The huge North American hangar was almost vacant except for a company B-25, used as an executive transport, and a visiting Lockheed P-80 from Edwards Air Force Base. In the center of the hangar, a J47 engine was suspended on a carriage, and two GE engineers, Walter Baker and Steve Shaddock, were on hand to help him. On a table, bathed in the blaze of the hangar’s overhead lights, were stacks of drawings and manuals.
Vance knew both engineers from the days when he had helped bring Whittle’s prototype over and felt that they were comfortable with him, even though the meeting was an implicit criticism of General Electric. It was important not to appear to be one of the infamous “experts from out of town” who soured so many industry relationships.
“Well, boys, let’s begin tearing this beauty down.”
The three men worked silently together, carefully disassembling the engine, with Vance’s eyes searching each part as it was removed.
Four careful hours later, the J47 parts were laid out on the hangar floor in the same relative position in which they were mounted in the engine. Vance walked among the parts, stopping occasionally to stare, to scratch his head, to pick up a piece, examine it closely, then move on. After an hour he called, “Walter, Steve—come take a look at this.”
They looked at a short length of stainless-steel tubing, about three-eighths of an inch in diameter. “Vance, that’s the oil supply line. What about it?”
“I say it’s too large in diameter. At high altitudes, with the temperatures up, the oil is almost certainly foaming, at least a little, and this line probably doesn’t allow enough oil to get through to lube the bearings.”
Both men shook their heads. “That’s hardly likely, Vance. Jet engines don’t use oil like a piston engine does; you can run them practically dry of oil and they’ll keep on turning.”
“I’m sure you are right. But I feel in my bones that when the oil foams, it blocks the line, and the bearing temperatures go way up, way beyond anything you’d see in a piston engine. And we don’t have any sensors to tell us. I’m proposing that we put a temperature sensor on a J47’s oil line and see how hot it gets when it’s flown at high altitudes at a high Mach number. That’s what happens in combat, for sure, and probably in a lot of the training.”
Shaddock and Baker looked dubious, but Vance went on.
“If it has a sustained high temperature for most of a flight, almost no oil will be getting through, and it will be tearing the heart out of the bearings. That would explain a lot of failures.”
Steve stopped shaking his head long enough to say, “Well, putting a sensor in is no big deal. We can go back out to Muroc tonight, put the sensor in tomorrow morning, and do a test flight tomorrow afternoon. But I think you are wrong, Vance. Maybe we ought to have a little side bet on this. Tell you what. If it runs hot enough tomorrow to indicate a problem, I’ll buy dinner for all of us at Pancho Barnes’s place. If it doesn’t—you buy.”
Pancho’s place, the Happy Bottom Riding Club, was a home away from home for the test pilots and the longtime regulars at Muroc.
“I hate to take your money, Steve, but a bet is a bet. You’re on! But that’s not the only thing.” Vance pointed to the wiring leading to a thermocouple used to monitor engine temperatures. “What would it take to get a bulletin out to the field having the thermocouples on the fleet checked for accuracy?”
Vance knew the North American system of communicating with its field representatives was first-rate. Every tech rep would have a bulletin in his mailbox in the morning. They would run the tests the same day, and the results would be fed back in that night to North American for analysis and distribution.
“I can write it up this afternoon. What do you want me to say?”
“Just ask them to recalibrate all the thermocouples as soon as possible, and then recalibrate them after the next flight. I’ve got an idea that they are malfunctioning, and not registering the actual heat being produced. That would account in part for the reports on rotor blade erosion.”
“Can do, but it will take a few days; they cannot get the results back faster than they fly the airplanes.”
“Sure, of course, but tell them to send the results as they get them, not to wait until the test is complete.”
Shaddock agreed willingly. He trusted Vance’s instincts.
The following afternoon they were installing the sensor on the fourth prototype XP-86 when there was a yell of, “Stand clear,” as the nose gear collapsed without warning. The aircraft’s nose came down with a bang that had people running from all over the field to see what happened, while the tail flew up into the air, tossing workmen aside like dolls. The stabilizer was ripped where it had lifted up through one of the maintenance stands, and the gear doors were smashed. Fortunately, no one was hurt.
