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

by Walter J. Boyne

  By mid-May, Vance was speaking in short sentences. He obviously delighted in being interviewed by Bowers on subjects everyone else had long since forgotten. Bowers had an encyclopedic knowledge of aviation and especially aviation people, and when Vance had a memory lapse Bowers would provide a name or a date that would set him off again.

  Now Vance was speaking almost normally—hesitating sometimes but for the most part able to converse, not just with Bowers but with anyone.

  Most of the interviews went right over Jill’s head, but she could see the pleasure in Vance’s eyes when Bowers hit on a subject particularly dear to him. For the most part, they were obscure people or planes of whom she heard—people such as Charles Rocheville, John Nagle, and Jean Roche or strange airplanes such as the Zenith Albatross or the McGaffey AV-8.

  It didn’t matter to her. Bowers had literally pulled Vance back from the grave, and she would be forever indebted to him.

  And to Fritz. He was in with Bowers today, listening with pleasure to Vance’s responses and planning a big surprise. While they were talking, some of Obermyer’s people were delivering Vance’s Cord, fully restored and running better than new.

  AFTER THE USUAL two hours, Bowers, a polite and affable curly-haired young man of about thirty, gathered up the photos he used to spur Vance’s memory and excused himself.

  Fritz said, “Come on, Vance; let me take you to the window. I have a surprise for you.”

  He pushed Vance’s chair to the window overlooking the driveway, where he had parked the cream-colored Cord, its headlights retracted, its long coffin nose gleaming in the sun.

  Vance stared at the car, then gripped Fritz’s arm.

  “Is that my old Cord?”

  “Yes—but it’s the same as brand-new now.”

  “My God, it’s beautiful. Who restored it? You, Fritz?”

  “Some of my boys. It was a labor of love; they really enjoyed it.”

  “Look at that beauty, Jill; that’s my dream car. Can you get me a calendar?”

  Fritz shook his shoulders and looked at Jill, who hurried to the study and returned with a wall calendar.

  “Today’s what, the eighth of July?”

  They nodded.

  Vance riffled through the calendar.

  “OK. Jill, mark the eighth of September. That’s the day I’m going to walk down the steps and drive that beauty. Fritz, thank you so much. You’ve given me an incentive, just like young Bowers did. I tell you, I’m going to be back working by the first of the year.”

  They both believed him.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  September 13, 1968

  Seattle, Washington

  Friday the thirteenth was no day for a marketing meeting, but Harry had no choice. Gordy Williams had invited him to hold a little seminar with as much of Boeing’s sales team as Gordy could convene at one time. While most were based in Washington, Gordy had asked all the overseas representatives to come as well, and most obliged, delighted to get an unexpected free trip home.

  The seminar went well from the start, with Gordy pleasing Harry by introducing him as “the legendary son of the super-legendary Vance Shannon” and telling the assembled group of well-paid, very successful men that Harry was going to start with the basics and would “tell it like it is.”

  Harry began by giving a general overview of the business and noting the relative positions of the three companies in the airline market. “The first thing I’ll tell you is something you all know. The aerospace industry is terribly risky, and the earnings are not adequate for the level of risk. In about ten years, the industry will reach a point where it will be difficult, if not impossible, for a single company to undertake a major new project. We can look forward to more mergers like that of McDonnell and Douglas.”

  Williams spoke up. “Never at Boeing. We may buy somebody, but we’ll never merge; we’ll go out of business first.”

  There was a round of “hear, hears,” and Harry smiled. “That’s the spirit, and I hope you’re right. The reason that Boeing is currently doing well is because it is making several models of each of its airliners—the 707, 720, 727, and now the 747—and tailoring each of them to the individual customer’s requirements. McDonnell Douglas has not been able to match Boeing in the number of models, and has some well-known production problems. Lockheed has a credibility problem; its last airliner was the ill-fated Electra II, and it is really starting from scratch.”

