Overflight! is a book-based wargame where you play the part of the CIA’s U-2 Program Director as your pilots fly missions over the Soviet Union and East Bloc. The events in the wargame take place between 1956 and 1960. You greatest assets are the U-2’s you have (often called the “Angel” or “Dragon Lady”) and your CIA pilots, all of whom have been “sheep-dipped”. On paper at least, they are civilians, though in reality, they are all highly-trained military professionals.

As with all wargame books from Historic Wings, be ready for a deep dive into history. By combining the best features of a wargame with the learning content of history books — yet distilled into easy-to-digest segments — you’ll learn a lot as you fly. You will put yourself into the shoes of the CIA Director and the CIA pilots who undertook one of America’s most successful and dangerous covert operations of the Cold War. The decisions are yours to make, not merely dry reading for a rainy day.

To win, you must fly the full range of historic missions as assigned to the CIA, right to the bitter end and beyond, without losing a single U-2 and its pilot to the Soviets. Your pilots will fly in Operation KNIFE, Operation TIME STEP, and Operation GRAND SLAM, the very flight where the Soviets shot down Francis Gary Powers on 1 May 1960 — perhaps you can do better?

-Grant