Shaddock shook his head. “Before we do anything else, let’s get an adequate hydraulic system installed here. We can pull one off a B-25 and modify it so that it will work better than this. What do you think, Vance?”
“Man, with three thousand pounds of pressure, I can’t believe that it’s the hydraulic system. Let’s take a look at it.” Within an hour the F-86 was put on jacks, and they had the damaged nose gear doors removed.
Shannon asked, “Where is the ground safety pin?” A red-flagged pin was designed to go through the gear scissors to prevent a collapse. “The pin’s not in. Who is the crew chief?”
A crestfallen staff sergeant named Jensen moved forward. “I’m crew chief on this airplane, sir. I guess I forgot to put it in. We don’t usually use them.” Jensen reflexively touched the stripes on his sleeve, obviously worried that he might lose them if the accident was blamed on him.
Shannon slapped him on the back and said, “We all make mistakes, Sergeant Jensen. How about helping me find out what caused this one?” He nodded to Shaddock and Baker, signaling that they were to let him and Jensen work it out.
There was only room for one of them to get inside the narrow nose gear aperture, and they alternated, one moving in and one moving out. Shannon spotted the problem early but didn’t identify it—he wanted Jensen to find it. Finally Jensen said, “Sir, it looks like this drag brace is what’s wrong.” They knelt together on the ramp, peering upward. Jensen put his hand on the slim steel billet that was designed to go over-center when the gear was extended and keep the gear locked down. “Look, it’s rigged wrong—it’s not going down over-center.”
“You’re right, Jensen; congratulations, you’ve solved it. When this happens, the only thing that will keep the gear from collapsing is the safety pin. We need them to redesign the part so that it has to go over-center every time.” Jensen grinned in relief, a little more confident about keeping his stripes.
Two days later, the XP-86 was ready to fly. Steve had carefully placed two sensors on the oil line connecting them to two instruments he had attached in the only space available, crowded on the left side of the cockpit.
Shannon talked to the test pilot, George Welch. “Georgie, my boy, you don’t have to do anything fancy. Just fly a normal intercept profile—rapid climb to altitude; cruise at high Mach for thirty minutes; make a high-speed descent and landing. Keep your eye on the two gauges, and note what they do temperature-wise. Don’t put any excessive g’s on the airplane—and don’t go supersonic.”
Welch didn’t even acknowledge Vance’s jest, just nodded and climbed into the airplane.
Forty-five minutes later Welch landed. “Both gauges went off the clock, Vance! I don’t know how hot they got, but they were pegged ten minutes into the climb and they stayed that way. Made me nervous! I don’t like it when the needles are bent into the side of the case.”
Shaddock and Baker were convinced—despite all the nonsense about jet engines running forever without oil, it was evident that the bearings in the J47 were being starved for lubrication at high altitudes and airspeeds. Best of all, it was a fairly cheap fix—existing engines could be retrofitted inexpensively, and the newer engines coming down the line could
be fixed at virtually no cost. Then they checked the thermocouples, and Vance was right again. They needed to be recalibrated. When the reports began to come in from the field, they confirmed the problem. To get the correct engine power and to cut down on overheating, the thermocouples had to be recalibrated after every flight. It was tedious, but it would save engines.
Baker put his arm around Shannon’s shoulder. “Vance, I guess this means that we are buying you dinner at Pancho’s. They are going to love you at North American and hate you at GE. The last thing they want is for the airframe manufacturer to be changing their engine design, even when they need it.”
“Well, Walter, what’s the problem? You and Steve fixed it; you are GE reps—you ought to get a bonus out of this. You write up the reports, I’ll sign them for North American, and you’ll be the most popular guys at GE headquarters.”
Shaddock shook his head. “I don’t know, Vance; that doesn’t seem right—I don’t want to cash in on your insight. You saw the problem; you should get the credit.”
