed reading military novels and military nonfiction and of course, a good war movie. I still recall watching war movies on Friday and Saturday nights with my dad; show like Tora Tora Tora!, They Were Expendable, and Beachhead, to name a few. But my biggest inspiration, indeed one that would catapult me into the world of naval aviation, came when my dad took me to the theater to see Midway. We had been on vacation in Florida for spring break and saw the preview; we went and saw the movie as soon as we returned home. From that point forward, naval aviation became a passion.

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During high school, I fueled that passion by reading books like At Dawn We Slept, Midway, Pearl Harbor, The Pacific War, and Combat Command (all were Christmas gifts); and of course, watching Victory at Sea on Sunday afternoons. During college, I read more and more, expanding my interests into the Vietnam War and the Cold War in general. And of course, like many of you, I watched the Winds of War TV-series and saw the movie Top Gun in theaters. 

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But then law school happened—and reading anything but law books became a difficult task. Either I was busy studying or too tired of reading to enjoy a non-law book. 

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But something occurred a few years after I graduated from law school—the 1991 Gulf War. As a practicing attorney, I now had time to read for pleasure. And watching the happenings in Iraq on my TV rekindled my interests in reading war stories and nonfiction. So, in mid-1991, I started reading books again and found a wonderful selection available—from authors like Tom Clancy and Larry Bond to several of the emerging authors who could now share their military experiences through their novels, since the Cold War had ended. In short, the market was full of good reads.

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Within a year or so I got wind of McDonnell-Douglas’ proposed new aircraft, what would become the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. I followed it and continued reading novels, including a new series launched mid-1991 by an author named Keith Douglas called Carrier. Who would have known that roughly ten years later I would help write the air combat scenes for one of those books, Carrier: The Art of War—the character Brad “Fastball” Morrow is me; his RIO Johnnie “Ratwoman” Davis was based on a combination of two friends. 

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After reading most of the adventure genre of the day I began building my personal library of nonfiction books, focusing on particular aircraft like the F/A-18 Hornet and F-14 Tomcat. At some point, I also discovered a fantastic magazine, World Air Power Journal (WAPJ) that provided more detail on aircraft than I had ever seen. Frankly, it was astonishing.

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Armed with these wonderful resources and a touch of attitude, I one day said to my then-wife, “I can do this too.” She was encouraging (and probably doubting), but I started on my quest to write a novel. At some point in late 1993 or early 1994, I finally figured out a plot—with the U.S. military opening its combat doors to female pilots and aircrews, I decided to write a story about the adventures of the “first” female fighter pilot in combat. I set the book against a new Korean War and was off to the races. I interviewed dozens of pilots – for all of the aircraft types in my book – and was fortunate to be introduced to most of the initial cadre of female pilots and NFOs who had joined the fleet squadrons. I interviewed several of these women, gathered stories and perspectives, and then set about weaving together a story. When I encountered new situations, I’d reach out to real Navy air crews for advice—“How do you communicate this?” “What would you do here?” “Could this happen?” Of course this was all done within the boundaries of non-classified material, but the insights were priceless. It made the scenes better—I once communicated by email for a week with an A-6 pilot, B/N, and an E-2 controller to develop a five-page scene. It was definitely an accurate scene.

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So how does this story/quest relate to my nonfiction writing that many of you have read? 

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At some point in the early 1990s, I was on the computer internet service CompuServe and began visiting some of the writers’ chat rooms. Some of the authors were intimidating. As I was watching a conversation one evening between several authors whose books sat on the shelves behind my computer desk, I finally got up the nerve to say something. Long and short, I became friends with several of these fascinating people; of these, two were most helpful. 

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The late Tom Clancy was one of these authors. One evening I joined a chat and in a private note made a quick remark to him about how much I had enjoyed his new nonfiction series. He had mentioned how the novels had provided a great base for him to slide into nonfiction (Tom Clancy gave us the fantastic technical series that included such works as Carrier; Fighter Wing; Submarine; Airborne). I mention that I was working on a novel and worried that I had no following; he suggested that I start in nonfiction and work backwards to fiction—the opposite of his path to success. So, I started thinking about it, naturally timid given my lack of any appreciable knowledge in those areas. 

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But then I met author Bob Dorr. He was most helpful and influential, and if truth be told, the person primarily responsible for me entering the aviation writing arena. One evening, after going back and forth about the F/A-18 (he had asked me to proofread a Hornet piece he had written) and offering what I knew about the proposed E/F, Bob said the magical words, “Brad, you should write.” I remember my answer very clearly—“Bob, I’m not military, I’m not a pilot, and I’m not an engineer. I have no credibility with these readers.” But Bob pressed on unfazed. He said, “You have passion and interest in getting the information out correctly, and you know how to research.” I then said something like, “I don’t even know where to begin.”

