Bob Rodriquez, a jacket thrown around his shoulders, was talking with Barry Martin. They were unlikely friends, for both were silent men of strong convictions, but had somehow found themselves on the same wavelength on virtually everything, from religion to politics to the heady state of the aviation industry prospects to, always and eternally, the prospects for the Hypersonic Cruiser’s success.
Rodriquez gestured to two empty chairs, and Jenkins and Honey sat down. Sally O’Malley came out with a tray of drinks and put it on the small folding table.
The four men were quiet for a while, Jenkins assessing Rodriquez closely. He was no longer young and the strain of converting the Hypersonic Cruiser to accommodate the Australian’s suggestions had further diminished his energy. He tried to cheer him up.
“Well, chaps, every time we think the air and space industry is going down for a count, we have a year like 2006, where everything was looking up. Incredible stuff happening, all across the country, all around the world. I just wish I were thirty years younger, starting all over.”
He realized it was the wrong thing to say. Rodriquez was already worried about his age and his health. He tried to recover. “Bob, did you ever think the Air Force would have a full wing of UAVs? They are going to set one up at Creech Air Force Base next year, using the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reapers.”
Rodriquez just nodded, but Honey and Martin caught on immediately and jumped into the conversation.
“I see they are changing the terminology from UAV to UAS—unmanned aerial systems. I’m surprised the feminists have let them get away with ‘unmanned.’ But I wish O’Malley would come out, I’d like to hear what he has to say about the F-22s getting ready to deploy to Japan.”
Martin added, “I managed to get to the Experimental Aircraft Association fly-in at Oshkosh this year. They had the F-22 there, and the HondaJet, too. It is always an impressive sight to see those acres of airplanes.”
Martin’s comment seemed to stir Rodriquez, who sat up and said, “The EAA is the best thing that’s happened to aviation. Without it there probably would have been no Burt Rutan as we know him, nor any Cirrus or Lancair or HondaJet or a lot of other things. Do you guys know Paul Poberezny?”
Jenkins did but Martin and Honey said no.
“You’ve got to meet him. He’s older now, like me, but he’s still impressive, and even now you see the Messianic aspects of his personality that allowed him to create and shape the EAA. There’ll never be another like him.”
He paused for a moment and went on. “It is a great time. Look what’s happening with Air Traffic Control! It’s moving into the twenty-first century at last, and beginning to use satellite technology for traffic control and approaches. It’s about time. If they had waited much longer, the whole system would have ground to a halt.”
Jenkins said, “Bob, what do you think are the three or four biggest advances in the last decade?”
Rodriquez smiled.
“In a few months—maybe less—we are going to make the biggest advance, and don’t you forget it. We are going to give the government the capability to reach out virtually anywhere in the world and strike any size target, big or small. But besides us? Stealth has been around a long time and so have precision munitions. I think the biggest advances are in materials and in management. Look how Boeing is building the 787! They are outsourcing most of it. Mitsubishi, who built the Zero during World War II, is building the wings; the rudder is being built in China, along with the fairings for the wing. Boeing’s even modified three 747s, made ‘pregnant guppies’ of them, so they can haul fuselage sections from Japan. Boeing is the integrating assembler, and it’s causing a lot of grief, naturally, with the older engineers who think their ‘tribal knowledge’ is being given away. The unions object, too, it’s inevitable. This much outsourcing was unthinkable even ten years ago.”
He was wound up, his fists clenched, and they knew he had more to say.
“Worst of all, I think there have been much bigger advances in China than just building things for Boeing. And sad to say, we don’t have the slightest idea of what they are. It wouldn’t surprise me if they flew a hypersonic aircraft.”
