Roaring Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (Novels of the Jet Age) Read online

  “I’d like to do some more taxi tests before we fly—I’m still not satisfied with the brakes.”

  “Of course. We’ll do a quick test run, then turn it over to you.”

  Warsitz and von Ohain companionably walked around the aircraft, looking at it with two widely divergent views. To von Ohain the airplane was just a vessel for his engine, no more important than a packing box. To Warsitz it was, like all airplanes, a thing of beauty that must be courted and also feared. He drew tactile pleasure from running his hand over the surface of the airplane, enjoying its aesthetics, letting its curves speak to him. The plane was simple, with smooth lines, totally functional, exactly what he liked in a design. He dropped down and squatted, letting his eyes look over the entire aircraft, seeking leaking fluids, incipient cracks, loose nuts and bolts, or any other untoward signs that might compromise safety.

  “I understand that the bird did not damage the engine?”

  “No. We disassembled it, balanced all the parts, and checked for cracks. The only thing we had to do was clean it.”

  Von Ohain glanced closely at Warsitz’s face and went on somewhat anxiously, “It might have been worse in a conventional plane; the bird would have broken a wooden propeller, and perhaps even damaged a metal one.”

  Warsitz nodded and smiled, patting von Ohain on the back, knowing how proud he was of his engine. “Well, shall we get started?”

  Von Ohain nodded to Hahn, and they brought a cylinder of compressed hydrogen over to start the engine. From a distance, Obermyer saw the group scatter, leaving only von Ohain and Hahn at the aircraft. Even as he moved away to stand behind the Fiat he said, “They’re scared of the hydrogen. Ever since the Hindenburg, everyone expects hydrogen to blow up. It’s no more dangerous than acetylene or gasoline, if you know how to handle it.”

  Hahn could have tested the engine up by himself, but von Ohain stayed with him for moral support. Von Ohain’s desire for privacy to think out his engineering problems had evolved an unusual method of dealing with people. Rather than being withdrawn or abstracted, he related to each person as closely as possible on their terms, trying to establish contact on their ground, and by extension removing them from his. He treated everyone with the same consideration and courtesy, whether it was the guard at the gate or Dr. Heinkel himself.

  To von Ohain, every run of his engine was as dangerous as the headlong plunges he had taken while skiing in the Harz Mountains and the hydrogen priming was the least of it. Over the course of his three years of testing, he learned that jet engines could explode in many ways, rarely with any warning. The temperatures and the turbine speeds were so high so that anything could go wrong, from an explosion when the gasoline was injected to the turbine blades flying loose. But when it ran sweetly, it was a joy, a smooth, quiet roar of power that von Ohain knew was the sound of a new era in aviation, one he had brought about in just three years with a small team of experts and a few hundred thousand marks of Ernst Heinkel’s money.

  Hahn was in the cockpit, gently pushing the throttle forward, then retarding it, the Heinkel He S 3 jet engine docilely responding, the spurt of flame and the noise rising and falling in concert. Von Ohain nodded, and Hahn shut the engine down.

  “Let’s inspect it once more, then let Herr Warsitz do his taxi tests before the Professor arrives.”

  The early-morning sun sent its welcome warmth from the dark blue sky, slowly dissipating the fog from the hard-surfaced areas of the field first.

  Warsitz shoehorned his lanky body into the tiny cockpit and methodically went through the standard control checks before signaling to von Ohain that he was ready for the engine start. The cockpit was stark, with fewer than a third of the instruments of the Heinkel 112 fighter he had flown the day before. They did not need many instruments—all he had to do was get the aircraft airborne, fly it around, and land; that would be enough to prove that the jet engine worked.

  Obermyer watched from the sidelines as Warsitz allowed the jet to run forward for one hundred meters. It slowed abruptly and then began drifting to the left, threatening to collapse the gear and end the test—and perhaps the entire jet engine experiment—on the spot. The ground crew was already running toward the airplane when Warsitz regained control and taxied back to the hangar, his concerned expression saying it all.