  Using an overhead projector, Harry rapidly put up slides that gave the performance specifications for the DC-10 and L-1011, comparing them to the 747.

  Then he got down to cases. “There are a lot of ‘good news/bad news’ jokes going lately, and this is going to be a ‘good news/bad news’ briefing.

  “The good news is that there is a market for about one thousand wide-bodied aircraft to serve the American market. The bad news for Boeing is that many U.S. airlines—TWA and American for two—are convinced that the 747 is too big for them. That’s good news for McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed. The bad news for them, though, is the fact that the break-even point for either airplane is about seven hundred and fifty planes. That means that if they divide the market, they will both suffer tremendous losses. Neither firm may be able to survive. These losses will go up with every Boeing 747 domestic sale.”

  There was a gasp as the audience understood what was happening. As far as the airliner business went, McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed were like two scorpions in a bottle—they would sting each other to death, and both were certain to die.

  Rolfe Anderson stood up and said, “Are you sure about the break-even point?”

  Harry shook his head. “Nobody’s ever sure about a break-even point, not ever. I’m just telling you what I’m projecting, and even if I am off by fifty percent—which I am not—it spells disaster for your two competitors.”

  Jerry Bader raised his hand and said, “Do they have any way out?”

  “Lockheed had one, but it blew it. It was approached by Douglas on a merger a couple of years ago. If Lockheed had accepted—and it could have—the problem would have gone away. The DC-10 would probably have been dropped, and only the L-1011 would be competing for the sales. But there was hubris at Lockheed, and some of the management wanted revenge, remembering the long rivalry of the Connies and the DC-6s and DC-7s. So they let it pass. A big mistake.”

  An old friend, Doug McKeon, stood up, asking, “What’s it all mean for the 747?”

  Harry took a breath and said, “Good news and bad news again. Bad news first—I think you are going to have a rough two or three years. You know there are engine problems, and we’re going to see 747s sitting out on your ramp without any engines, maybe for months at a time. It’s going to be tough for Boeing to survive, but I’m sure it will. The good news is that there is so much foreign interest in the 747. There are a lot of countries out there establishing state airlines—it’s a matter of prestige. And if you want prestige, you have to have the 747. So I say that you’ll sew up the foreign market over the next few years, and by that time, the American domestic market will have developed to the point that you’ll be able to sell 747s to compete with the DC-10 and L-1011. One of them may have dropped out by then, anyway.”

  There was an exhausting question-and-answer session following his talk, and Harry was grateful when Gordy Williams at last stepped to the podium and called a halt to the meeting, thanking the salesmen for attending and thanking Harry for his insight.

  As they walked down toward the simple but elegant Boeing executive dining room, Gordy said, “I know you have another meeting at one o’clock. What’s it about?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you, Gordy. No offense, I just can’t. I wish I could; you’d love it. But I’ll tell you in a few years, maybe.”

  Williams shrugged and they went into lunch, Harry’s mind racing with anticipation.

  At ten to one, Gordy dropped him off in front of the conference room that was normally used for meetings with the milita
ry customers. Completely insulated, checked electronically every day and before every meeting for listening devices, it was otherwise almost clinically simple, with a large oval oak desk in the middle and plain oak chairs spaced equidistantly around it. A heavy green curtain covered a blackboard.

  To his surprise, there was only one person in the room. Harry had expected to see George Schairer and perhaps Joseph Arena from the CIA. Instead just one man was at the table, short, dark skinned, reading a folder with furious intensity. He glanced up as Harry came in, nodded, and returned to his reading. Harry sat down close enough to see that the report was written in Russian.

  The man tossed the folder over to Harry and said, “I’m Gus Weiss. We’ve talked on the phone a few times.”

  Bob Rodriquez had introduced them by telephone. When they had talked, Weiss’s booming baritone voice had formed a completely false mental impression for Harry. He had pictured Weiss as a tall, athletic type. Instead, he was just this side of being childlike in appearance.

