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

by Walter J. Boyne

  There was a stunned murmur from the press, and an audible gasp from the audience of stockholders. The price was considerably higher than had been predicted.

  Rodriquez went on for a few moments, saying the expected things about consolidation, economies, growth, and future prospects, then turned, nodded to Tom, and sat down.

  Tom walked slowly to the podium. Harry noted that his limp seemed a bit more pronounced than usual, perhaps a bit of gamesmanship.

  “Mr. Rodriquez has made his declaration. I will now make Vance Shannon, Incorporated’s declaration. We decline his offer. Instead we are making an offer of $300,000,000 for ActOn, and have secured the necessary funds to prosecute this strategy today.”

  There was another gasp from the crowd as Rodriquez stood up shouting, “You cannot do that, Shannon!”

  Tom walked to Rodriquez and stood looking down at him. Even though his beating in Hanoi had cost him the erect posture he’d carried since the Academy, he still towered over his old friend and longtime enemy.

  “We can, and we will, Bob. I have the money pledged already, and I have the necessary votes. By the way, Bob, I doubt if you’ve had time to play any of the new video games. I suggest you look into Pac-Man; that’s what we’re calling our business strategy—‘the Pac-Man defense.’ You could look it up.”

  Tom turned back to the microphone and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, we will now take questions from the audience, before proceeding to a vote on the two issues before us.”

  Rodriquez stood up.

  “There won’t be any questions and no vote is necessary. I withdraw ActOn’s offer to purchase Vance Shannon, Incorporated, and I’ll see you in court, Tom Shannon.”

  Tom picked up his microphone, walked forward to the edge of the platform, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, this will take a bit of time to sort out, as you can imagine. I’m sorry Bob called you out here on a wild-goose chase. We’ll be getting back to you shortly with the time and date of a new stockholders meeting, with a complete agenda and a more convenient location.”

  A week later, ActOn announced that it was being acquired by the Allied Corporation. Bob Rodriquez was severing his connection with the firm.

  Tom looked up from the typewriter.

  “You pretty much know what I’ll tell them about Bob’s attempted takeover and our Pac-Man defense, where the goal is to eat up the other guy before he eats you up. Well, we ate him up first! But jog my mind about what’s happened recently in the industry that affected us.”

  “Well, it’s not good material for a Christmas card, maybe, but we lost a lot of the giants in the industry this year. Just think of it—Don Douglas, Jack Northrop, and Juan Trippe all went west earlier in the year, all within a period of about sixty days.”

  “Yeah, and the ejection seat guy, James Martin, he died around then, too. I’ll throw them all in with a line of condolence. What else, something upbeat.”

  “How about Boeing’s response to Airbus with the 757 and 767? We have contracts to do the interiors on about thirty of them already. And NASA got two operational Space Shuttle flights off; that helped our maintenance subcontracts at Cape Canaveral.”

  “Good! And there were those crazy guys who flew the balloon across the Pacific. We don’t make any money out of that, but they deserve a salute, anyway.”

  “It’s a bit of a downer, but you might mention Lockheed has finally bit the bullet and is going to phase out the L-1011.”

  “No, that’s too gloomy. They lost a bundle on it, and poor old McDonnell Douglas is in worse shape on the DC-10, just like you said it would be. I have to hand it to you, Harry, you called that one.”

  “Well, getting back to upbeat, McDonnell Douglas flew its first jump jet—the AV-8B.”

  “That’s a keeper. I love that name ‘AV-8B’—reminds me of the old McGuffey AV-8 that Dad test-flew back in the thirties—you know, the one powered by a flat-head Ford V-8 automobile engine.”

  “The new one has a little more than 80 horsepower, I believe.” The two brothers batted the year’s news back and forth for another hour before Tom finally gave up.

  “That’s it, two typewritten pages; I have to have three hundred copies made, and I’ll be stuffing envelopes all New Year’s Day.”

  They were quiet for a while.

  “What do you think Dad would say if he knew how deep in debt we were willing to go to scare Rodriquez off?”

  “He knows. I’ve got the feeling he’s looking down here all the time. And as much as he hated debt, he would have approved. Even though Bob was his pick, he never would have stood for a takeover.”

