Roaring Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (30 page)

Hobbs came right to the point. “Colonel Shannon, we want to build the X-176 engine, but we cannot do it on faith alone. We have to have a contract that will call for at least one thousand engines before we afford to turn the prototype into an engine fit for service.”

“You’ve put your finger on the problem, Mr. Hobbs. Boeing will build a big jet bomber that could use your X-176s or J57s or whatever their designation is, but they cannot just gamble on you building the engine. I don’t know how many airplanes SAC will order for Boeing, but I do know that they’ve ordered hundreds of B-47s, and are planning to order more.”

“Well, we are already working on a turboprop engine for the big Boeing.” The tone in Hobbs’s voice conveyed his displeasure, for the turboprop’s performance continued to be disappointing. Pratt & Whitney regretted that the age of the piston engine was past, and it was entering the jet age uneasily. The turboprop, with the complex dynamics of huge high-speed propellers and the manifest uncertainty of the gearboxes, was even more distasteful to the firm than the pure jet engine.

“You might as well stop work. Boeing cannot get the range or the speed with the turboprop.”

Hobbs did not sigh with relief, but there was a visible relaxation of the intensity of his frown. “How many engines are they planning to use on this jet?”

Harry did not know, no one did at that moment, but he said, “Eight.”

Pratt turned to Hobbs and said, “If the Air Force just ordered one hundred of the new bomber, that would mean at least eight hundred engines, plus another two hundred spares, and we’d have our thousand. There’s a foreign market, too; we could license it if the Air Force would let us.”

Harry said, “There is only one way out of this impasse, and that is for you to take the same kind of risk you took when you killed the R-2150 and started the R-2800.”

Hobbs smiled for the first time and said to Perry, “You must have given him the Lippincott treatment.”

Shannon went on. “What I need from you is a commitment to build the engine. If you do, I’ll guarantee that the Air Force will buy at least one hundred big bombers from Boeing.”

Hobbs laughed this time. “No disrespect, Colonel, but you really cannot guarantee it. What does Pete Wharton say?”

Harry flushed. Hobbs, a veteran of the game, had nailed him, but he pressed on. “And with equal respect, Mr. Hobbs, you’re wrong. I can guarantee it because Pete Wharton told me that I could. There’s not a damn thing that happens in Air Force procurement that Wharton doesn’t call the shots on.”

Hobbs realized he had almost been insulting to Harry and hastened to apologize. “Again, no offense, Colonel, I didn’t mean to depreciate your guarantee, and I certainly understand your confidence if Wharton is backing you. I’ll tell you what. We have a board meeting coming up a week from today. I’ll propose to the board that we proceed on the X-176, and I believe they will go along with me. You go back to Wright-Patterson and tell Pete Wharton that he sent the right man to do his job for him.”

Harry did not wait to go back. As soon as he had said good-bye to Pratt and Hobbs and walked to Lippincott’s office to thank him, he drove back to his hotel and phoned Wharton.

“Pete, I think they are going to move; Hobbs tells me that he is going to the board to get permission to proceed on the X-176.”

“Going to the board is pro forma. They’ll do what Hobbs asks. That’s great, Harry; I knew you could pull it off. But I want you to promise me that you are not going
to tell your dad or Boeing what’s happening. I’ve got a few negotiating irons in the fire with them, and it’s better for the Air Force if they don’t know the good news until those irons are out and cooling.”

Puzzled, Harry said, “OK, if that’s the way you want it. I’ll just tell Dad that it is still up in the air.” He hated to do it and doubted if he could get away with it, for his father still read him like a book.

“Attaboy. He’ll understand when the time comes.”

It turned out that Wharton’s caution was prudent, for the following week, a very dejected Hobbs called him.

“Pete, this is Luke. I’ve got to renege; I’ve been outmaneuvered. The Pratt & Whitney board has postponed their meeting until September, and I know why. They don’t want to make a decision on the X-176 until the last quarter of the year. There is a possible merger coming up, and they think deciding on the X-176 might affect the deal.”

The phone was silent and Hobbs asked, “You still there, Pete?”

