Slide Rule Paperback – January 12, 2008

“I say, it produced a satisfaction almost amounting to a religious experience. After literally months of labour, having filled perhaps fifty foolscap sheets with closely pencilled figures, after many disappointments and heartaches, the truth stood revealed, real, and perfect, and unquestionable; the very truth.’’This focus on ‘scientific/mathematical’ truth has overtaken modernity. This is an outstanding expression of the seductive power of science. Many hoped this ‘truth’ could be found for every problem. We now know it was false. Sad.“It did one good; one was the better for the experience. It struck me at the time that those who built the great arches of the English cathedrals in mediaeval times must have known something of our mathematics, and perhaps passed through the same experience, and I have wondered if Freemasonry has anything to do with this.’’Another false road shown in this work . . .“The last of them was R. 38. On her third flight a structural weakness in the girders was revealed, but was made light of. On her fourth flight she was doing turning trials over the Humber in very perfect weather when she broke in two, the front part catching fire and falling in the river and the rear part coming down on land. Forty-four lives were lost in the accident.’’‘Structural weakness ignored’! How bad? Forty-four died!“At the enquiry into the disaster it came out that the officials responsible had made no calculations whatsoever of the aerodynamic forces acting on the ship in flight; it was not therefore very surprising that she broke when doing turns at full helm and full speed. . . . Andwhen I came on the report of the R. 38 accident enquiry I sat stunned, unable to believe the words that I was reading.’’Why stunned?“I had come from the hard commercial school of de Havillands where competence was the key to survival and a disaster might have meant the end of the company and unemployment for everyone concerned with it. It was inexpressibly shocking to me to find that before building the vast and costly structure of R. 38 the civil servants concerned had made no attempt to calculate the aerodynamic forces acting on the ship, and I remember going to one of my chiefs with the report in my hand to ask him if this could possibly be true. Not only did he confirm it but he pointed out that no one had been sacked over it, nor even suffered any censure. Indeed, he said, the same team of men had been entrusted with the construction of another airship, the R. 101.’’‘The civil servants’ no attempt calculated the forces! No reproof. . .no nothing. Just a promotion to another . . . Why?“The Government of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald appointed a Cabinet Committee to investigate the whole matter and to decide a course of action. There was, of course, a strong inclination towards State enterprise and a disinclination to put the whole airship programme in the hands of private capital; moreover there was a nucleus of civil servants in the Air Ministry who had been associated with the R. 38, who considered that they alone knew how to build airships.’’ (Their airplane killed forty-four)Preconceived ideas are powerful. The state is trusted, business is evil.“The controversy of capitalism versus State enterprise has been argued, tested, and fought out in many ways in many countries, but surely the airship venture in England stands as the most curious determination of this matter. The Cabinet Committee heard all the evidence, and had difficulty in making up their minds. Finally, in effect, they said, “The Air Ministry at Cardington shall build an airship of a certain size, load-carrying capacity, and speed, and Vickers Ltd shall build another one to the same contract specification. By this ingenious device we shall find out which is the better principle, capitalism or State enterprise.” I joined the capitalist team.’’What happened?“For the sake of appearances it had been necessary to give commercial interests some small share in the experiment, but it was impossible to suppose that any private company could compete with Cardington in this matter, backed as it was by all the finance and research resources of the Government.’’‘Impossible business better than government’. Really?“The staff of the private company took a different view. In 1916 the principle had been laid down for aeroplanes that all construction should be left in the hands of private enterprise, a decision which had been imposed by bitter experience. In the realm of airships this principle had never been observed, and the bitter experience was not yet at an end. The disaster to the government-designed R. 38 was still fresh in the memory. These were the people, said the private staff bitterly, these very same men all but one who had killed himself in R. 38, who were to be entrusted with the construction of another airship when by rights they ought to be in gaol for manslaughter.’’They didn’t go to jail. Where did they end up?“Most of those men are now dead, killed in the accident to the airship they designed in competition with us, the R. 101, and it may be that these acerbities ought not to be revived twenty-five years later. If I revive them for a moment now it is because there are still lessons to be learned.’’Wow!This story covers about quarter of the book. Shute presents his childhood, some war time service, and touching family stories. The majority explains his starting and then developing an airplane construction business.Says he is writing with the goal of helping entrepreneurs succeed. Venture capital, stock holders, board members, auditors, debt and risk, are all here. Reads like a business case study; only more personal, more heartfelt. Wonderful!One other revealing insight is his explanation of his writing. Covers how he started and why. Now world famous author, with a number of his books used as movie sources.I have read several of his books over the years. Some more than once. Now, I think I might take a second look.Smooth, pleasant read. Touching. Enlightening and interesting. Recommended.

