Since the Soviet Union went into meltdown 20 years ago, a rogue band of suddenly unemployed Russian Air Force pilots has been flying cut-rate, broke-down, "surplus" Ilyushin cargo planes filled with everything from U.N. emergency relief supplies to Kalashnikov semi-automatics into the world's worst trouble spots.
Multilingual BBC journalist Matt Potter managed to embed with one such group of hard-drinking, hard-smoking, gonzo-flying mercenaries, and he reports the details of their adventures in his first book, Outlaws Inc.: "Call them and the twenty-four-hour, no-questions-asked elite crew will fly whatever you've got to wherever you want it in one of the largest planes on earth, danger no object--if the price is right."
Potter takes us along on white-knuckled, corkscrew landings into anti-aircraft RPG-defended Afghan airstrips, rebel outposts from the east to the west coasts of Africa and the coca jungles of Central America. In Potter's sure narrative hands, the leader of this Russian posse comes across as a resourceful and talented pilot just trying to feed his family, rather than some evil criminal. –-Bruce Jacobs, founding partner, Watermark Books & Cafe, Wichita, Kans.