  Hahn and three mechanics swarmed over the He 178, and Warsitz tried it again just as Heinkel’s big Mercedes limousine pulled in. The taxi test was satisfactory this time, and Warsitz stayed in the cockpit as the aircraft was refueled. More agile than he looked, Heinkel climbed up the ladder next to the cockpit to shake Warsitz’s hand and give him the traditional “break a leg” good-luck wish.

  The flight meant much to Heinkel. With the exception of a very few important people such as Ernst Udet, Heinkel was persona non grata with the Nazi Party, in part because he looked so much like the Nazi cartoon stereotypes of Jewish plutocrats, in part because he had fought so hard to retain Jewish workers, particularly engineers, while the government insisted that they be purged. If Warsitz demonstrated that the jet engine actually worked, that this simple, inexpensive power plant could propel a plane through the air, Heinkel could get the backing to buy a factory to manufacture them, and he would build Heinkel aircraft powered by Heinkel engines. If it failed, he was once again at the mercy of the idiots at the Air Ministry, men so foolish that they demanded every bomber, no matter how big, be a dive-bomber.

  Von Ohain and Hahn walked cautiously around the airplane for perhaps the twentieth time that day, peering into the air intake, popping open a few panels and inspecting inside, then carefully feeling along the bottom of the aircraft to be sure that no fuel was leaking.

  With an impatient nod, Warsitz signaled to start the engine. There was a momentary hesitation, then a sudden blowtorch roar as the engine caught on and advanced to idle speed. Warsitz checked the engine temperature gauge, the fuel pressure, the oil pressure, and finally, satisfied with the readings, waved to von Ohain and motioned for the chocks to be pulled from in front of the wheels.

  Warsitz was apprehensive. He had a sense of the plane from the taxi-test hops, but this would be the first real flight in a brand-new airplane, unlike any that he had ever flown before. His big hands held the stick back in his lap and moved the throttle full forward. The tiny jet moved, slowly at first, then more swiftly, and he relaxed back pressure, allowing the tail to come up. Without a propeller, there was none of the customary torque that was so dangerous in piston-engine-powered fighters, and the little He 178 moved over the grass, straight as a die. The noise of the jet was subdued compared to that of the aircraft with powerful piston engines Warsitz had flown recently, so quiet that he wondered if it was producing the necessary power. He passed the tiny white flag that marked the 100-meter point, then felt the plane begin to come alive, moving more lightly on its gear, accelerating as it passed the 200-meter mark, the noise of the engine seeming to decrease, and then, almost instantaneously, at the 300-meter mark the airplane broke ground, transforming into a silent missile being sling-shot upward, hurtling toward the temporary redline speed of 600 kilometers per hour. He tried to raise the landing gear, but nothing happened.

  On the ground, von Ohain had stood transfixed as the tiny monoplane rumbled forward, barely accelerating, so that it seemed to take forever before Warsitz pulled it from the ground. A cheer went up as Warsitz climbed steeply to 2,000 feet. Von Ohain whirled to glare at the crowd—the flight would not be a success until Warsitz was back safely on the ground.

  Inside the cockpit, perspiring heavily now, Warsitz slowed down and tried again to retract the landing gear, which was operated by compressed air. When the attempt failed, he decided to leave the gear down and land after only one circuit of the airfield. The airplane was nose-heavy, and Warsitz had to maintain back pressure on the stick when he throttled back to hold 600 kilometers per hour on the airspeed indicator, keeping the field in sight, wanting now only to get the airplane down safely to the ground. He t
urned to the final approach, reduced power, and kept feeding in back pressure until the wheels touched down at the very edge of the field with a gentle thump. He bounced once, recovered, then rolled out smoothly, pushing the canopy back before taxiing in.

  Von Ohain joined in the cheering as Heinkel grabbed him by the shoulder, screaming, “Congratulations, Dr. von Ohain. This is the world’s first flight in a turbine-powered aircraft! I’m going to make you a very rich man!”

  The nose of the little silver He 178 bobbed up and down as it taxied across the rough grass field, to be met by Heinkel and von Ohain leading the entire Special Project team and a pack of excited engineers and maintenance workers.