“But not before we do.” Martin rarely spoke, so when he did, they listened. He went on. “They have brilliant minds and a booming economy, but they are getting big, too, and their bureaucratic tendencies dwarf ours. I suspect that the next thing out of China will be a big boom, all right, but it won’t be a bomb, it will be the sound of their economy collapsing from going too fast too far. You can’t go from rickshaws to Rolls-Royces in one generation without some turbulence. They will experience the ups and downs of capitalism just like everybody else has, and they’ve been zooming up so long, they are bound to have a setback, like your great crashes in 1929 or 1981. I see them having a depression that will cripple their economy for decades. Unfortunately, it will cripple everyone else’s economy, too. But the real danger there is that they haven’t had their nationalist wars yet. Every emerging country, especially one that was treated as shabbily as China by foreign powers, wants to assert itself, it wants revenge. I can see them having a big bust, and some Red Napoleon emerging, ready to take on the world to take the people’s minds off the fact that they are no longer getting rich.”
It was the longest speech Martin had ever made to them, and the others were impressed into silence.
Rodriquez finally spoke. “Martin, you may be right, and if you are, it is the only bright side of being as old as I am—it won’t happen until I’ve cashed in my chips.”
V. R. Shannon had been standing at the door, listening. He turned and walked away. He was probably a lot closer to cashing in his chips than Rodriquez or anyone else. So many things could go wrong on this mission, from the failure of the basic premise to some mechanical hazard to some in-flight incident. Yet he knew that it was the most valuable thing he could do for his country, far more important than his combat experience or his work on the stealth fighter. The Hypersonic Cruiser could be the answer not only to the war on terror, but also to any Red Napoleon that might emerge from China.
NOT AN EPILOGUE . . . A PROLOGUE
THE PASSING PARADE: President George W. Bush announces a surge of troops necessary in Iraq to allow stabilization and ultimate withdrawal; on board International Space Station astronaut Suni Williams participates in Boston Marathon; Estonians nostalgic for Soviet era rebel against removal of monument celebrating “Great Patriotic War”; six Muslim men arrested for planning assault on Fort Dix; scandal grows involving Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and dismissal of U.S. Attorneys; brutal war continues in Somalia; child abduction hits new heights in Sri Lanka; Saddam Hussein’s half brother executed by hanging; USAF to train pilots specifically for operating unmanned aerial vehicles; more than 34,000 Iraqi civilians killed during 2006; Lockheed Martin F-22s complete three months overseas deployment; all charges dropped in Duke rape case; estimated 42,499 aircraft, worth $1.253 trillion, to be manufactured between 2007 and 2016; USAF retiring advanced cruise missile, retaining old B-52, B-1, and B-2 bombers in service indefinitely; Nicolas Sarkozy elected President of France; Airbus Industries announces A320 production rate to reach 40 per month; Tony Blair announces plans to retire.
May 20, 2007
Mojave Airport, California
V. R. Shannon sat in the cockpit of the RoboPlanes Hypersonic Cruiser, poised at the end of the twelve-thousand-foot-long Runway 12 at the Mojave Airport, connected only by a single cable to ground equipment 150 feet away. The Federal Aviation Administration had cleared the flight by placing the Hypersonic Cruiser in the same category as Rutan’s SpaceShipOne, an unusual civilian flight into space.
His many hours in the company simulator made it all familiar to him. So much was the same—the wonderful visibility, the beautiful ergonomics, the solid feel of the controls, the assurance of the quadruple, sometimes quintuple, redundancy of every system. But there was a major difference. Today he was within minutes making the most revol
utionary advance in aviation history—or of dying. There was an escape capsule to use, but no one, least of all V. R. Shannon, thought it would survive an ejection at Mach 8.0.
Shannon mentally blessed the Australians for their invaluable work. Their ideas, expertise, and money had enabled him to accelerate the production program and expand the performance parameters.
The flight was supposed to have taken place yesterday when he went through the ritual suiting up and prebreathing exercise. Other factors intervened. He hoped they would not today—the letdown of yesterday’s cancellation made strapping in today more difficult than ever.