“Just thinking, Luke. This might work out best for the Air Force, if you can get me a positive decision by early October. That’s when I’ve asked the Boeing brass to come out and brief on the big turboprop bomber.”

“OK, Pete. Thanks for being understanding. I’ll get a positive decision by October 15. They have to meet by then, corporate bylaws. If they don’t go along with me, I’ll tell them I’ll quit. I don’t use that ploy very often, but when I have to use it, it works.”

“Keep me posted.”

October 22, 1948, Dayton, Ohio

It was one of those perfect fall days in Ohio, when even downtown Dayton looked bright and cheerful and the Van Cleve Hotel seemed the center of the aerial universe. Boeing people always stayed at the Van Cleve, and this
time a six-man team of heavy hitters was in town to brief Pete Wharton on the latest developments—none too cheerful—of the turboprop bomber.

Ed Wells headed the team, backed up by George Schairer. While the other four men were specialists, they were also talented in many fields. Maynard Pennell and Art Carlsen were weight experts, able to look at a drawing and estimate what the weight of each component was going to be, usually within ounces of the final figure. Holden “Bob” Withington was a wind tunnel specialist—he and Schairer had advocated the huge wind tunnel that now gave Boeing an advantage over every other manufacturer in the industry. Withington was also an expert on drag estimation. Vance Shannon felt privileged to be in their company. All the men were exhausted, having been working hard on other projects before being subjected to the long cross-country trip from Seattle, some coming by train, some by plane.

The initial meeting was held Friday morning in Wharton’s cluttered office in Area A at Wright-Patterson. The Boeing people arrived early, as always, and set up their briefing materials and a brand-new model of the turboprop bomber. They were not very enthusiastic because they didn’t have much in the way of good news—they had improved the range only slightly, but the takeoff gross weight had gone up again.

Wharton swept into the room with his usual good humor, apologized for being late, and said, “Gentlemen, thanks for coming, and for setting up early. But here is the big news. The turboprop bomber is canceled. Pratt & Whitney is going to commit its new jet engine, the X-176, to full-scale production. I got word from Luke Hobbs yesterday. What I’d like you to do is go back to the Van Cleve and develop a proposal for a turbojet bomber that can use an engine with these specifications.” He handed out the engine specification sheets to the stunned Boeing personnel.

Wells spoke up. “Pete, are you sure about this? If so, it’s the best news we’ve had in weeks.”

“If you think you are happy, you ought to have heard Luke Hobbs.”

The Boeing engineers wore out room service at the Van Cleve for the next seventy-two hours, working in a frenzy of activity, pooling their accumulated knowledge on a long series of previous projects to create the preliminary drawings and specifications for an eight-jet bomber. All that they had learned from designing, building, and flying the B-47 was poured into the new aircraft. They kept Vance Shannon as a gofer for essentials such as drawing paper, drafting tools, and coffee when he wasn’t standing by the telephone to act as intermediary with a variety of Boeing teams in Seattle. There, like a kicked-over anthill, Boeing engineers and executives, dressed in weekend clothes and forgoing the normal suit-and-tie atmosphere, worked round-the-clock to furnish figures to back up the Dayton team’s estimates.

Vance would relay questions from the Van Cleve back to every area of the Boeing plant, then get the resulting answers back to the team. In the process he was amazed at the depth of Boeing engineering; virtually nothing came up that had not been discussed before, and almost everything had been tested to some degree. The Seattle people would listen, promise to call back, and usually within thirty minutes have the required data, dug out of an existing file.

On Monday morning, October 25, the bleary-eyed team reassembled in Wharton’s office with a thirty-three-page proposal for the Boeing Model 464-49-0. The small packet included an inboard profile, a three-view drawing, all the drag polars, and the weight estimates. The aircraft was huge, with four thousand square feet of wing area, a design gross weight of 330,000 pounds, a high speed of 572 mph, and a range of 8,000 miles with a 10,000-pound
bomb load. There had never been anything like it before in the history of aviation.

Ed Wells did the three-view drawings and then helped Schairer and Shannon build a large balsa model of the airplane, painted silver and mounted on a stand so that Wharton could take it back to the Pentagon.

Wharton put the model on his desk, then pawed through the proposal, asking questions but clearly delighted with what he saw.

