Released
2000
Credits
Cast
Judd Nelson
Dean Biasucci
Alison Dunbar
Mark Kiely
Dale Midkiff
Cliff Robertson
Jennifer Rubin I
William Shatner
Plot
In the early morning of January 15th, 2001, three state of the art jet fighters streak towards Eastern Europe at nearly Mach IV. Serbian radar stations immediately pick them up, but before they cross into Yugoslavian air space, the planes disappear off the radar screen without a trace. A short time later, a deadly missile attack wipes out a key military bases. With no external enemy to target, a civil insurrection begins.
Realizing the power of this new stealth technology, the United States military decides to build the biggest military project in history: the XB 1000, a one hundred billion dollar Mach VI bomber. This plane will be capable of reaching any target in the world in less than three hours and be totally invisible to radar. Unfortunately, Congress has refused to fund the new plane, thus ending the future of the XB 1000 bomber.
Undaunted, military planners decide to secretly proceed forward with the project even though concealing a one hundred billion dollar black box project would be nearly impossible. The decision is made to build the plane as new civilian airliner. It will be a joint venture with NASA and the United States' three largest airplane manufactures under the guise of a massive economic project to re-infuse the countries fledging aircraft industry. Called FALCON, this plane will be capable of carrying nearly 400 passengers from Los Angeles to Paris in less than two hours.
Peter Stanton is considered one of the world's most brilliant aeronautic engineers. His designs for new mach capable, fuel-efficient engines have been considered ingenious. Yet without a plane to put them on, his career has languished. With the FALCON project, Peter has seen his dream come true. By building an airplane that makes the Concorde seem almost archaic by comparison, Peter's engineering genius will finally be put to the test. However, the project has not been without problems. Throughout construction, secret sub systems that Peter and his team were not allowed to examine have been built into the plane. However, with the completion of the FALCON, Peter is going to put that all behind him. He will now join the twelve other engineers and mission specialist for FALCON's maiden flight to Paris. There it will pick up its first passengers for a record breaking flight back to Los Angeles.
As the flight takes off from the Boeing plant near Seattle, Washington, the plane streaks north towards the arctic in a textbook Mach VI Polar flight. Then, less than hour later, as FALCON nears the Greenland ice cap, the plane disappears off the radar screen.
Onboard, a team of Russian-trained Serbian commandos is attempting to take over the plane. Their mission: steal the plane and its new stealth technology by landing it on the arctic ice cap. There, they will be able to steal the super secret stealth generator and escape via a Russian submarine waiting beneath the ice. Unfortunately, something goes wrong and FALCON is forced down too soon. It lands on the thin part of the ice cap that cannot support the weight of the plane. FALCON breaks through the ice and sinks in the icy waters to where the real battle for survival will be fought.
Thousands of feet below the surface, Peter must battle a team of ruthless commandos on a plane never built to withstand the pressure of the sea.
Thus in the harsh world of the arctic, with literally thousands of miles to search, the only thing known to the outside world is that the FALCON is DOWN.
The novel "Falcon Down" is under copyright by author James R. Paulson.