  “Have you talked to Mae since the big stockholders meeting?” “No. Nancy said she was embarrassed by the whole thing, just wants to forget it. She’s dating a nice guy now. Bob’s a thing of the past.”

  Harry shook his head. “I doubt it. I think Bob’s round the bend. I think he’ll be back to make trouble for us, and for Mae.”

  May 1, 1982

  Tonopah, Nevada

  THERE WAS STILL plenty of light and the temperature had dropped ten degrees from the daytime high of seventy-three. V. R. Shannon knew that he could use all the thrust he could get on any takeoff in Lockheed’s super secret “Senior Trend” aircraft. Called the F-117A, it was a full-scale development version of the aircraft Shannon knew would revolutionize the way wars were fought.

  It had not been easy. The whole concept had been contested from the very start. Kelly Johnson, the doyen of Lockheed engineers—indeed, the doyen of all aeronautic engineers—had protested bitterly that the awkwardly shaped stealth fighter would never fly well. That was just the start of the problems that Ben Rich and his team had to endure—and were still enduring.

  The two “Have Blue” experimental prototypes had flown a total of eighty-eight flights, but both had crashed and now lay buried at a hidden spot in the Nevada desert. Fortunately, in both crashes the pilots, Bill Park and Ken Dyson, had survived. V. R. had flown the second prototype on a number of occasions, and it was always chancy, like balancing a pool ball on the point of a cue stick. There was simply too much stealth in the design—and not enough aerodynamics.

  The Have Blues had taught Lockheed a great deal, however, and earned it a contract for five full-scale development versions and fifteen production aircraft. These were not simply scaled up versions of the Have Blue, although they followed its general outlines and its faceted shape. The second Have Blue had been covered with radar absorbent material, and it was soon painfully obvious that the so-called RAM was difficult to work with.

  But the big problem was with openings, whether for the landing gear or the refueling probe or a simple access panel. When they were perfectly sealed, they didn’t present anything for a radar beam to reflect from, but if they were not perfectly aligned, they multiplied the aircraft’s radar signature by hundreds of times. There were manufacturing problems as well. In many cases, normal off-the-shelf avionics could not be used because of the awkward, angular shape of the aircraft. Instead, they had to be custom built to fit within the faceted contours of the bulging fuselage. This drove costs up and made maintenance difficult.

  The full-sized F-117As were much bigger and heavier than the Have Blues. Engine thrust was way up, of course. Where the Have Blue’s J85 engines, borrowed from a Navy trainer, had about three thousand pounds of thrust, the production aircraft had GE F404 engines with about eleven thousand pounds of thrust. It needed every ounce, because the new airplane, at fifty-two thousand pounds takeoff weight, was more than four times as heavy as the Have Blue. The weight, combined with the less-than-aerodynamic shape of the airframe, made aerial combat problematic.

  V. R. went over his briefing notes. It was a two-part mission, with the first part being fairly simple. He was to take off, fly to the nearby bombing range, and after being cleared in, make a practice bomb run and then a real run. He would be dropping the newest version of the Paveway III laser-guided bomb. The bomb had a small marking charge in it, and they woul
d be checking the accuracy of his drop, but that was not the test’s primary purpose, which was to see how much the quick opening missile bay doors increased the airplane’s radar signature.

  The drop made the flight something of a family affair. Bob Rodriquez had developed the Paveway III laser system when he was still part of the Shannon organization. His dad’s friend, Steve O’Malley, had been a principal proponent of the F-16, and his uncle Harry had selected the F-16s fly-by-wire system as an “off-the-shelf” item for the black jet. V. R. had participated in both the Have Blue and FSD portions of the test.

  The second part of the flight was more critical. Another “black” project was testing the effectiveness of Soviet fighters against the F-117. After the bomb drop, he would be “attacked” by a MiG-23, captured months ago by the Israelis and now flown by an expert USAF pilot from the aggressor squadron at Nellis. The F-117A was not really a dogfighter, and the probability of it entering combat carrying an air-to-air missile was slight, given its value as a stealth attack airplane. Still, for this mission, they had simulated a combat load of a Sidewinder heat seeking missile for the dogfight sequence. Given the MiG-23’s superior speed and maneuverability, it wasn’t going to be much of a fight.

