Hypersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (Novels of the Jet Age)

by Walter J. Boyne

  Vance and everyone else knew that wasn’t true anymore. Vance was still beloved in the industry. He’d received honorary degrees from Cal Tech and Perdue, a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, and been enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame. But he was not much of a force in the business anymore. That mantle had passed to Harry and Rodriquez.

  Tom went on. “Well, I wanted to get one thing settled. In my six years as a POW, I finally figured something out. I’d been a jerk about Rodriquez, and I’m here tonight to tell you that I’m over it. I want to get back to work in the company when the Air Force releases me, and if I wind up working for Bob, it will be fine with me. And it will be fine if I wind up working for Nancy. But I want to make up for all the time I’ve spent away from the firm.”

  The stunned silence was broken only by Vance’s voice. “Tom, that makes me almost as happy as I was when I saw you get off that C-141! We need you in the business, and we need everybody to get along.”

  “Nancy told me that Bob and Mae were splitting up. She says the problem was Bob’s work obsession. What do you think, Dad?”

  “No question. Bob loves her, and I think she loves him. She just doesn’t want to be alone.”

  Nancy said, “She’s not the only one.”

  And Jill said, “Amen.”

  Harry and Tom were quiet. They knew that Vance had been exactly the same, gone all the time, working seven days a week, and they, for the most part, had been following in his footsteps. Nancy had left Tom when he volunteered to return to the Air Force to fly in Korea. They got back together when he returned, but neither Tom nor anyone else knew how close she came to divorcing him when he volunteered for Vietnam. Only two things prevented her from taking action—concern for Tom’s morale, and the satisfaction she was getting from the increased responsibilities Vance and Harry gave her.

  Nancy smiled to herself. In a way, she had the Vance Shannon/Bob Rodriquez work obsession. It made her understand them a little better.

  Tom rapped on the table, signaling for attention. They all turned to him, happy to see such a characteristic gesture surface. It meant he was already getting his confidence back.

  “One thing is clear to me. We are all getting too old, and we may not age as gracefully as Dad has done. We need new blood! When Harry and I were coming up, we had contacts within the Air Force, and so we kept current. We’ve got to cultivate some young people, pilots, to work for the company.”

  Vance Shannon stirred. “Amen to that. You have anyone in mind, Tom?”

  “Well, V. R. is growing up, and maybe he’ll be able to join us in a few years. But we need some new people, now. Maybe we could pick up some company test pilots, guys who’ve been trained at Edwards, maybe, and pay them what they are worth. If we don’t stay current nowadays, we’ll just fall hopelessly behind.”

  Jill glanced around the room. Tom had struck the right note with everyone—except Nancy. It was obvious that Nancy perceived Tom’s comments as a criticism, and she didn’t like it.

  June 3, 1973

  Paris, France

  THE TWO MEN watched silently as the beautifully maintained Concorde flashed by at near sonic speed, then pulled up in a sharp climbing turn that caused the crowd to gasp. Nearly 200,000 people poured into Le Bourget and except for the few gourmands who preferred drinking and eating in the manufacturer’s chalets to watching the world’s greatest air show, all were crowded at the fence to see what one American reporter had called “the shootout at the SST Corral.”

  The Concorde and the Tu-144, the world’s only supersonic transports, were going head-to-head today with their demonstration flights. The press and public generally acknowledged that so far the Concorde had excelled in everything, from flying to the food served to VIPs in their respective chalets.

  After their long weeks together, Alexei Tupolev, the Tu-144’s designer, and its pilot, Mikhail Kozlov, were now bickering constantly, each man suppressing a consuming, subliminal anger that threatened to erupt at any time.

  Neither liked nor respected the other, but in front of the endless whirl and flash of cameras they maintained a cordial solidarity, making the kinds of gestures and comments that the newsreel people expected. Kozlov would point and Tupolev would clap as the Concorde swept around, showing that they were good sports about to demonstrate their own wares.

