Hypersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (47 page)

Worst of all, he did not want to venture anywhere near RoboPlanes’s financial status. A recent spate of contract cancellations and some bad investment advice had moved the firm perilously close to bankruptcy. All the principals were aware of the problem, all of them were working on it, but at the present it seemed doubtful if they could carry on past June 2006 unless they found some significant investment assistance. The government was at last being a little helpful. There had been some overtures from NASA, and Porter Chase, a smiling, silver-tongued representative from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, had come by to spend almost a week with them. They had given Chase greater access than they had ever done for anyone else, but still kept secret what Rodriquez called the “nuggets,” the essential design elements that would make or break the Hypersonic Cruiser. And there had been no further word from Whit Robinson. Apparently RoboPlanes’s approach had offended—or alarmed—the major players in the industry.

Rodriquez had not made a public speech since high school. He
hated the thought and the waste of time spent working up the material, most of which would go soaring over the heads of the audience. But Mae had done so much to make life livable in Mojave, where the average annual income was one-half of that for the average United States citizen, that he felt obliged to her. And as the talk began to take shape, he found himself enjoying it.

He planned to give a brief, positive overview of aviation, then contrast two important events in 2005 to illustrate how complex and how important aviation remained. Rodriquez felt that too many people discounted aviation even in Mojave, where it was the city’s lifeblood. Almost everyone had flown, and the security arrangements made modern air travel a pain rather than a pleasure. And they were jaded. On any day at the Mojave Airport they could see anything take off from a World War II fighter to the latest exotic product from Rutan’s Scaled Composites. Mae had given him a list of probable attendees. To his amusement, virtually no one from the many different enterprises on the Mojave Airport was going to attend. Instead the audience was going to be the ordinary businessmen of the city, doing as they were supposed to do at Rotary Club meetings, advancing their businesses by mutual concern and ethical means. Well, RoboPlanes had advanced their businesses tremendously over the last few years, and done so ethically as well. Now maybe he could lift their eyes from their balance sheets to the skies for a change.

Mae had arranged for the meeting to be held in the largest of the RoboPlanes conference rooms. The sixty seats soon filled up, and fifteen minutes before his talk, the room was standing room only, crowded with people and straining the groaning air-conditioning system. The people lined up around the walls included a lot of smiling sharpshooters from the various businesses on the field. He could tell from their conspiratorial grins that they would have some dandy questions for him.

Mae started the proceedings with some introductions, and the current Rotary Club president Mel Sanchez went through some of the inevitable routine of the meetings—thanking people, pointing out coming events, and at last turning to introduce Bob.

“It gives me great pleasure to introduce a great American hero, and especially so because he is a fellow Hispanic American. Bob Rodriquez has served our country in many ways, not least of which was
shooting down twelve MiGs during the Korean War. And in my humble opinion, if his last name had been Richards instead of Rodriquez, the USAF would have left him in Korea to become the leading ace of the war.”

Rodriquez’s face flushed darkly. Who the hell had given Sanchez this story? It was true, but he had tried to forget about it. It couldn’t have been Mae; Harry was dead . . . it had to be that damned Steve, never content to be quiet.

Sanchez went on. “Bob returned to this country and was a leading figure in establishing some of our most important weapons systems. Many people call him the ‘father of precision guided munitions.’ He also was a leading light in getting the invaluable Global Positioning System started. I could go on and on—but let me leap on to what he’s done here in Mojave. With his vision he has created a new industry here, the remotely controlled aircraft we see flying almost every day, UAVs they call them. And he’s also created the greatest urban blight in modern history, the screeching sounds of his engine test beds that seem to work night and day.”

Sanchez was grinning.

“But that’s an urban blight we welcome, for we know it will bring prosperity to Mojave, just like the UAVs have done.”

He waited for the mild round of nervous laughter and applause to subside and said, “Bob is not going to talk to us about what he has done here, but about aviation in general, and he’ll probably point the way for all of us to get in on the next aviation boom. May I present a Hispanic American hero, Bob Rodriquez.”

