Riding the Whirlwind
Bonus Post: A review of "Typhoon: The Inside Story of an RAF Squadron at War" by Mike Sutton
A bonus post this month featuring my review of Royal Air Force fighter pilot Mike Sutton’s memoir of his time commanding a Eurofighter Typhoon squadron in the war against ISIS.
Also check out my latest on the work front, How Democrats Can Rebuild Trust on National Security: Five Big Ideas to Start—including:
A 350-ship Navy in ten years and a 250-strong bomber force as soon as possible as the core of a strong national defense.
Rebuild the non-defense foundations of national power, including a 150 percent increase in science and technology funding above pre-Trump levels.
Lift all of Trump’s tariffs, recommit to free trade, and pursue strategic economic cooperation with America’s allies.
Double down on America’s alliances in Europe and Asia.
Fully commit to a free, sovereign, and independent Ukraine—including membership in NATO.
On to the review!
For much of the general public—not to mention a fair share of political leaders and policymakers as well—military aviation has come to be seen as routine business, almost as pedestrian as commercial flying. But as former Royal Air Force wing commander Mike Sutton’s 2021 memoir Typhoon: The Inside Story of an RAF Squadron at War reminds us, military aviation remains an inherently risky and hazardous enterprise—whether training in the confines the friendly skies or flying combat missions over an active war zone. Though Sutton’s prose occasionally drifts a bit too far into the purple, he and his coauthor otherwise provide a generally engaging account of military flying and modern combat that keeps readers moving along at a brisk pace.
Above all, Sutton’s cockpit tales show in vivid terms that flight itself—whether military, commercial, or private—cannot and should not be taken for granted. Despite advances in technology and safety over the decades, the margins for error in military aviation remain razor-thin. Sutton’s own early-career experiences flying the 1970s-vintage SEPECAT Jaguarstrike fighter testify to this reality: pilots flew the aircraft low and fast despite the limitations inherent to the design, in particular its underpowered engines and inadequate turn capacity. Of the 200 Jaguars bought by the RAF, Sutton notes, sixty-nine airframes had been lost in accidents between the type’s introduction in 1973 and his own induction in 2001.
These dangers are apparent even in the Eurofighter Typhoon, one of the world’s most advanced combat aircraft. Sutton describes a number of hair-raising near-misses and close encounters during missions in his Typhoon over Iraq and Syria in 2015 and 2016; thanks to a flight controller’s error and a brief bout of in-flight disorientation, his fighter’s wingtip avoided a collision with an Australian A330 tanker by what he estimates to be “a few feet, if not inches.” Night tanking comes across as anxiety-inducing and downright terrifying even in the best of conditions, while Sutton confesses that lights-out aerial refueling over combat zones is “something of a black art.”
Sutton’s account of his combat missions also lays bare the complicated choreography involved in relatively mundane combat sorties. On one mission, for instance, he and his wingman take over from a pair of U.S. Air Force F-16s and listen in to radio chatter from French pilots flying Rafale fighters as Marine Corps Harriers give way to Navy F/A-18s over southern Iraq. Nor can the dangers involved in these missions be easily dismissed: Sutton opens the book with a low-level, high-speed strafing run against an ISIS position in Ramadi that could have gone wrong in a number of different ways. Indeed, his jet’s cannon winds up jamming after a few bursts—hardly the worst outcome, but not a good one either.
Even knowing that fighter aircraft like the Jaguar and Typhoon are designed for such high performance, moreover, it’s bracing to be reminded of just what that means in reality. As Sutton remarks, “Without constant, positive action, fast jets become incredibly unsafe. Surprises are unwelcome… One problem is that you can believe you have perfect situational awareness right up to the point that circumstances show you do not.”
Beyond compelling accounts of aerial derring-do, however, Sutton’s memoir reveals just how much the stability and security of Europe, and indeed the world at large, hinge on the latticework of alliances most Americans have unfortunately come to take for granted. European nations like the United Kingdom, however, have no such luxury, and depend on alliances like NATO for their own defense: these alliances allow their members to pool their resources and give them access to types of training they’d be hard-pressed to conduct on their own. It’s not just that whole becomes more than the sum of its parts, it’s that the parts themselves become stronger and sharper as part of the larger whole.
Sutton’s own career arc attests to this fact: after graduating from basic flying training in the UK, he attends NATO fighter training at Moose Jaw, Canada along with a “cocktail of trainee pilots from Canada, Italy, Singapore, and a couple of Danish guys.” As a fully-fledged fighter pilot, Sutton flew both the Jaguar and the Typhoon in the U.S. Air Force’s famed Red Flag combat exercises at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. He takes part in NATO exercises in Romania as a junior Jaguar pilot, where he has a close encounter with a Romanian MiG-21, and later in Spain as a Typhoon squadron commander, where he and his squadron flew together with their French, Spanish, and Turkish counterparts. It comes across equally clear in the multinational fight against ISIS, where his British Typhoons fly alongside American and French strike aircraft, refuel from Australian tankers, and work with forward air controllers of varying nationalities on the ground.
In placing the United States at their core, these alliances amplify American power as much as they enhance the military capacities and capabilities of American allies. Yet for reasons known only to themselves, the current president and his administration seem hellbent on wire-stripping these alliances in order to cozy up to the kleptocratic gangster regime in Moscow. The sort of cooperation Sutton presents as business-as-usual in Typhoon continues for the moment, but the writing now appears to be on the wall with rumors swirling that the Trump administration wants to pull U.S. forces out of NATO exercises and indeed Eastern Europe—a development that’d be to the detriment of the United States and, indeed, every other nation involved as well.
That distressing possibility aside, Typhoon remains a satisfying read for any and all military aviation enthusiasts. Sutton ably brings the thrills and terrors involved in flying high-performance combat jets home—and gives the Typhoon itself a worthy advert along the way.