Nevile Shute is known today for "On the Beach," even though he wrote a fair handful of other novels. But,before taking his only paycheck as a writer, he worked as an aeronautical engineer and entrepreneur.Starting with a perfunctory recount of early early life and education, Shute dives deeply and fast into his career in aviation engineering. Learning to fly was informal in the pre-WWI era ("C'mon, hop in and I'll show you.")Long story short, Shute pursued a career in hydrogen-lofted airships (pre-WWI and pre-Hindenberg, it seemed like a good idea). After that, he pursued, created, headed, and eventually had to let go of a life in pre-WWII aviation. It started when each individual plane was made to order. Think open cockpit, biplane, wooden struts, and everything a modern airliner isn't.But they didn't even have airlines then. So, as Shute details his advancement through the 19-teens, twenties, and thirties, it reads like an autobiography of an hands-on engineer advancing from unpaid apprentice to executive in charge of an thousand-man fabrication plant, to golden-parachute ouster when his company, "Airspeed", had to go totally corporate. The rogues needed to bring it to life just could not be tolerated in the company's adulthood.So, if you want to know Shute's inner lifer as writer, you'll find scant clues. Although he'd been writing while working as engineer, making a living as writer really started once the board kicked him out of the C-suite. There ends the story as this book tells it. But Shute kept writing, and kept his publisher well-endowed, and caught the odd movie right here and there.Read this as a very telling history of the 1910-1940 era of crazy aircraft industry development, with Shute armpit-deep in the craziness. Don't read it as autobiography in any sense that "biography" led you to expect. Quirky and not for everyone, I like it. And it gives me a lot more context for the pseudonymous Shute's incredible fiction.-- wiredweird

This book is a one of a kind. It is an not only an account of Nevil Shute's career, but is an insight into the social and work-place conditions of the time. (When the engineers and not the accountants called the shots.) The story includes Nevil's adolescent years and refers, in particular, to how enlightened parents can provide the seeds for intellectual development. At a time when unemployment was rife, he, through persistence, driven by a passion for aviation, cut his engineering skills on the R-100. (The British airship that didn't crash). He became instrumental in the development of many aircraft and rose to a senior management position. He saw the huge expansions of WW2 but succumbed to the economies that followed. (The accountants moved in). If you ever wondered why Britain lost its leadership in aviation research and development, just read between the lines.I thoroughly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in the way things were, but particularly to those designers, inventors and engineers who will no doubt wish that it could be that way again,Nevil Shute, of course, went on to become a world acclaimed writer with such titles as " On the Beach" and "A Town like Alice", both of which were made into "Block-buster" movies. How can one man be so broadly talented?"

Although I had read some of Neville Shute's books,I hadn't totally understood the extent of his life in engineering in general and aircraft in particular.I read a recommendation for this book and once it arrived I read it in two days.The early days of the aircraft industry were anything but staid and much development occurred in all sorts of directions.It was slightly shocking to be reminded of such things as biplanes being commonplace and the retractable undercarriage being just a dream initially.For me,the most fascinating part of the book covered the development of the R100 with notes comparing the engineering decisions taken by the rival R101 group.The whole book is written in the easy style of a well seasoned writer and doesn't veer into abstruse or jargon filled accounts.Highly recommended.

Written in 1953 Slide Rule gives amazing insight into the British aviation industry after WW1 up to and including WW2. It navigates the reader from the age of the then revolutionary airships the R100 & the ensuing tragedy of the R101 through to the pre-war civil and military designs which became legend in the training of RAF pilots.The Author’s unique perspective of his revolutionary airframe designs gives any reader a true, enlightening glimpse into the trials and tribulations of the running, staffing and financing of what was an industry fraught with problems, yet essential to the National effort, both in peace & war.Running parallel is Neville Shute’s burgeoning success with his first novels.Not an easy read.But fascinating.

Slide Rule is an autobiography, but the part that almost everyone will buy it for is the account of the building of the R100 airship in competition with the R101. These were the largest of their generation, vastly larger than the A380 and 747 jets of today. You get a real impression of the excitement of meeting the engineering challenges and developing novel solutions.It then goes on to talk about the demonstration flight from the UK to Canada and back, and again, you get a sense of the sheer scale of the thing, when Shute talks about taking the walk-way over the top of the airship while in flight, climbing over the sleeping bodies of men taking the sun. He also talks about in-flight repairs of the fabric panels of the control surfaces.Shortly after this flight, all UK airship development was permanently stopped due to the fatal crash of the R101, which he analyses. As so few people worked on airships, there is very little material which gives a human perspective on them, and this is probably the only one easily available.

A snapshot of the UK aircraft industry in the 1920s and 1930s.The details of the R100 and R101 airship stories are fascinating.

This is the autobiography of a man who not only was a successful author but also an aeronautical engineer and one of a group that founded an aircraft manufacturing company. It is of its time but very interesting.