  As V. R. waited for takeoff clearance he ran his eyes over the crowded instrument panel, reflecting that the drop in temperature here was not nearly as bad as the drop in temperature at home. Ginny was furious with him. Instead of getting an assignment as a flight instructor at Nellis as he had promised, he had opted to stay with the stealth program. Offered a pilot’s position in the 4450th Tactical Group, a highly classified new unit scheduled to receive the production F-117As for operational use, Shannon had agreed, knowing that he was reneging on a promise to Ginny to get a more conventional job with more conventional hours.

  He had handled it badly. He never should have promised to look for a “conventional job,” not that many flying jobs in the Air Force were conventional, anyway. But this way he had gone back on his word, disappointing her. It was a dumb thing to do, but he had no choice. He had to fly this airplane, in combat, and help prove what he’d been working on for so long.

  As he did so often lately, he’d gone to his father for advice. “Dad, I don’t want to put you on the spot, but I know that you and Mom had a lot of problems concerning your flying. It looks like I’m getting into the same boat, with Ginny.”

  He went on to explain the situation, telling him that he had to make up his mind within the week, or he couldn’t volunteer for the 4450th.

  Tom Shannon stood up, walked around his desk, and put his arm around V. R.’s shoulders.

  “Son, I made a lot of mistakes in my life and the worst two were volunteering to go back to combat in Korea and then in Vietnam. Both times I bitterly disappointed your mother. She never had any idea about how I felt about it; she just considered me to be another crazy flyer like my dad. Now Harry, he’s different. He sacrificed flying for Anna. He’s a better man than I am.”

  As his father paused, V. R.’s stomach contracted. He was going to get exactly what he didn’t want: advice to pass on flying the stealth fighter, and going along with Ginny’s wishes.

  “But I’ll tell you, Son, you’ve got to do what your gut tells you. I think your gut is telling you to say no to Ginny and yes to the stealth fighter. And if I’m right about that, that’s what I’m telling you, too. There’s an old western movie cliché, where the hero says, ‘A man’s got to do what a man’s got to do.’ But corny as it sounds, it’s exactly right. It’s your life, and if you’ve got that damn fighter pilot bug in you, you have to do what it tells you. I think Ginny will stick with you. She loves you.”

  It was exactly what V. R. wanted to hear, and confirmed his decision. All he had to do now was convince Ginny it wasn’t the end of the world.

  He knew she had a point. It was tough for her to spend all week in Las Vegas, waiting for him to come home. And it was dull for him, too. Except for the flying, life at Tonopah was excruciatingly boring. Monday through Friday was spent in studying the aircraft and preparing for test flights. If they were lucky, they’d log some daytime flying in a Vought A-7. Most of the time they spent skulking indoors, trying to absorb as much knowledge as they could about the complex systems that governed the aircraft. Then on Friday night they flew home to Nellis, 140 miles to the southeast, in a Key Air Boeing 737, coming back early Monday morning. On the way from Tonopah to Nellis, they labeled the 737 “the honeymoon express”; on the way back, Nellis–Tonopah, it was “hangover special.”

  The tower called, “Scorpion 3, cleared for take off.”

  Shannon advanced the throttles swiftly, and the black jet rushed forward, its strange triangular shape not unlike a huge paper glider. During the initial takeoff roll it felt more like a sports car accelerating than an aircraft taking off. Once airborne, a cartridge plugged into his AP-102 computer flew it to its destination far better than he or any other pilot could have done, picking the optimum route considering terrain, wind, defenses, everything. It made him feel a little superfluous, but his hands never left the controls at any time.

  As the F-117A lifted off he gave a quick sigh of relief. Less than two weeks before, Bob Riedenauer, a Lockheed test pilot, had crashed on takeoff. The aircraft had rolled inverted, hit the runway, and then slid backward for hundreds of feet, all because the flight control wires had been installed in reverse. It had been going on since the beginning of flight—where they used to attach the aileron or elevator cables backward, now they had found a way to foul-up electronically.

