Day of the Cheetah

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Written in 1989, Day of the Cheetah is Dale Brown’s third novel in publication order (but second in order of writing). A former U.S. Air Force captain, Dale Brown is an author most famous for his military-action-aviation techno-thrillers, with thirteen New York Times best-sellers to his credit. Patrick McLanahan, one of the key characters in this novel, is taken from Dale Brown’s first novel, Flight of the Old Dog. A number of key characters were killed in Day of the Cheetah, only to reappear in later books, as when DotC was first written, Brown did not intend to write any further books in the series.

The United States' High Technology Aerospace Weapons Centre is developing the most sophisticated fighter aircraft in the world, an aircraft equipped with ANTARES, a computer system linked to the pilot's brain. Once perfected, the XF-34A fighter, codenamed "Dreamstar", will be the world's deadliest combat-ready weapon, outdoing even the "Cheetah", a heavily modified two-seater F-15E redesignated F-15F.

Kenneth James, a Soviet deep-cover agent, is the only man fully qualified to fly Dreamstar. In 1996, James hijacked the plane. The plane's hijack sets the stage for a fast-moving spectrum of diplomatic and military measures to recover or destroy the prize without starting a world war.

The Cheetah, with its own updated avionics, but an "older, less intelligent cousin" of Dreamstar, must hunt it down and destroy it. The hero is ace B-52 navigator, Pat McLanahan, assisted by the Old Dog's crew.