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So Bob said, “I’ll help you.” Within a week I had a letter of commitment from the editor-in-chief of none other than World Air Power Journal asking me, a complete unknown and unproven writer, to author a feature piece on the Lockheed S-3 Viking. I was stunned; and forever grateful.

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I nervously accepted the challenge, setting out to write the most detailed article on the Viking even written. I contacted Lockheed, explained my story and met several key people in the program, and used CompuServe and AOL to locate S-3 crew members, eventually befriending several who went on to host a number of visits to NAS Cecil Field and later NAS Jacksonville (including the weapons school in 2008). The article eventually topped 33,000 words and was well-received. In fact, Lockheed purchased special copies to become the company S-3 brochure to VIPs. A friend of mine got one visiting a carrier off the coast of Italy. 

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That Viking article proved to be a Godsend; it opened doors (with Bob’s help) to Combat Aircraft magazine and to various book publishers with whom I would go on to write. At this point, I had hoped that my nonfiction writing would set the stage and create a following of readers who would then be interested in my military adventure novel.

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All was going well—in fact, extremely well from the standpoint of my nonfiction work. And the novel was finished. I had visited the USS Nimitz for a week as a guest of strike fighter squadron VFA-147, and had spent two days at TOPGUN, then located at NAS Miramar. Little did I know, at the time TOPGUN was transitioning from its original teaching format to the current SFTI format that month (March 1995). They explained it to me, but honestly it meant very little to me at the time. And they were talking about relocating to NAS Fallon. The instructors I met during that visit are now considered legends of the School (see TOPGUN—The Legacy, chapter re: 1990s).

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In any event, I began peddling my novel with agents and publishers; it was called Barrier Break. It received good criticisms and made it fairly deep in the consideration process with several agents and publishers. One producer even considered it for a made-for-TV movie (ask me about that one in person sometime—I will just say this; the original book title was “Standing Alone.”). So, as the book, now edited my several Navy pilots and NFOs, was building momentum, something horribly tragic occurred in our world that instantly made my novel irrelevant—the attacks of September 11, 2001. I spoke with several of my resources and the opinions were unanimous—this story won’t fly today. 9-11 changed everything.

So Barrier Break now sits alone on my bookshelf as my first novel effort, never to see the light of day outside my den. Someday I will likely clean it up and print a single copy just for the sake of saying “I did it.”

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At that point my focus became military nonfiction—the S-3 Viking, the F/A-18E/F/G program, the Vietnam air war, and TOPGUN. And my novel aspirations switched to other genres—more on that very soon! 

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Since then I have been blessed with the opportunity to write twelve books and author chapters in two others. I’ve also authored over 50 military aviation articles, which have appeared in Combat Aircraft, WAPJ, International Air Power Review, Aviation News, The Hook, and several other publications. Recognizing my own limitations, I have always strived for as much accuracy as possible and have consistently sought input from the men and women who fly and design the planes I write about and of course, those who attended and instruct at TOPGUN. I try to establish my credibility through those I interview, finding key people to share their stories and provide valuable insights and experiences that I lack. Hopefully I’ve accomplished that goal.

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Over the many years my writing has taken me to numerous naval air stations, a few carriers (one for a week), Lockheed Martin in Marietta, Georgia, Northrop Grumman’s Bethpage facility, and on countless trips to Boeing/MacAir, NSAWC/NAWDC, and TOPGUN. I’ve trapped and launched from a carrier in a C-2 Greyhound COD and flown in a Super Hornet (with only six hours flight time on it). I’ve spent countless hours in simulators (F-14, F/A-18, F/A-18E/F, and S-3). It has been a fun journey; one of humility and wonder. And I’ve met a lot of good people along the way.

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So that’s my story. I will say, this journey has taught me that we are all capable of doing the things we want to do in life. We may not sit in the cockpit, but we can surely stand outside the plane and marvel at what’s inside. We just need to convince ourselves that we can.

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Bob Dorr always said “be sure to pay it forward.” And I have tried to do that, both as a military writer and as an attorney. Opening doors for others who show passion and promise is rewarding in itself.

 

If I have any advice to those who want to write, but are intimidated by the obstacles presented, it is this: challenge yourself to learn how to write and/or to perfect your writing skills. Find an author or two whose written work you greatly admire and copy it by hand, over and over, learning how that author developed the story. In the old days, this was called copywriting, and it seems to be making a comeback today. I was taught this as a young law student, and used this method to not only learn to write legal style, but I later used to write nonfiction, and most recently, fiction. By copying the work of others, you’ll eventually see how it’s done and yes, you will develop your own style, too.