  The two GE F404 engines sang sweetly, putting out their eleven thousand pounds of thrust as he climbed swiftly to twenty thousand feet, before leveling off. V. R. monitored the progress on the moving-map display, his hands still resting lightly on the stick. The F-117A followed its preprogrammed path, integrating the information from the navigation and flight management system, changing altitude and airspeed as necessary to put him over his entry point at exactly the right moment.

  Shannon went through the routine calls for entrance to the bombing range as the program set up his pattern. He was joined by an A-7 chase plane, there to photograph the Paveway III’s separation from the aircraft. On the ground, half a dozen different systems would monitor the change in the F-117A’s radar signature when the missile bay doors snapped open and shut.

  The controller on the bomb range cleared him to drop and the A-7 moved into position, to the rear, and slightly below his altitude.

  V. R. monitored the system as the target became the next waypoint for the computer. He waited, watching his Infra-Red Acquisition and Detection System—IRADS-crosshairs position themselves over the target. Two infrared sensors—the Forward Looking Infra-Red (FLIR) and the Downward Looking Infra Red (DLIR)—put the target’s image on his central cockpit TV display.

  The two infrared units were the only equipment on the aircraft that were not passive, so they had to be carefully controlled, and used only for a minimum amount of time. If not, the enemy defenses could track back to the aircraft. V. R. used the forward-looking set to acquire the target; as he drew closer, it was automatically handed off to the DLIR. All V. R. had to do was keep the crosshairs on the target, making minor adjustments as needed via a small button on the throttle.

  He watched the crosshairs closely, checking his altitude and airspeed, and selecting “ARM” on the master arming switch. His aircraft’s laser designator lit the target and the DLIR picked up the reflected signal. V. R. felt the missile bay doors snap open and shut as the Paveway III dropped. His laser designator illuminated the target with a laser spot about eighteen inches in diameter, and the Paveway sought it, correcting for wind all the way right down to impact on the target, a much mangled Soviet T-72 tank carcass.

  It used to be rare when the bomb range controller called back “Shack,” meaning a direct hit. Now it was rare when he did not. But the missile’s accuracy was not at question so much as the radar signature when the missile bay doors o
pened. V. R. wouldn’t know those results until he returned.

  The A-7 pulled away just as the MiG-23 came into view, closing at twelve hundred knots. The range controller came back on saying “Fight’s on” as the two fighters passed each other, then arced into turns, the MiG climbing, the F-117A holding its turn, slowing down. V. R. knew he couldn’t outspeed the MiG, so he tried to get both their airspeeds down where the F-117A wouldn’t be at so much of a disadvantage.

  The MiG hurtled down past him, V. R. peeling to the right just as the aggressor pilot was about to fire. The F-117A, surprisingly agile given its total disregard for aerodynamics, decelerated further, dropping down to two hundred knots, as V. R. made another tight 360-degree turn.

  As the MiG shot by, climbing for another pass, V. R. skidded the F-117A to the right, jammed his throttles forward, and lifted his nose for a snap shot with his Sidewinder. To his surprise, the virtual image of the missile reached out and hit the MiG-23’s symbol just as ground control called, “That’s a kill, Scorpion 3. Fight’s over.”

  The MiG pilot’s voice came up, obviously disgruntled but trying to hide it.

  “Good shot, V. R.; I let you off easy this time.”

  Surprised at the turn of events, Shannon peeled away for the landing back at Tonopah. Everything had worked well this time, but it was all virtual combat, no one was really shooting at him. He knew that if there was a next time, the MiG-23 would play it differently, and he’d never get a lucky shot like that in again.

  But it was really unimportant. The F-117A wasn’t a dogfighter and never would be. It was a bomber, designed to go in unseen. And here the F-117A was invisible to the local radars, but who knew what the enemy was developing? The whole stealth thing had started from a Russian scientist’s paper. It was hard to believe that they wouldn’t have a countermeasure up their sleeve. And if the missile doors revealed its presence, it was only stealthy part of the time. Just one exposure might be enough to give an alert enemy a shot with a barrage of SAMs.