“No, Steve, let’s do this my way. I’ll tell Dutch what happened, he’ll be happy with me, I’ll be happy with GE, and GE will be happy with you. It’s the government that benefits in the long run, so what difference does it make to any outsider who gets the credit inside GE? None, that’s what.”
They shook hands, but as they started to leave, Vance said, “Tell you what, though—give me and Sergeant Jensen credit for pointing out the gear problem. That’s out of your bailiwick and right in mine, and it’s the sort of thing Dutch loves, finding problems in the field.”
Vance was especially intent on keeping in Dutch’s good graces, because he had to tell him he was leaving Inglewood for at least four months, maybe more, to go to Seattle. This was one of the hazards of being an independent consultant. Tom and Harry were great for test work and were beginning to learn the maintenance and engineering end of the business, but Aviation Consultants, Incorporated, remained a one-man operation in the eyes of the major aircraft companies. When they had a problem, they wanted Vance, not one of his sons.
At Boeing, his old friend George Schairer had put in a special plea for him to come up and check into the beautiful but trouble-prone XB-47, which had flown for the first time on December 17, 1947. It was a revolutionary airplane, with six jets and thirty-five degrees of sweep in the wing, but there were myriad problems. There had to be in such a radical step forward, but there was constant pressure from the Strategic Air Command to get the airplanes fixed and into operation. The B-47s were a weapon the Soviets could not counter, and the Air Force wanted them to be ready on twenty-four hours’ notice to attack with nuclear weapons.
Vance knew Schairer well enough to insist that he needed Tom on the project. After the usual corporate bureaucratic hand-wringing, Schairer got approval, but only after negotiating a cut in their combined rate. The truth was, he did need Tom’s insight, and he also had to help him get away from home. Marie had turned almost overnight from a charming girl, outgoing, even flirtatious, into a religious fanatic. Although he did not say so directly, Tom implied that their sex life had started badly and dropped off to zero within weeks of their marriage. They had been to see a priest, but he had only cautioned Marie to fulfill her marital vows, while telling Tom that he had to stop being so demanding.
Shannon hated to leave California, but he, too, needed to get away. For the first time since they had been together, Madeline had become cold and distant. Instead of the lingering feeling of sexual inadequacy that had haunted him for most of their time together, he now wanted her far more often than she wanted him. Their lovemaking had long since gone from the torrid to the routine, but she had always remained responsive. Where before he had but to extend his hand to have her roll over to him, now she would often turn away. She had even used the classic, “I have a headache,” on him, even though in the past she had made love no matter how she felt. The worst thing was that they had lost that sense of communication, the ability to each know what the other was thinking, to finish sentences for each other. Somehow they were strangers, for the first time in their relationship.
He groaned to himself, “I hope Harry is getting some loving; the rest of the family is striking out.”
Still there were no signs of her being interested in anyone else. There were no strange phone calls; she was always at home whenever Vance called or came in; there were no strange expenses, no signs of guilt. They were older, it was true, but she was still a young woman, thirty-four, in her prime. When he suggested that she might like to see a doctor, she became furious, one of the few times she had ever lost her temper with him, telling him that there was nothing wrong with her and if anyone should see a doctor it should be him.
Perhaps it was a mistake to have located his office in their Palos Verdes home. She might have been happier going in to work at an office on an airport. But it was she who had picked the lot, and she had supervised the planning, making sure that there was plenty of space for his office, with a private entrance. He liked it because it positioned him near to North American, Northrop, and Lockheed and still close enough to San Diego to meet any Convair requirements. He could cover jobs in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Edwards Air Force Base in a single day if he flew in his Navion. Seattle meant using the airlines, which was a pleasant relief, having a stewardess attend to you and someone else doing the flying.
The trip to Seattle might settle many things. He hoped that Madeline might agree to go with him, leaving the new house to a caretaker, but he doubted it.
