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FLYING AND WRITING: These have been the dual passions of Bob Gandt's life. He published his first story at age sixteen - the same year he first soloed an airplane. Since then he has accrued something over 25,000 hours, written fourteen books and countless articles.

As a U. S. Navy pilot he logged over 300 carrier landings and nearly 2,000 hours in the A-4 Skyhawk. In his deja vu work, BOGEYS AND BANDITS (Viking Penguin), he joins a Navy F/A-18 training squadron at the same base where he had trained years before.

For 26 years he flew as a pilot with Pan American World Airways, domiciled in Berlin, Hong Kong, New York, and San Francisco. His classic airline account, SKYGODS (Wm. Morrow & Co.), recounts the meteoric descent and crash of the world's most glamorous airline, Pan Am.

During the late 1980s and early '90s, Gandt flew with the famed Redhawk Aerobatic Team. Flying their Siai-Marchetti fighter-trainers (rescued from a military boneyard in the Congo), the Redhawks performed their formation aerobatic routine for over three million air show spectators.

Gandt's first book, SEASON OF STORMS recounts the dramatic tale of the WWII battle for Hong Kong. His long association with Pan Am and its romantic history inspired CHINA CLIPPER (Naval Institute Press), which relives the mystique of the great commercial flying boats. His fascination with warbirds and the high-adrenalin world of unlimited air racing provided the background for FLY LOW FLY FAST (Viking Penguin), the inside account of the battle for the unlimited air racing championship at Reno, Nevada.

Gandt's first military adventure novel, WITH HOSTILE INTENT (Penguin Putnam) was followed by ACTS OF VENGEANCE, BLACK STAR, SHADOWS OF WAR, THE KILLING SKY, and BLACK STAR RISING.

In 1998 he made his screenwriting debut in 1998 on the CBS series Pensacola: Wings Of Gold, adapted from BOGEYS AND BANDITS. Gandt served as writer and technical consultant for the twenty-two-episodes of the show, starring James Brolin as the commander of a Marine F/A-18 training squadron.

Gandt's historical work INTREPID, co-authored by Bill White, with a foreword by fellow naval aviator Senator John McCain, was published by Random House in the autumn of 2008 and was the winner of the Admiral Farragut Book Award. His follow on book, THE TWILIGHT WARRIORS, the saga of the sea and air battle for Okinawa (Random House) won the prestigious Samuel Eliot Morison Award for Naval Literature.

Gandt and his wife, Anne, make their home at the Spruce Creek Fly-In in Daytona Beach, Florida, where Anne heads up the real estate firm, Country Club Properties of Spruce Creek.