Supersonic Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age (46 page)

Vance turned to Warren Bowers, saying, “Warren, here’s the man you should write your next book about. Colonel O’Malley has been both a fighter pilot and a bomber pilot, and he sort of epitomizes the new age of flying.”

Bowers, diffident as usual, said he would be pleased, but O’Malley laughed and said, “Warren, if you’ve only written one book about Vance Shannon, you have your work cut out for you. I’ve been studying the Shannon family for years, and between Vance, Harry, and Tom, they are the world of aviation in one family.”

Vance jumped in. “And don’t forget our partner, Bob Rodriquez, who did the initial work on the smart bombs.”

Rodriquez had been hanging back, as usual, conscious that this was a family gathering but filled with emotion that Mae, young Bob, and he were so completely accepted. Diffident as usual, he said, very softly, “Warren, Colonel O’Malley is right; you’ve got another two or three books in the Shannon family alone. Think about what is coming along, the F-15 and the F-16, the B-1, lots more stuff, and maybe in another ten years or so a supersonic airliner. When they all are operational, the Shannons will already be working on the next generation, and I’ll be proud to be helping.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

THIS IS THE story of the fantastically swift rise of jet aviation from a military curiosity to a system of civil and military aircraft that has revolutionized the world.

All of the events pertaining to the advance of jet aviation in this trilogy of novels are real—production decisions, rollouts, cancellations, first flights, records set, crashes, everything. These incredible accomplishments are properly credited to the people who made them possible, for example, Sir Frank Whittle and Hans von Ohain for the invention of the jet engine, Kelly Johnson for the creation of the U-2, Bill Allen and Juan Trippe for initiating the Boeing 747, Andrei and Alexei Tupolev for creating the Tu-144 supersonic transport, and so on through the years.

But these giants would be the first to recognize that the projects attributed to them are the work of a vast system of people—engineers, pilots, mechanics, sales personnel, accountants, and so on. It is, of course, impossible to recognize all of the participants in real time in a novel. Instead, a fictional family, the Shannons, and their associates have been created to provide continuity and insight and to substitute for all of the thousands of important people who cannot be recognized individually.

Thus Vance Shannon, the patriarch of the Shannon family, finds his way around the world of jet aviation, acting as a facilitator, a lubricant, a pressure pump, for telling the story of the momentous rise of jet aviation from the first successful jet airplanes in 1939 to the hypersonic scramjets of the future. The Shannons are on-scene for most of the major events or create relationships with those who are.

In some instances, real events have been compressed in time and space so that they can be related as fiction in the form of the actions of the Shannon family. In all cases, however, there has been no alteration to the effect of the events on the development of jet aviation.

WALTER J. BOYNE
Ashburn, Virginia,
November 28, 2004

FORGE BOOKS BY WALTER J. BOYNE

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Supersonic Thunder

Today’s Best Military Writing
(editor)

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

SUPERSONIC THUNDER: A NOVEL OF THE JET AGE

Copyright © 2006 by Walter J. Boyne

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

A Forge Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

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is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

eISBN 9781429988193

First eBook Edition : February 2011

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Boyne, Walter J. 1929-

Supersonic thunder : a novel of the jet age / Walter J. Boyne.—1st hardcover ed. p. cm.

“A Tom Doherty Associates Book.”

ISBN-13: 978-0-765-30844-3

ISBN-10: 0-765-30844-4

1. Johnson, Clarence L.—Fiction. 2. LeVier, Tony, 1913-1998—Fiction. 3. Aeronautical engineers—Fiction. 4. Test pilots—Fiction. 5. Jet planes—Fiction. 6. Aircraft Industry—Fiction. 7. Inventors—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3552.0937S87 2006

813’.54—dc22

2006030409

First Edition: January 2007