  “Mr. Shannon, since you were in on the first bit of deception we did with the Russkies, I thought you might want to know what was happening with their SST.”

  Shannon nodded, still nonplussed by the difference between his mental image and the actual person. “I certainly would, particularly the tire business.”

  “That slowed them down by about six months. It was certainly worth doing, and it taught us a few lessons, too, about how to approach them. But the real secret has been in the programming for the numerically controlled tools that we’ve officially allowed to be sold to them, and in the computer parts that we’ve arranged for them to buy clandestinely.”

  Now Weiss seemed to parody Humphrey Bogart, taking time to pull out a pack of Camels, open it, extract one, tap it several times, and light it, all the while staring Harry in the eyes.

  “That’s why we are stopping all efforts to hinder their SST development. We think their SST will fail on its own.” The word “we” seemed to embrace the whole Central Intelligence Agency. “And we don’t care if it flies first. But we do care that the Russians continue to get computer material from us. Sabotaged computer material, of course.”

  Harry paused to consider this and Gus went on, “It’s probably a good thing. The next batch of SST material we were sending was going to alter the stability of the aircraft at high angles of attack. We might have caused an accident.”

  “Have you told the British or the French of this?”

  “Of course not; we would deny whatever we were accused of. We’re all for the Concorde, but not to the point that we’ll give up our assets to help them.”

  “Mr. Weiss—”

  “Gus,” the other man interrupted.

  “Gus, please call me Harry. And if I may ask, why are you telling me this? I certainly didn’t have any need to know.”

  “You do in a way, because I want something from Aerospace Ventures. I know you are in the process of selling your simulator division to General Electric.”

  “It’s a done deal; we’re just clearing up the paperwork, getting stuff ready to ship.”

  “Yes, I know.” Gus didn’t seem to want anyone to believe there was anything he didn’t know. Maybe there wasn’t.

  Weiss went on, “The Soviet Union is trying to buy flight simulators, not for the simulator itself, but because of the computers it contains. We want to sell them the simulators that Aerospace was developing, but we want to do a little work on them first. We believe that they want the computers for new navigation and bombing systems they are creating, and for use on their spacecraft. That’s fine with us, if we have the privilege of altering the computers so that they have a latent defect that won’t emerge until very late in the various programs, after they have invested a lot of time and effort.”

  Gus saw the look on Harry’s face and smiled. “You really don’t like this clandestine work, do you, Harry? I can see this rubs you the wrong way.”

  “You’re right; I don’t. I was thinking I’m glad this isn’t going to affect things like the SST, where innocent civilians might get killed when things go wrong.”

  Weiss smiled again. “There are no innocent civilians in the Soviet Union, Harry, believe me. They have missiles targeted on all our major cities, missiles with huge warheads, much bigger than any of ours, and the missiles are there because the Soviet people allowed them to be, created them, worked on them. And if someone told them to launch those missiles, eighty million Americans might be killed in a thirty minute period.”

  There was no comeback to a comment like that, and Harry said, “What do you want us to do?”

  “You are going to be approached by a friend of yours, a good friend of your father’s. She worked with us on the tire material, and she’ll be our contact on this as well.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  December 31, 1968

  Zhukovsky Airfield, Moscow, USSR

  The great Soviet Union ran on the basis of bribes and kickbacks, and the key lever in the great corruption game was the end of the year. All over the country, contractors who had failed to deliver material—anything, nails, wash pans, or supersonic transports—dreaded the last day of the year. If you did not meet your mandated goals by the thirty first of December, everything could be lost—bonuses, rank, pay, prestige. As a result, the last day in December saw a convulsive effort to make formal delivery of hardware, no matter how unprepared its state. Nuclear submarines declared unfit for service by their commanders were nonetheless ordered to sea, sometimes sinking on their first voyage. But no matter—the bonuses would already have been paid.

  Andrei and Alexie Tupolev had more to worry about than just the ordinary headaches of the end of the year. No less than two premiers, Khrushchev and Brezhnev, had declared that the Soviet Union would be the first to fly a supersonic transport and, further, that it would fly in 1968.

