“Two retired fighter pilots, one Clancy-style thriller: Alan Cockrell & Richard Hess on writing "Night of the Bear”
Between us we've logged almost a century of military and commercial flight time. Alan retired from the Air Force Reserve as a Lieutenant Colonel after flying combat missions in the first Gulf War, then finished a second career as a United Airlines 767 captain. Richard spent 28 years in the USAF and Air National Guard, ferried fighter jets across three continents, and served 15 years as a State Department military adviser.
We spent four years and thousands of hours writing Night of the Bear together — a thriller about a Russian sleeper cell plotting to wipe out America's entire chain of command with four cruise missiles, centered on an F-15 pilot forced to fly the mission that could stop it. Beta readers told us it reads like Tom Clancy, and reviewers have put us in the same conversation as Clancy, Brad Thor, and Jack Carr.
We love talking about what it actually took to build a technically credible thriller from two real flying careers — the collaboration process, the research, and why we think the scenario is more plausible than most listeners will be comfortable with.