Rodriquez saw Mae looking at him anxiously, certain he was going to walk out or say something cutting in response. His anger melted, he thanked Sanchez profusely and turned on his first slide, the famous December 17, 1903, scene of Orville Wright lifting off at Kitty Hawk, Wilbur standing amazed at the right.

He had assembled one hundred photos on the PowerPoint, far too many, and sped to a photo of a tiny Bleriot XI, from which an Italian pilot dropped the first aerial bomb in the history of warfare. Next was a photo of the Northrop Grumman B-2 stealth bomber, and Rodriquez said, “Incredibly, between the first flight of the Bleriot, a cranky fifty miles per hour airplane and the first flight of the super-secret B-2 stealth bomber, only eighty years elapsed. That’s less than the age of many of
your parents. In just eighty years aviation went from a handheld, six-kilogram bomb dropped haphazardly on the desert sands to delivering as many as sixteen precision guided munitions directly on target at almost supersonic speeds.

“That was the story of aviation—incredibly rapid advances, year after year.”

Rodriquez watched the clock closely as he cycled through his PowerPoint presentation relentlessly. He was trying to do three aircraft a minute, speaking off the cuff, displaying one iconic aircraft after another, SPAD, Spitfire, Mustang, Messerschmitt Me 262, F-86, F-104, giving a machine-gun burst description of each, telling why they were good and the year they debuted.

Then he said, “And then aviation began to slow down, even as it reached into space with first intercontinental missiles, exploratory spacecraft like the Apollo, and the fantastic satellite networks we all take for granted. It was extraordinary, for as the jet engine allowed us to speed up in terms of miles per hour, it forced us to slow down our development because so many new problems were encountered, not least of which was soaring costs.

“As we pushed for performance, we were aided by the introduction of computers and new materials, but nonetheless the rate of progress still slowed. Instead of seeing a new fighter every two years, we now see them once in two decades. Instead of new bombers every five or six years, we fly them like the poor old B-52, forever, with no replacements in sight. And with airliners, instead of seeing the steady march from DC-1 to DC-8 , within a twenty-five-year period, we’ve seen a slowdown that forced some of the great manufacturers out of the airliner business—Douglas first, then McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed. Even Boeing rested on its laurels after its great gamble with the 747, and is taking a shellacking from Airbus Industries because of it.

“The reason: it is simply not economical any longer to churn out new designs. The risks are so great that companies have to partner together to share them. That’s why we should all welcome this airplane, even if it is built abroad.”

He flashed a series of slides of the gigantic new Airbus A380, almost all of which were new to most of the audience. There was a collective appreciative gasp of awe at the size and luxury of the interior.

He rattled off the basic specifications: “Wingspan 261 feet; maximum gross takeoff weight, 1,300,000 pounds; carries up to 853 passengers; great use of composite materials, and cruise speed of Mach .85. It has four engines in the 70,000 pounds of thrust range.”

Rodriquez switched to a blank screen and said reflectively, “Mach .85—but they will cruise at about 630 mph, they say, but for fuel reasons they’ll probably slow down to about 580. And the Boeing 707 used to cruise at 550 mph. It’s harder to go faster as you get bigger. There
is
a supersonic barrier, but it’s dollars, not the speed of sound.”

He went on. “Airbus was able to pull this engineering masterpiece off because of computers. And incidentally, also in spite of computers, for they are experiencing difficulties. The aircraft is being built in components at French and German factories—and the two factories use different computer-aided design systems, one two-dimensional, one three-dimensional. There are already problems.”

He switched the screen, and then superimposed on a three view of the gigantic A380 was the Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer. Not a small aircraft itself, it seemed diminutive next to the A380.

“Now I’ve probably bored the hell out of you so far, so I’ll ask you to wake up and pay attention now, as I’m trying to make my point about why today is the best time to be in aviation. We have gigantic aircraft like the A380, modern in every respect, but following an orthodox formula: the swept wings and podded four engines have been around since Boeing’s dash-80, the 707 prototype. But we also are in an era that you probably know better than the rest of the world, one that uses computers and composite materials to make totally unorthodox designs.”