  A huge black Zil 111 limousine carried Andrei to the flight line. This would be the 120th time that he witnessed the first flight of an aircraft bearing his name. He knew that it would also be the last.

  His son, Chief Engineer Alexei, greeted him along with the chief designer, Yuri N. Popov, and his team. They were very proud to have brought this gorgeous gleaming white aircraft into existence, overcoming an almost unending series of problems to do so.

  Andrei was very familiar with the aircraft, but there were film crews who had to have footage for television, and the old campaigner, smiling, followed his son around the enormous aircraft, making the appropriate gestures of appreciation as each feature was pointed out.

  Both Tupolevs knew to an exact degree how much each of these features had challenged the design teams, presented seemingly unsolvable problems, and were finally overcome by a team effort unusual in the Soviet Union. The engines were a case in point. Originally they had been laid out four abreast under the huge double delta wing. Then retraction of the nose gear posed a problem, so the engines were moved to be located in two pairs, with space between them for the nose gear. This made it difficult to retract the main landing gear into the wing, which, despite its great size, was comparatively thin. A gear of incredible sophistication and cleverness had to be designed to permit retraction of each of the eight-wheeled landing gears.

  As the Tupolevs finished their circuit of the aircraft, looking up with admiration at the “drooped snoot” of the Tu-144, test pilots Eduard Yelyan and Mikhail Kozlov were going up the steep yellow ladder to the entrance door. At the top, Yelyan turned, sought out Andrei Tupolev in the crowd below, and saluted him.

  Andrei Tupolev could hear a member of the film crew dictating into a recorder, saying, “Now the intrepid crew has boarded the Tupolev Tu-144, the world’s first supersonic transport. There will be no passengers today, but if there were, they could enjoy the luxury of beautiful carpets, fine wines, and classical music.”

  Tupolev smiled to himself. It was a Potemkim SST if they described it like this. His Maxim Gorky, flown thirty-four years before, had all those things, but this prot
otype was Spartan. The passenger cabin was not pressurized, and the pilots and flight engineer had ejection seats! Tupolev knew that there was much to be done before the aircraft could be placed in production. New engines, new wing shape, and in a following model they would have to use a crude fix that was an abomination, retractable canards, little forewings that could be deployed to improve low-speed characteristics. But that was all in the unknown future. What was known was that right now, the last day of 1968, Andrei Tupolev would fulfill his orders from the Soviet Premier: the SST would fly.

  Despite his voluminous coat and fur hat that fit down well over his ears, the bitter cold gnawed at him. Glancing around the field, Tupolev could see the rooftops of the field’s buildings and all the hangars crowded with people eager to see this massive airplane fly.

  Andrei was talking to the press now, reciting the formidable statistics of the Tu-144. “The Tu-144 will fly from Moscow to New Delhi in just over two hours. A passenger taking off from Moscow at noon would land at Montreal at nine the previous morning—the Tu-144 will outdistance not only sound, but the sun.”

  It was all necessary. No one knew better than Andrei the shortcomings of the prototype, but no one but his son, the so-called Czarevitch, could have had a prototype ready on this last day of the year. He had planned, argued, threatened, and cajoled as he traveled back and forth across the country to get the suppliers of the myriad parts to put out the extra effort necessary. This was really Alexie’s airplane in every sense of the word.

  Now V. N. Benderov and engineer Yu Silverstov were onboard and the four enormous NK-144 engines, which would soon be capable of almost half a million horsepower at top speed, began their roaring rumble of a start.

  The aircraft taxied out with remarkably few preliminaries, the controls being exercised and the pilot making one simple S-turn, checking the steering. As it did so, Andrei Tupolev moved along the tarmac to be exactly opposite to the point where he thought the Tu-144 would break ground. He stood there with Alexei watching, as he had watched so many of the products of his genius in the past.