  Warsitz lifted himself out of the cockpit, shook hands with Heinkel and von Ohain, and said just, “Nose-heavy,” to Hahn. The fuel was topped off as Hahn and the team of Heinkel mechanics adjusted the stabilizer. Warsitz carefully checked the landing gear system—there was no apparent anomaly, but he decided to have a down lock installed and just leave the gear extended on the next flights.

  Calmer now, Warsitz took off again. The trim was now satisfactory and the little airplane flew almost hands off, requiring just a caress on the controls to keep it flying straight and level. He made a half-dozen passes around the field before coming in to refuel.

  He talked excitedly to von Ohain and Heinkel, finally persuading them to let him make one last flight, longer than the others, to get a better check on fuel consumption. The takeoff was uneventful and he flew straight to Warnemunde on the Baltic Sea, a fifty-mile flight that he knew ran the little plane close to its range limits.

  As his apprehensions subsided, Warsitz felt a growing elation in flying the strangely quiet aircraft, so different from the noisy racket of a conventional fighter. Looking at the altimeter, he realized it was stuck, not moving. He tapped it and it leaped to indicate five hundred meters.

  “Ah, no vibration. So quiet the instruments stick!” Recalling the pre-flight briefing, he kept the airspeed just under 600 kilometers per hour. The controls were featherlight, and he rocked the wings back and forth, contemplating rolling the airplane but knowing better than to risk such a move on the first test flight. By now he was comfortable enough to take his eyes off the instrument panel and look out to his right over the whitecapped Baltic to see the local fishing fleet moving toward its station, and then back left to the town of Warnemunde. Defiant, Warsitz flew low over the Arado aircraft plant, in a gross violation of Heinkel’s passion for secrecy. Warsitz knew the test pilots there and wanted to give them something to talk about.

  Warsitz then banked back toward Marienehe, where von Ohain and Heinkel, acutely aware of the aircraft’s limited range, were already feeling a sudden surge of fear that things had gone too well and that trouble was brewing.

  Their fears were drowned in the excited buzz that grew as the little jet whistled in from the north, then soared again when they realized Warsitz was too high to land without making another circuit.

  Inside the cockpit, sweating profusely again, the test pilot pressed his head against the canopy to keep the field in sight. As he positioned himself to make one high pass over the field, then come in and land, the engine cut out briefly before resuming its song of power. Knowing he was short on fuel and confident in his mastery of the aircraft, Warsitz did not hesitate, side-slipping the new plane to shed altitude swiftly. Heinkel and von Ohain gasped and started forward, their hearts pumping, as the little monoplane slipped steeply earthward, to recover just at the edge of the field, touching down smoothly and rolling in to the jubilant waiting crowd. It was masterly, heart-wrenching flying—few others could have pulled it off.

  Heinkel, tears streaming down his face, turned and embraced von Ohain, saying, “You have just given birth to the jet age.”

  Obermyer and Müller pulled away from the crowd. They had helped set up the celebratory feast that was to follow. There would be plenty of champagne (minus, of course, the case Obermyer had slipped into the back of his car) and both men intended to arrive early.

  “Well, Fritz, as you said, von Ohain will probably become a rich man from this. And Heinkel, too.”

  “They will not be the only ones, Gerd. I believe I can think of ways that will let us profit as well.”

  “It didn’t look like much to me. Just whoosh, up and down—no guns, no bombs, nothing.”

  “Gerd, let me tell you something. Sometimes an avalanche starts with a single rolling snowball. We just saw the snowball.”

  • THE PASSING SCENE •

  President Roosevelt elected to third term. Germany scores tremendous victories over Poland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, France, but is defeated in the Battle of Britain; U-boats winning Battle of the Atlantic; Japan takes control of French Indochina; Lend-Lease bill signed; Grand Coulee Dam begins operations; Whirlaway wins racing’s Triple Crown.

  CHAPTER TWO

  July 19, 1941, Burbank Airport

  Amused, Vance Shannon watched the immaculately groomed chairman of the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation stare fixedly out the big double window, watching the work crews disassemble the grandstand in front of the hangar-style doors of Plant A-1. On that spot the day before, Robert Ellsworth Gross had presided over the ceremonies in which Lord and Lady Halifax accepted delivery of the one thousandth Lockheed Hudson bomber to the Royal Air Force. On the seventeenth, Big Bill Knudsen, Chief of the Office of Production Management, had inspected the P-38 assembly line, where the twin-engine, twin-boom Lightnings were beginning to roll off at a satisfactory rate. Employment had reached thirty thousand, profits were up, new aircraft were in the works, and still Gross was not satisfied. He never was, and that’s why Lockheed was doing so well.

