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It's an old work of Science Fiction (written during the Cold War).

The subject is men & machine interface.

The plot is as follows:

  • An American pilot flies on a bombing mission to and over Russia.
  • The aircraft and he are connected together by the neural networks and they are actually one!
  • All kind of problems, thoughts and mishaps happen to them during this flight.

Question: What is the name of the book and/or the author?

2
  • Welcome to the site. You have a good start here. If you could take a look at this guide to help jog your memory and edit in any more details, that would be great. Every little bit helps us.
    – amflare
    Jan 18, 2018 at 15:13
  • Gaultheria looks like he has the right answer, I'd just add that I don't think that Artificial Neural Networks were a common concept in the 70s so there was probably some other term for the tech. Jan 18, 2018 at 18:02

2 Answers 2

13

This sounds like Firefox, a 1977 novel by Craig Thomas, made into a 1982 film starring Clint Eastwood. It's about a plot to steal a Soviet fighter jet that has an experimental thought-controlled interface.

A key point in choosing the American pilot for the mission is that the interface requires the pilot to think in Russian.

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  • There was also a sequel novel, Firefox Down, that picks up where the previous one left off.
    – Zeiss Ikon
    Jan 18, 2018 at 17:59
1

A book with similar details is The Day of the Cheetah, a 1989 novel by Dale Brown.

His job at the secret base involves testing the highly advanced XF-34 Dreamstar, which is equipped with a thought-control interface.

James hijacks the fighter, causing Patrick McLanahan and the rest of the HAWC crew to try to recover or destroy the plane before it reaches the USSR.

1
  • Thanks. I will check both books. My memory is a little bit vague about the plot but it seems that none of the two books is the right one.
    – Atir
    Jan 19, 2018 at 7:09

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