The next slide showed a smiling Steve Fossett, just climbing out of the cockpit of the Global Flyer after its record-shattering nonstop, non-refueled flight around the world.

“A lot of you probably know Steve. He has broken more sailing records than anyone and now has extended himself to the sky. In 2002, he was the first to fly around the world nonstop in a balloon. Now, just this March 3, he completed a sixty-seven-hour solo nonstop, non-refueled flight around the world, in an airplane designed right here in Mojave.”

He clicked through the next slides, a montage of shots of the Global Flyer, showing its twin booms, central nacelle, center-mounted engine, and cramped interior.

“And here are its specs: 114-foot span—the longest of any Scaled Composite aircraft yet, 22,000-pound maximum takeoff weight, one pilot, no passengers, and a single 2,300-pound thrust engine.”

He pressed a button and a slide showed three views and the comparative specifications of the two aircraft.

“My penultimate point is this. Burt Rutan, through his genius and his design team, got to the Global Flyer with exactly the same sort of tools and materials that the A380 has used. The airplanes could not be more different in appearance, in mission, and in cost, but at their roots are similar knowledge, systems, and materials. The greatest difference is in approach: the Scaled Composite design is totally unorthodox by Airbus standards (but not by Scaled Composite’s!) but it worked equally well, and perhaps even better, we’ll have to see, in achieving its design goal.

“Now here is my final point. The gap in size, weight, speed, and mission between the Global Flyer and the A380 could not be greater, but the tools used on each are common. By that I mean that the two firms started with different goals, vision, and most of all imagination, but used the same body of knowledge of aerodynamics, computers, and materials to achieve their desired results. This has happened continually throughout the jet age, from Frank Whittle and Hans von Ohain’s first efforts, right down until today. And this means that we all have at our disposal the same modern techniques that can be applied to any industry, from automobiles to solving global warming, to achieve results on the order of both the A380 and the Global Flyer. We just have to have the courage to reach out and take the risks associated with their use to achieve new heights in whatever we do.”

He drew a breath and repeated, “Take the risks, take the risks, take the risks.”

He shut the PowerPoint down amid a silence that suddenly turned into wild applause and a standing ovation. Embarrassed, he waved his hands, but Sanchez came up, embraced him, then turned to stand waving their two hands in the air as if he were a referee and Rodriquez were a winning boxer. Bob glanced at Mae. She was smiling, proud, knowing what this had cost him psychologically, and pleased that he had done so well—for her.

As his friends from around the field pressed forward with questions,
Rodriquez thought to himself how much better it was with Mae since he had returned from his crazy covert life. He had come in out of the cold indeed.

December 16, 2005
Langley Air Force Base, Virginia

S
TEVE
O’M
ALLEY AND
V. R. Shannon sniffed the air eagerly, savoring the familiar mix of southern humidity and jet fuel. The flight line at Langley was not as busy as it was in the old days, but the sight of a squadron of Lockheed Martin F-22s was impressive. The early-morning drizzle left the Raptors glistening, reflecting the sun that was now breaking through the overcast.

Lieutenant Colonel James Heller was escorting them, pride written all over his face. He commanded the 27th Fighter Squadron, the oldest in the United States Air Force.

“I know you know these airplanes as well or better than I do, General O’Malley, but I want you to meet some of the pros who are flying and maintaining the Raptor.”

The Raptor had reached its IOC—initial operating capability—the day before, and Heller was understandably pleased that the 27th was maintaining its legendary reputation for leading the way. It had done so since its origin in 1917. In the interval the 27th had flown all the first-line aircraft, from the SPAD XIII in which the legendary Medal of Honor recipient Lieutenant Frank Luke busted balloons in World War I through the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, Convair F-106, McDonnell F-4 Phantom, and Boeing F-15E Strike Eagle. It had earned top honors in the Middle East, and was now the vanguard of a new era of total air dominance.