January 24, 1948, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio
Harry had not believed the recall notice when it arrived. There were thousands of pilots trying desperately to stay in the new and independent Air Force, and suddenly someone found that Harry had to be back in service. It was so totally unfair, and it did not sit well with Anna. He called his father and the mystery was soon resolved.
“You are getting a reputation, Harry, and Al Boyd must have decided that he wants you back in the Air Corps to help him.” Like most people, Vance still called the Air Force the Air Corps, by force of habit.
The name was familiar to Harry, for Boyd had brought the world’s speed record back to the United States in 1947, flying a Lockheed P-80 at 623 mph. “What does Boyd do?”
“He’s at Wright-Pat, but he also runs the test programs out at Edwards. He is a terrific officer; you’ll like him.”
“Should I try to get out of this, Dad? Anna and I have been looking for a house. . . .”
“Don’t you dare even think about not going, Harry. If Al Boyd needs you, you go and go with goodwill. It will only be for a couple of years probably, and you’ll get more and better flying than you ever dreamed of. Anna will like Dayton, I’m sure.”
To his surprise, Anna took it like a trooper, even though it meant giving up the circle of friends and family she had charmed for all her twenty-two years. Marie protested at first, for she was busily engaged in trying to raise Anna’s level of Catholic consciousness. Tom protested, too, not so much because they were leaving but because he wasn’t recalled.
Harry and Anna packed their clothes in the huge trunk of his Buick Roadmaster convertible and headed out across the southern United States, stopping like a couple of kids at the tourist traps, rarely passing one of the snake farms on Route 66. The Buick cruised easily at sixty-five miles per hour, and Anna enjoyed teasing him as they drove, kissing his ears, running her hand inside his trousers, and in general preparing him well for a night of lovemaking in one of the roadside motels that they found each evening. The motels ran from squalid to functional, with the worst being the El Hidalgo in Deming, New Mexico, where water from the mildew-laden shower ran across the floor to a drain in the center of the room.
They arrived at Dayton on the fifteenth, rented a furnished apartment on the sixteenth, and moved in on the seventeenth. They spent one day getting the necessities for housekeeping, and Harry reported in, anxious to start working at the Fighter Operations
at the Flight Test Division of the Wright Air Development Center.
In his heart Harry realized that he wouldn’t have dared to ask for so sweet an assignment after all his bomber experience, and he was truly grateful to be back in fighters after so many years.
The charismatic Boyd was gifted with a dual personality that worked enormously to his advantage. At work he was stern, square jawed, with a commanding air that inspired just the right combination of fear and confidence. A former airmail pilot, he had over time picked up the ability to manage large organizations, and his operation at Wright-Pat, with all its disparate requirements, was noted for its efficiency. Yet off duty he was affable and friendly, able to keep a crowd laughing with the stories of his adventures. Tall, lean, and rangy, he ran a tight ship, sparing with a smile but quick with a scowl. He could not have pulled it off if his pilots, the cream of the Army crop, did not know that he would never ask them to do something that he wouldn’t do. More important, they knew that if he chose, he could probably do whatever it was better than they could.
It was Boyd who, after long calculation, ratcheted aviation another notch forward by carefully managing the quest to break the so-called sound barrier, personally selecting Chuck Yeager to fly the Bell XS-1 on the historic October 14, 1947, supersonic flight. Boyd selected Yeager as the test pilot on the same basis that he made all his decisions: who was best for the job. And Boyd knew everything about his test pilots, from the way they flew airplanes to the way they behaved—or misbehaved—at Pancho Barnes’s notorious desert hideaway. His greeting to Harry was characteristically abrupt.
“Hello, Shannon. I know your father; he’s a good man. Don’t think you are going to be a test pilot here, because you’re not.”
The hopes Harry had harbored about doing just that withered.
“I have better things for you to do than flying hop after hop jotting instrument readings on a knee pad. I need a problem solver, and they tell me you are getting to be as good as your dad. I heard about how you handled that weird Massey airplane. That put them out of business, and they deserved it, coming up with a lash-up like that.”
Roaring Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age Page 18