Roaring Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age Read Online Free Page A
Author: Walter J. Boyne
when the odds didn’t seem right. But when the odds were right, even if just by a hair, he’d fly, and he had always succeeded. Until the last one.
Shannon flushed. “Not since the accident, Bob. I just haven’t felt ready.” Six months before, Shannon had been testing a new trainer, built of Duramold, the plasticized wood product that the veteran engineer Virginius Clark had developed. A wing had come off in a dive, and Shannon had barely made it over the side, his parachute popping open just fifty feet off the ground. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was having trouble getting up the side of an airplane into the cockpit—just too many aches and pains remaining from the jump and the subsequent hard landing on a dirt field.
“It’s time you stopped, anyway—you are far too valuable to be jumping out of airplanes.” They laughed, somewhat ruefully, and Gross went on. “Vance, you know Nate Price and Kelly Johnson, don’t you?”
Shannon nodded; the two men were fantastic engineers, both geniuses, with Nate a little less disciplined and perhaps even more imaginative than Kelly. He knew they had difficulty working together. Kelly was too assertive. As a young man, fresh out of University of Michigan and brand-new to Lockheed, he had shaken older, more experienced engineers with his insights and a manner that bordered just on the wrong side of arrogance. The difficulty for the older engineers was that Kelly was always right, and now, at thirty-one, he was the dominant—but not the chief—engineer at Lockheed. Price was more withdrawn but very stubborn, always insistent on doing things his way. As partners, they inevitably had trouble.
“Sure. I worked with them a bit on the multi-seat fighter project—the competition the Bell Airacuda won.”
Both men were silent. Gross hated losing any competition, especially this one, where the airplane the Air Corps selected as winner turned out to be a total failure. Shannon was quiet because he had not been able to get along with either Price or Johnson. They were just too bright, too full of themselves, to permit an outsider to horn in.
“Isn’t Price one of your protégés?”
Gross winced; he knew he had a reputation for hiring maverick engineers he believed in, then giving them their head, not tasking them with assignments unless they wanted them, and allowing them to work however they wished. It was unusual in the economy-minded aviation industry. He knew that it upset most of the other engineers, who were conventional thinkers for the most part, and it upset all of the accountants, who hated to have a worker without fixed tasks for charging time and overhead.
“Yes, I give Nate a lot of leeway, just as I do Kelly, but it might be paying off.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “What do you know about turbine engines for aircraft?”
Shannon stirred in the big green leather chair. This was more like it. His whole body came alive as he leaned forward, broad fingers grasping the arms of the chair, blue eyes bright with interest, a confiding half smile registering. This was wine for his soul, a peek into the future; it was what he lived for, the constant quest to please clients by doing a good job.
But it was dangerous territory. The U.S. Army Air Corps called on his talents, too, and the latest request had come straight from the top, from his old friend Major General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, who wanted him to oversee the transfer of information on the new British turbine jet engine to the United States. It was top secret,and Shannon could not even talk about it to Gross, a trusted friend.
“Hap” Arnold was big, bluff, hearty, and always smiling in public, but in private he was an irascible boss who often demanded more results than could be delivered and always wanted them yesterday. After long service and some real political brawls, he now commanded Army aviation. Arnold was not much of an engineer himself, but he was nonetheless a visionary, always
Shannon flushed. “Not since the accident, Bob. I just haven’t felt ready.” Six months before, Shannon had been testing a new trainer, built of Duramold, the plasticized wood product that the veteran engineer Virginius Clark had developed. A wing had come off in a dive, and Shannon had barely made it over the side, his parachute popping open just fifty feet off the ground. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was having trouble getting up the side of an airplane into the cockpit—just too many aches and pains remaining from the jump and the subsequent hard landing on a dirt field.
“It’s time you stopped, anyway—you are far too valuable to be jumping out of airplanes.” They laughed, somewhat ruefully, and Gross went on. “Vance, you know Nate Price and Kelly Johnson, don’t you?”
Shannon nodded; the two men were fantastic engineers, both geniuses, with Nate a little less disciplined and perhaps even more imaginative than Kelly. He knew they had difficulty working together. Kelly was too assertive. As a young man, fresh out of University of Michigan and brand-new to Lockheed, he had shaken older, more experienced engineers with his insights and a manner that bordered just on the wrong side of arrogance. The difficulty for the older engineers was that Kelly was always right, and now, at thirty-one, he was the dominant—but not the chief—engineer at Lockheed. Price was more withdrawn but very stubborn, always insistent on doing things his way. As partners, they inevitably had trouble.
“Sure. I worked with them a bit on the multi-seat fighter project—the competition the Bell Airacuda won.”
Both men were silent. Gross hated losing any competition, especially this one, where the airplane the Air Corps selected as winner turned out to be a total failure. Shannon was quiet because he had not been able to get along with either Price or Johnson. They were just too bright, too full of themselves, to permit an outsider to horn in.
“Isn’t Price one of your protégés?”
Gross winced; he knew he had a reputation for hiring maverick engineers he believed in, then giving them their head, not tasking them with assignments unless they wanted them, and allowing them to work however they wished. It was unusual in the economy-minded aviation industry. He knew that it upset most of the other engineers, who were conventional thinkers for the most part, and it upset all of the accountants, who hated to have a worker without fixed tasks for charging time and overhead.
“Yes, I give Nate a lot of leeway, just as I do Kelly, but it might be paying off.” He paused for a moment, then asked, “What do you know about turbine engines for aircraft?”
Shannon stirred in the big green leather chair. This was more like it. His whole body came alive as he leaned forward, broad fingers grasping the arms of the chair, blue eyes bright with interest, a confiding half smile registering. This was wine for his soul, a peek into the future; it was what he lived for, the constant quest to please clients by doing a good job.
But it was dangerous territory. The U.S. Army Air Corps called on his talents, too, and the latest request had come straight from the top, from his old friend Major General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold, who wanted him to oversee the transfer of information on the new British turbine jet engine to the United States. It was top secret,and Shannon could not even talk about it to Gross, a trusted friend.
“Hap” Arnold was big, bluff, hearty, and always smiling in public, but in private he was an irascible boss who often demanded more results than could be delivered and always wanted them yesterday. After long service and some real political brawls, he now commanded Army aviation. Arnold was not much of an engineer himself, but he was nonetheless a visionary, always