Royce's Random Thoughts

Since Firefox was published 35 years ago and the Clint Eastwood adaptation is almost as old [1] I'm sure an update/homage wouldn't be unreasonable.

The major change is that, now that the Soviet Union is kaputski, the action would move over to China, and instead of a PTSD suffering Vietnam War vet as the protagonist it would be a ex USAF female Chinese American [2], who was adopted from China when she was ten years old or so (and therefore retains full native accent Mandarin language skills). Most of the tension of the in the first part of the novel would be a Will She/Won't She tug of was as the protagonist is torn between ditching the mission or going through with it, since the latter would mean she'd never be able to return to China again.

Tech wise, the old Firefox stealth MacGuffin is a bit passe (and a Mach 5 capable interceptor is just silly). Speed would be a more reasonable-with-current-tech Mach 3 (improving on the old MiG-25 Foxbat's capabilities), but it would still retain the thought controlled weapons and rear defense pod. Not sure if I'd want to go with active camouflage though. That's been seriously overdone in the movies.

[1] Age, I show it.

[2] Possibly the same one from Warbird if I can fiddle with her background a little.