  In the cockpit of the glittering white Concorde, John Farley nodded to Andy Jones to take control. Farley had just done a series of high-speed maneuvers that brought the crowd to its feet, flying the Concorde more like a fighter than a supersonic passenger plane, turning in steep banks, rolling from side to side, and pulling up in startling climbs. Now it was Jones’s turn to dazzle the crowd—and more importantly, the airline executives—with the Concorde’s repertoire of low-speed maneuvers.

  Tupolev nudged Kozlov with his elbow.

  “Here they come again. Whatever they do, we have to do better.”

  The nudge triggered Kozlov’s anger and, spitting, he said, “We! Let’s get your ass into the cockpit if we’re going to say ‘we.’ It will be me and my boys putting our lives on the line, and you’ll be down here bowing like a ballerina.”

  The two men’s anger had reached a peak yesterday evening when one of Tupolev’s pet projects was finally implemented. Political observers from Moscow had given Alexei a severe tongue-lashing after the Concorde’s demonstration of superior maneuverability. In response, Tupolev authorized a quick-fix wiring change that would override the built-in restrictions of the Tu-144’s auto-stabilization computers.

  Normally, the auto-stabilization system prevented a pilot from exceeding the aircraft’s maneuvering limits, a prudent safeguard that protected against sudden, unexpected control movements.

  Kozlov had screamed, “We’ve practiced this fucking air show routine for six months, and now you are going to change it because some KGB ass complains?”

  “No, I’m changing because I know it’s best for the airplane. It will allow you to make tighter turns at higher speeds—if you’ve got the balls for it. We’ll change it back when it goes into passenger service.”

  Kozlov had walked out rather than run the risk of striking Tupolev. It was insane to fly with a change that had not been tested. The man had no idea what the consequences might be. He was maneuvering the Tu-144 at its limits now, particularly given its terrible visibility. You could barely see out of the tiny cockpit windows in level flight. In a steep climb he could see nothing, he had to do it all on instruments—no way to fly an air show.

  Tupolev and his engineers had quickly rewired the auto-stabilizer to allow the Tu-144 to turn tighter and climb more steeply without overriding the pilot at the controls. It would not be safe for an ordinary airline pilot, but despite his dislike for Kozlov as a person, Tupolev respected him as a pilot and believed—knew—he could handle it.

  Now they stood together silently as the huge Concorde seemed to crawl down the runway, nose high, fifty feet off the ground, rocking its wings and dipping its nose as if it were waltzing instead of flying. Then Jones slammed the throttles forward; the afterburners kicked in with huge belches of flame and a tidal wave of noise that flattened the grass, sending the Concorde up in a tight climbing turn that made the crowd go silent, certain that they were about to witness a stall, spin, and crash.

  Instead, Jones pulled up to six thousand feet to begin the last twelve minutes of his routine.

  Tupolev said, “You can do better at low speed. Our engines are more powerful, and the canards give you more control. Take it to the limits.”

  Kozlov said nothing, but bounded up the ladder into the Tu-144’s cockpit like a sailor climbing rigging, knowing that his longtime friend and copilot, Sergei Blagin, would have everything ready to roll.

  Alexei Tupolev watched, angered by Kozlov’s shortsightedness. He had not always been that way. This, the second production model of the Tu-144, had hundreds of changes from the prototype, and Kozlov had approved all o
f them—except those from last night.

  The Tu-144 was bigger now, it could carry 140 passengers, it had more wing area, it was improved in every way, and it was all due to Alexei. His blessed father, Andrei, had been ill for some time before his death last year. Since then, Alexei made all of the thousands of decisions, big and small, that had transformed the limping prototype into this magnificent airplane.

  Kozlov, like so many others, never had the allegiance to Alexei that he held for his father. It was frustrating, unfair, uncalled for. The airplane that Kozlov was now taxiing out to the runway was Alexei’s design, and no one else could claim it.

  Inside the cockpit, Kozlov listened to Blagin repeat the tower’s instructions. It wasn’t easy—the big Kuznetsov engines hammered through the cockpit in a waterfall of noise. He wondered how the four engineers in the passenger section could take it. Something had to be done before the plane went into regular service. No one could bear that noise on a long flight. Oddly enough, on the ground, the Tupolev’s engines made less noise than those of the Concorde, a point all the reporters talked about.

