Firefox (novel)
Firefox is a 1977 thriller by the author Craig Thomas about an experimental Soviet jet fighter called the MiG-31 Firefox . This would be far superior to western fighter planes, because among other things with a top speed of Mach 5 ( hypersonic speed ), a thought-controlled firing system for the on-board weapons and stealth capabilities it has properties that at the time of the action were not even available for NATO fighter planes Stage of development.
In a secret operation jointly planned and carried out by the CIA and MI6 , the American fighter pilot Mitchell Gant is smuggled into the Soviet Union to steal Firefox and transfer it to the West. In addition to the problem of escaping the persecution by the Soviet secret service KGB , flashbacks from his service in the Vietnam War and his capture by the Viet Cong repeatedly make it difficult for Gant to carry out his mission.
The novel was filmed in 1982 under the title Firefox with Clint Eastwood in the role of Mitchell Gant and Klaus Löwitsch as Soviet General Vladimirov, among others .
"Firefox" is a possible but fictitious NATO code name , the actual existing MiG-31 , which was commissioned in 1981, bears the code name Foxhound and differs largely from the fictitious Mig-31.
expenditure
- Original edition: Harper & Row, New York 1977, ISBN 0-06-100051-5 .
- German edition: Heyne, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-453-18017-8 .