They were determined to fly a complete mission—Rodriquez called it a “Kelly Johnson-style mission”—from the start. It was evident that the Hypersonic Cruiser would have its greatest use in the vast reaches of the Pacific, so they were simulating a strike mission ranging out from Hawaii on a suspected terrorist missile launching ship stationed eight hundred miles away. The real takeoff would be from Mojave, but their contract ship was placing two targets seven hundred miles off the California coast. The day delay had occurred when the first target had collapsed and sank. Fortunately, they had foreseen this and had a spare on board the ship.
In an attempt to make the mission as realistic as possible, Shannon would not get instructions on which target to strike until the last possible moment. He would launch his missile—a real launch, nothing virtual about the mission—and his sensors would instantly detect the success or failure of the strike even as he streaked back to California at Mach 8.0. The first flight mission was as unprecedented in the world of testing as the Hypersonic Cruiser was in the world of flight. Already called “the lawn dart” by the workers and engineers who labored so hard to create it, the Hypersonic Cruiser was a concatenation of advances in design, propulsion, structures, cooling, and aerodynamics. The combination flew beautifully on the computers, with little more input from the pilot than advancing the throttles and selecting the target from the right upper glass panel that monitored the weapons systems.
The U.S. government still steadfastly distanced itself from the project, wanting to avoid association with what many believed was certain, inevitable failure. It was easy for the Air Force or NASA to do, because if by some wild chance the Hypersonic Cruiser was a success, they would fall heir to its achievements automatically. There was no feasible commercial application as yet, although there might be hypersonic airliners in the future.
Shannon felt curiously calm. He was committed to the task, determined that he would place an instrument in the hands of the government that could contain any future threat. If he failed, then so be it. It had been a great effort, with his fortune and the fortunes of his closest friends riding on it. And it had a great heritage, reaching back to his grandfather Vance Shannon, and continuing on through his father, Tom, and uncle Harry right down to the present.
Looking at the great screen that surrounded him as a conventional canopy might, he could see Steve O’Malley—suited up and ready to replace him—standing next to Dennis Jenkins. To their left, bent over a computer console, was Bob Rodriquez, who had contributed so much grief and so much good to their collective lives.
Rodriquez’s voice came over the intercom.
“Are you ready, V. R.?”
“Yes, let’s go.”
The engine start system was entirely automated; even the cord connecting the Cruiser to the ground equipment was withdrawn mechanically.
Rodriquez’s voice came over the radio, controlled, matter-of-fact.
“You are cleared for takeoff, V. R.”
Shannon had prepared his answer in advance. He’d planned to say, “Roger. Cleared for takeoff. To the future.”
Instead he said simply, “Roger.”
Power came up automatically, and the aircraft began to roll. He was a passenger, just as Alan Shepard, Jr., had been in the first American spaceflight. Acceleration was slow at first, but speed built up and he noted with satisfaction that the Hypersonic Cruiser broke ground at the precise 145 knots he had calculated.
The televised view was amazing; his visibility was far better than any canopy they could have devised and it had none of the distortion that sometimes crept into simulator presentations.
Speed built and the aircraft climbed swiftly; in three minutes he was level at sixty thousand feet, heading out over the Pacific Ocean, his speed stabilized at six hundred knots, just as planned. His hand had never left the side stick controller, but no inputs had been required. He was a passenger, pure and simple, and somehow he didn’t mind it.
Rod’s voice came over the radio.
“In thirty seconds, you’ll begin your hypersonic run. Ready?”
“Roger. I’m just sitting here, the airplane’s doing the work.”
“V. R., hold tight. You’re about to take off into the future.”
V. R. thought, Damn, he stole my line, as the acceleration pressed him back into the seat and the airspeed, altitude, heat, and his uncertainty built up. But there was no time to dwell on any of that now. V. R. tightened his grip on the side stick controller, watching the speed build as he flew into history.
Table of Contents
TITLE
Copyright Notice
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
NOT AN EPILOGUE . . . A PROLOGUE
Hypersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age Page 39