“This is it, gentlemen. I repeat, the turboprop is officially canceled. I’ll go to Pentagon this afternoon, and I’ll shepherd this baby through all the congressional hoops. This is exactly what the new head of the Strategic Air Command wants, and he has wanted it since he ran research and development. You can look to building a lot of them.”

When the meeting broke up and the fatigued Boeing people went back to their rooms to get a little rest, the first person Vance Shannon called was his son Harry.

“Harry, you rascal, how long have you known about what Pete Wharton was planning?”

There was a pause. “I’m sorry, Dad. Pete specifically asked me not to tell you after my trip up to Hartford. He said he had some negotiating irons in the fire.”

“Son, you did the right thing and I’m proud of you. I can’t talk about this on the phone, but Boeing and the Air Force and I guess Pratt & Whitney are going to be mighty happy about what happened this weekend. Talk to you more when I get back to Seattle.”

December 31, 1948, Palos Verdes, California

Vance and Madeline had long since stopped going out on New Year’s Eve, even though they were invited to half a dozen parties all over the state. She was in the kitchen,
cleaning up after their simple one-pot dinner. It was chilly for California, and Vance sat in front of his desk, a fire in the fireplace to his left. The desktop was absolutely clean except for a pad of yellow paper, a small ruler, and a few sharpened pencils. Normally the desk was crowded, littered with books, papers, drawings, and the occasional bit of leftover lunch. Tonight it was cleaned off for what had become an annual ritual, an accounting of the way the year had gone, both for his business and for his family. He knew before he made the first entry that the results would be mixed.

His business, Aviation Consultants, Incorporated, was doing very well. The boys had more than earned their keep, and Harry had proved invaluable even after he was recalled into the Air Force. Vance had turned managing both the firm’s and the household’s money over to Madeline, and she had done her usual remarkable job. The house was run on a very tight budget, and he sometimes had to complain to make her loosen up and spend a bit more on the menu. On the business side, she was very conservative about the stock market but had investments in utilities, railroads, and metals. The only thing he had cautioned her about was investing in the aircraft companies or in airlines. He didn’t want there to be the shadow of a doubt about any conflict of interests. Madeline had put most of her effort into buying real estate, small outlying parcels in the San Fernando Valley and well outside the San Diego city limits. He doubted if they would ever appreciate in his lifetime, but the taxes were low and the parcels would undoubtedly become valuable for his sons. As always, she resolutely refused to have her name on any of the investments or property. To counter this, Vance had his lawyers draw up a new will, which divided the estate equally among Madeline and his two sons. When she read the will, she was furious and did not speak to him for two days. It was impossible to understand, and he had to relent, essentially cutting her out of the will. He
knew this boded ill for their future but could not make her see what a rebuff it was to him. It was so inconsistent—she was constantly stroking his ego, making him feel good about himself, and then behaved in this abnormal, insulting fashion. Too bad he was such a mouse when it came to dealing with her.

Madeline had also revamped his small workforce, hiring Jill Abernathy to help her. The two worked together hand in glove, and Madeline seemed to be backing more and more out of anything to do with airplanes and concentrating on the real estate. Jill turned out to be wonderful, a handsome woman of about forty-five, quiet, and able to make decisions on her own. Madeline transferred all the administrative work to her within a period of a couple of months, and Vance never noticed the slightest change in smooth, efficient service. Jill in turn had hired two young women to help her. He hated to see his company’s payroll increase so dramatically but knew that it probably took three women to do the work that Madeline had done.

And the workload had grown significantly, with demands on his time from Boeing, North American, Convair, and, more frequently now, Lockheed. Since Harry had been recalled (and Tom might be, too), Vance had hired two young college graduates as trainees. The difficulty was that neither he nor Tom had time to do much training and it might be that he’d have to let them go. The two new men tried hard but seemed to spend as much time talking with the women Jill had hired as doing anything else. Normal but irritating.

Still, financially all was well, and Madeline told him that his net worth had grown to almost a quarter-million dollars, an unbelievable amount for a man who had worked through the depression trying to make enough to cover the rent each month, and not always succeeding.