[PLUG-TALK] Nevil Shute

[Keith Lofstrom]

On Tue, May 07, 2013 at 01:30:15PM -0700, Russell Senior wrote:
> Hey, while we've veered onto voting, I just want to mention an
> author/engineer named Nevil Shute (which was a pen name, his real last
> name was Norway).
> 
>   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevil_Shute
> 
> He wrote a whole series of (typically) engineer-centric or
> aviation-centric novels in the middle of the 20th century. 

Just in case you folks think I disagree with Russell on
everything, here we are in radical agreement.  I don't have the
"matching set" - but I do have all the Nevil Shute novels that
I know about.  Also multiple copies of Trustee from the Toolroom,
because I'm often loaning that out - and usually not getting it
back, because the borrowers loan it to someone else.  I even
have the book-on-tape version to loan to vision-impaired folk.

Shute was not only a novellist.  Besides being an engineer and
entrepreneur, he wrote my favorite Shute book, an engineering
autobiography, "Slide Rule" describing his career as a
dirigible designer, and then as the founder of Airspeed Ltd. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slide_Rule:_Autobiography_of_an_Engineer

Both these stories speak to present concerns.  In the 1920s, the
Received Wisdom was that passenger aircraft would be dirigibles,
not fixed-wing heaver-than-air aircraft.   After all, nature
provides "free lift" (sound familiar?).  The British government
instituted the Imperial Aircraft Scheme to subsidize and promote
dirigibles, and funded two designs - the R100 from the private
company Vickers, and the R101 from government Air Ministry. 

The R101 was poorly designed, and crashed in France during a storm,
killing all on board, including Air Minister Lord Thompson, who was
the instigator of the airship program.  The R100 flew successfully
to Canada and back, but was scrapped along with the airship program.
Just as well - dirigibles don't need powered lift to stay airborne,
but they need a hell of a lot more energy to punch a hole through
the air.  And they are unstable, they tend to flip vertical in
some atmospheric conditions, similar to this picture of the Los
Angeles: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattiadc/5244286078/
That was at a mooring mast - vertical flips also happened in
flight, leaving no pictures, or survivors.  

In 1931, Shute started the fixed wing passenger aircraft company,
Airspeed Ltd.     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airspeed_Ltd. 
with six employees.  Evolving from 10 passenger wood-and-canvas
biplanes in 1932 to monocoque aluminum airplanes by the end of
the decade.  Airspeed was now 1000 employees, but too small to
compete; it merged with deHavilland, and as a subsidiary produced
thousands of transports and gliders during World War II.  These
companies were the Googles of their day - but growing much
faster, in the midst of global economic depression.  Amazing.

I won't go into the politics of these projects - read the book
and form your own opinions.  The author of the Wikipedia article
claims Shute's autobiography is biased, but provides no citations
for that (full disclosure, I added a "citation needed" to the
article).  Perhaps the facts presented by Shute clashed with the
bias of the Wikipedia author.  That speaks to present concerns, too.

Keith

P.S. The Congress finally passed re-enabling legislation for the
helium stockpile.  Initiated to preserve the helium supply for
dirigibles, it has been considered a classic example of government
programs outliving their usefulness.  But helium (found in well
gas) is a unique element, essential for low temperature work,
practical superconductivity, and many other technologies.  When
it is released into the atmosphere, over about 10 million years
it boils off into space, gone forever.  It is produced /very/
slowly (3000 tons/year) by radioactive decay deep in the earth;
there's no practical way to make more.  So airships may have
been mostly useless, but they enabled helium-based technologies.

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993