About the Author
Andrew Brookes completed RAF pilot training after reading history at Leeds University. Following recce and strike tours on Victors, Canberras and Vulcans, during which he logged 3,500 flying hours, he served as a UK nuclear release officer in NATO and was the last operational RAF Commander at the Greenham Common cruise missile base. He was coordinator of air power studies at the RAF Advanced Staff College. He is now Aerospace Analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He publishes and broadcasts widely. He has written twelve aviation books, including Combat Aircraft 72 - Vulcan Units of the Cold War, and he received the Defence Aerospace Journalist of the Year Award in 2004 and 2006.