  Kozlov responded quietly to Blagin’s recitation of the checklist, his hands moving swiftly and exactly to each switch or control. What a great copilot Blagin was! He had everything ready, and even though he too was upset by Tupolev’s latest changes, he maintained his usual good humor.

  Lightly loaded, the Tu-144 accelerated swiftly as Kozlov advanced the throttles. Alexei Tupolev watched with pride as the afterburners kicked in and the beautiful transport launched into a steep turning climb that exceeded the Concorde’s speed and angle of bank.

  After three tight 360-degree turns, Kozlov brought the Tu-144 down low and fast in what he called his “worm burner” routine, racing along the centerline of runway 06, pushing the aircraft to near sonic speeds, then pulling up in another hair-raising climb that once again drew the spectators to their feet. Even Tupolev was concerned; Kozlov was giving him more than he had asked for. It was clear that the unleashed Tu-144 was far more maneuverable than the Concorde.

  In a descending turn, Kozlov called for gear extension and flaps as he slowed the SST, feeding in the trim as the airspeed bled down. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Blagin looking at him nervously, his gloved hand ready to push the throttles forward to pour on the power if needed.

  As the Tu-144 came across the runway, Kozlov added power to stabilize the airplane in nose-high flight, just above touchdown speed.

  Midway down the runway, standing a hundred meters off to the left, Tupolev stood mouth ajar, watching his masterpiece approach at a crawl, thinking only, Thank God it’s Kozlov flying—no one else could do that.

  Seconds later Kozlov jammed the throttles forward into afterburner and the Tu-144 bounded into a tight climbing turn, turning faster and climbing at a steeper attitude than anything the Concorde had done—or could do.

  Still turning at one thousand meters, Kozlov peered out of the tiny windscreen to see a French Mirage fighter on a collision course. Cursing, he dumped the Tu-144’s nose. The auto-stabilization computer would ordinarily have limited the dive to at most a negative one G; instead the nose plunged down almost vertically. Kozlov instinctively heaved back on the yoke, the forward canards failed, and the right wing snapped off in a fiery explosion. Kozlov fought with the now-useless controls for the last few seconds of his life, cursing Tupolev for the stupid changes that were killing him.

  The big SST broke apart as it fell, separating into incandescent chunks of wing, engines, and fuselage that rained on the village of Goussainville, engulfing homes in a deluge of flaming fuel.

  Tupolev and the still-silent crowd watched the twenty-second drama climax as parts from the transport continued to fall, spreading the rain of fire and debris. There was no need for an accident investigation. He knew in his heart that he was at fault. The rewired auto-stabilization unit had caused the breakup. Six men dead in the airplane, and God only knew how many more on the ground. And all his fault, his fault alone. He should have listened to Kozlov.

  He wondered if his father was watching down. He hoped not.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THE PASSING PARADE: Oil prices force 55mph speed limit; Symbionese Liberation Army captures, influences Patty Hearst; Watergate scandal flourishes; Peter Benchley’s Jaws published; Solzhenitsyn exiled for The Gulag Archipelago; Palestine terrorists kill 21 schoolchildren; Isabel Perón rules in Argentina; President Nixon resigns; Haile Selassie overthrown in Ethiopia; President Ford pardons Nixon; Upstairs, Downstairs big television hit; Jimmy Connors, Chris Evert tops in tennis.

  February 2, 1974

  Edwards Air Force Base, California

  Sunk deep in thought, Bob Rodriquez sat hunched in the back of the dusty staff car, worrying about today’s flight. So much depended on it; for him, for his company, but even more so, for Steve O’Malley, whose career was riding on its success or failure.

  As they rumbled along at the prescribed fifteen miles per hour ramp speed, they passed an almost complete catalog of Air Force aircraft—bombers, fighters, transports, helicopters—spotted along the Edwards ramp. Most of them were sitting idle, some with panels off or engine bays open, with a few attended by ground crews preparing them for today’s tests. His particular interest, General Dynamics’s new YF-16, was still in the hangar, waiting for its first official flight.

