Even as a little girl, Annie Shaw wanted to fly. Her father, a Korean War fighter pilot, was a mysterious and elusive figure, who captivated her at an early age with his easy charm and adventurous spirit. When tragedy strikes her family, Annie vows to take control of her life and become an aviator in her own right. But her pride in having earned her wings as an Air Force pilot is quickly sobered by the emergence of war. Iraq invades Kuwait, and Annie finds herself deployed to Saudi Arabia, waiting for the Gulf War to begin.

A tough, independent woman, Annie holds her own inside the elite, male-dominated fraternity of flying, but a thrilling, ill-fated romance threatens to bring her personal and professional lives to a collision point. And when a critical error places her crew at risk, Annie learns that flying in wartime carries a shadow far greater than the mystique it held for her when she was a child.

Written by one of the first American female aviators ever to fly in a war zone, The Art of Uncontrolled Flight is an extraordinary story of a woman's perseverance in the tough and unsentimental world of military flight. In this compelling work, part romance, memoir, and war story, Ponders masterfully illuminates both the great joy and the terrible tragedy that result from love and from war.