  Lockheed’s leader bit his lip in his characteristic worry-wart expression as Shannon contrasted his own rumpled suit, store-bought at Sears, with the Savile Row suits that Gross invariably wore, thinking there might be a lesson there somewhere. Gross’s silence and inattention were unusual. Normally he was the soul of courtesy, making every guest welcome, even consultants like Shannon, who were maintained on costly retainers.

  At last Gross turned, smiling, and said, “I’m sorry, Vance. Caught up in some GFE problems.”

  GFE—government-furnished equipment—was almost always a problem, and it usually erased any savings the government got by buying in quantity by creating problems that contractors had to solve. Shannon knew about this one—the GFE carburetors for the P-38’s Allison engines were having problems with cold weather. Maybe that’s what Gross wanted to talk about. Probably not—too mundane.

  Of middle height, Gross was the Adolph Menjou of the aircraft industry, always dapper, friendly, and invariably courteous, even to such chronic pains in the neck as George Putnam, Amelia Earhart’s widower. Gross had purchased the original bankrupt Lockheed Company in 1932 and turned it from making the wooden single-engine Vegas to building fast, twin-engine all-metal transports for the smaller airlines. Like other aircraft firms, Lockheed had struggled during the depression, but the European War had saved it. An initial order from Great Britain for 250 Hudsons, the military version of their Model 14 airliner, became a money mill. The Hudson quickly proved itself in combat, and Lockheed was tasked to build as many as it could turn out.

  “Are you still doing any test flying, Vance?” There was respect in Gross’s voice, for Shannon had been, with Eddie Allen and Bill McAvoy, one of the top civilian test pilots in the country. When a new design was coming along, companies would call Shannon in early to get his ideas, then sign him up to be the test pilot. He had made the first flights in hundreds of aircraft, military and civilian, all over the country—and commanded a healthy price for doing so. It always bothered him that he had a reputation for daring, for flying anything with wings. It wasn’t so. He calculated the risks on every flight and had refused many when the odds didn’t seem right. But when the odds were right, even if just by a hair, he’d fly, and he had always succeeded. Until the last one.

  Shannon
flushed. “Not since the accident, Bob. I just haven’t felt ready.” Six months before, Shannon had been testing a new trainer, built of Duramold, the plasticized wood product that the veteran engineer Virginius Clark had developed. A wing had come off in a dive, and Shannon had barely made it over the side, his parachute popping open just fifty feet off the ground. He wouldn’t admit it, but he was having trouble getting up the side of an airplane into the cockpit—just too many aches and pains remaining from the jump and the subsequent hard landing on a dirt field.

  “It’s time you stopped, anyway—you are far too valuable to be jumping out of airplanes.” They laughed, somewhat ruefully, and Gross went on. “Vance, you know Nate Price and Kelly Johnson, don’t you?”

  Shannon nodded; the two men were fantastic engineers, both geniuses, with Nate a little less disciplined and perhaps even more imaginative than Kelly. He knew they had difficulty working together. Kelly was too assertive. As a young man, fresh out of University of Michigan and brand-new to Lockheed, he had shaken older, more experienced engineers with his insights and a manner that bordered just on the wrong side of arrogance. The difficulty for the older engineers was that Kelly was always right, and now, at thirty-one, he was the dominant—but not the chief—engineer at Lockheed. Price was more withdrawn but very stubborn, always insistent on doing things his way. As partners, they inevitably had trouble.

  “Sure. I worked with them a bit on the multi-seat fighter project—the competition the Bell Airacuda won.”

  Both men were silent. Gross hated losing any competition, especially this one, where the airplane the Air Corps selected as winner turned out to be a total failure. Shannon was quiet because he had not been able to get along with either Price or Johnson. They were just too bright, too full of themselves, to permit an outsider to horn in.