  Rodriquez knew that the test pilot, Phil Oestricher, was already there, making the minute preflight inspection that he always conducted,talking quietly with the GD mechanics who had inspected everything twice already, but understood Phil’s interest and had no objection to their work being so intently surveyed. O’Malley would be walking right behind him, double-checking the double check.

  “Jesus!”

  The startled driver glanced back in the mirror to see Rodriquez slapping his forehead.

  “You OK, Mr. Rodriquez?”

  “Sorry, I’m just such a jerk! I promised to call my ex-wife last night and I forgot to.”

  The driver shrugged. Everybody was an idiot if this was all it took.

  “You can call from the hangar, can’t you?”

  “No, not now, too late, she’s on her way to New York. Maybe I can catch her tonight.”

  He continued to flagellate himself in the usual manner, knowing that things like this were the very reason that his beloved wife Mae was divorcing him. Who wouldn’t divorce an insensitive clod like him?

  As he neared the huge hangar, he began to reflect on O’Malley and his presence here today. Instead of being on the line at Edwards, O’Malley was supposed to be on the Hill, flogging the GPS program, doing the hard-sell work he hated, visiting congressional staffers, reminding them of the program’s possibilities, but, more important, pointing out to them how many jobs it would create in their congressman’s district. That was the critical element; the staffers wanted their man reelected, to protect their own jobs, and that meant getting votes. The only real way to get votes was to demonstrate that the congressman was serving his district well when it came to the pork being dispensed from Washington.

  Nobody knew this better than O’Malley’s boss, General Richard V. Wyatt, the Vice Chief of Staff. Wyatt had been a strong opponent of O’Malley’s last crusade, the so-called low cost fighter that had led to the YF-16. He had resented O’Malley’s unorthodox—but successful—advocacy of the concept. Wanting to keep O’Malley firmly out of the airplane acquisition business, Wyatt had set up a special office in the Pentagon, with O’Malley reporting directly to him. This had benefited Rodriquez, for O’Malley was as effective working on the GPS program as he had been on the lightweight fighter, as it was now being called. The name had changed as costs had risen.

  But everyone knew what the new assignment meant. O’Malley had raised so much hell about getting a lightweight fighter that Wyatt was determined to see that he was never promoted again. Ironically, if O’Malley had failed, if no lightweight fighter had come into being, his previous record would have made his
promotion to brigadier general certain within the year.

  The hangar doors were open now, and a tug was pulling the gleaming YF-16 out. Rodriquez saw Oestricher in the cockpit, with O’Malley walking along at the wing tip, making sure that it cleared the hangar doors that were at least forty feet away. Oestricher’s head was down in the cockpit. An image came to Rodriquez of the instrument panel and switches. They were already worn, shining metal gleaming through the paint. It was amazing how quickly an aircraft’s cockpit aged—outside it might look brand-new, gleaming in the sun; inside it was always tattered and torn.

  Although Rodriquez had spent many hours working on this very sophisticated aircraft, he never tired of looking at it. The YF-16 had an exotic beauty, with its sensuous blended wing-body design. The wing itself had a computer-controlled variable camber that combined with flaperons to take full advantage of the relaxed stability characteristic. There were other advances as well, including a wing strake on the forebody that generated a vortex lift.

  Few airplanes embodied so many advances in a single package, and he had a proprietary interest in one of the most important of these, the “relaxed” static stability/fly-by-wire control system. In simpler terms it meant that the YF-16 was deliberately designed to be far more unstable than previous aircraft, a factor that, when controlled by computers, gave it an unparalleled maneuverability. The fly-by-wire system was distrusted by many, but years of experiments made Rodriquez sure that it was the system of the future. As multiple computers were introduced into new designs, it became essential to take the fly-by-wire approach.

  Rodriquez had seen the YF-16’s competition, the Northrop YF-17. It, too, was a beautiful aircraft, and a worthy competitor. But it used two engines, and that doomed it with the lightweight fighter crowd.

  Asking the driver to wait, Rodriquez walked over to O’Malley, shaking his hand and saying, “Man, you shouldn’t be here. Wyatt will skin you alive when you get back.”