Pour a Christmas pint mates, and settle in for one of the great aviation tales. Written by Frederick Forsyth and published in 1975, this novella tells of a 1950s RAF pilot trying to fly home to England for the holidays in a deHavilland Vampire. But fate, always the hunter, intervenes. (Vampire images from an early version of Flight Simulator X, the airfield and terrain are actually--well, virtually--Celle, Germany where the story begins.)

Born in Ashford, Kent, Forsyth became one of the youngest pilots in the Royal Air Force, at the age of 19, and served till 1958. Becoming a journalist, he joined Reuters in 1961 and the BBC in 1965, where he was an assistant diplomatic correspondent. He is best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal and The Odessa File.