REVIEW of SLIDE RULE by NEVIL SHUTE
I first read Slide Rule years ago after enjoying many of Shute’s other books, and it shaped my life in many ways. He’d overcome so much from being a child with a bad stammer. He was lucky in that he had wonderful parents. He was made fun of at his school in Hammersmith, not only by his school mates, but by his teachers, too. Life was an unbearable misery and he could not take it. So, he played truant, rode the trains or sat on railways stations observing the hubbub. Later, he rode into Kensington and spent hours in the British Museum studying the engineering exhibits like trains and planes. Maybe Fate was smiling upon him.
In 1915, Nevil and his family were sent to Ireland. His father was to be the Post Master for the British Postal Service. Nevil described how happy he and his brother, Fred, had been. But this was short-lived. Nevil happened to be standing on Sackville Street in Dublin, near the post office, when all hell broke loose; the armed Irish uprising had begun. The rebels rushed into the post office and took it over. The Irish didn’t much like an Englishman being sent to run their postal system! Luckily, Nevil’s dad was in another building at the time or he may have been a casualty. As a young lad of seventeen, Nevil acted as a stretcher bearer during those dangerous hours. He later received a commendation for his bravery.
Two years on, his brother, who Nevil said was the real literary one, was dying from shell wounds and gangrene inflicted at the Front in France. His mother and father had rushed to his bedside. Nevil knew it was just a matter of time before he, too, was sent to France to die—it was the fate of all young men. They expected it. After being called up and trained for combat, he was sent to the Isle of Grain for a time and, fortunately for him (and for us), the war ended and he was spared.
In Slide Rule, Nevil described going to Oxford and studying engineering at Balliol College. He said it was a pleasant experience, but his vacation time was even better, since he went to work for DeHavillands (for no pay!). There, he met important people who would shape his life and teach him about aeroplane design and flying.
Later, he was hired by Barnes Wallis as Chief Calculator at Vickers Aircraft to work on the design of Airship R100. He was based at first in Crayford, Kent, where he put his team together and worked on initial design calculations. He used to ride horses in Petts Wood in the early mornings on the common before going to work. I know that beautiful area—I once lived there with my own family.
As part of his research (bear in mind he knew nothing about airship design), Nevil studied the spectacular Airship R38 disaster of 1921 which occurred over the River Humber and killed most of the American and British crewmen aboard as that ship broke in two. His thoughts and writings on this tragic event were vital and for my own book.
R38’s midair breakup had severe ramifications effecting airship design as well as the final outcome of the airship program. Cardington was desperate not to repeat previous mistakes. As a consequence and understandably, they designed for strength, but this tended to make their creation heavier. It was a delicate balance and maddening.
Nevil was scathing in his criticism relating to the R38 in those early days—just as he would be nine years later after R101’s demise—not so much of the characters involved as with the system that caused it to occur, or perhaps I should say, that failed to prevent it occurring. He highlighted what happens when government gets into the mix in aviation development and experimental flight. The Challenger Disaster might be pointed to as a modern day example.
Nevil describes how in 1924, Lord Thomson set up the new British Airship Programme, whereby two teams, one private and one government, would work in competition. Thomson thought that he’d show once and for all that ‘government enterprise’ could out do ‘private enterprise’. Thomson believed the two systems were motivated by different underlying forces—the government by ‘the public good’, the private sector by ‘profit’—or as some called them: money-hungry profiteers!
When the private enterprise ship, R100, was ready and tested, it only remained for her to make a return flight to Canada. Later, the government ship, R101, was to make a voyage to India with Thomson on board. It was found that R101 was too heavy, while R100 adequately met contract requirements. The government team at Cardington made backdoor representations to the private team at Vickers to postpone their voyage. This was high stakes now. After being treated so badly by the government team for four years, Nevil and his bosses, Barnes Wallis and Dennis Burney, refused. They could hardly be expected to bail the other team out. So, in July of 1930, they slipped from the mast and set off for Canada.
The private Vickers team was lucky and made it to Canada and back while R101 was being cut in half so that an extra gas bag could be inserted to get her precious extra lift. On October 4th, 1930, R101 took off in a storm bound for India. Thomson had his schedule, which could not be delayed. She crashed on a hillside in Beauvais, the ignition of six million cubic feet of hydrogen lighting up the French countryside for miles. All but six were killed, including Thomson himself. There’s a lot more to this story in terms of human drama, making it an epic on a par with Titanic.
After that disaster, there was an inquiry of course. And like most government inquiries, no one was found guilty of anything. The airship program was abandoned and Nevil’s beloved Airship R100 was destroyed. The only people left in Britain qualified enough to testify were members of the Vickers team. The government did not ask them to testify, or even to attend the massive state funeral in London. Many of Nevil’s friends were among the dead.
In 2010, I was traveling from Heathrow to Dulles and I was reading Slide Rule again on my Kindle. I wanted to learn more about Nevil Shute’s life as an airshipman when he was Deputy Chief Engineer building Airship R100 in that monster shed in Howden, Yorkshire. Eyes tired, I put the book aside and looked out the window. We were flying along the St. Lawrence Seaway, Canada. I peered down at the Laurentian Mountains in the province of Quebec and marveled at the thought of how brave those men were when they flew just above the water down there on that Thursday, July 31, of 1930. They had flown over the majestic steamships Duchess of Bedford and Empress of Scotland, with their stately dark blue hulls and white topsides—with thousands cheering wildly up at them from their decks.
They had beat against a headwind making way at about 36 knots. During this leg of the voyage they experienced two severe problems, although Nevil seems to rather play it down in his stiff-upper-lip account. The first was due to turbulent air flowing down from the Saguenay River Valley that ran between 4,000 foot mountains into the St. Lawrence. It caused R100 to roll wildly and made for panicked moments on board. The crewmen in their engine cars signaled to say they had spotted severe damage to the cover on the tail sections. The ship was maneuvered to a calm area near an island on the opposite shore where the riggers precariously clambered around on the tail fins, high above the water, making repairs. After patching her up temporarily, they set off again.
The second incident occurred quite unnecessarily, through poor judgement, according to Nevil. While crawling around on the roof, the second officer and some riggers eyed a dangerous thunderstorm looming on the horizon. Major Scott, the most senior officer, ordered them to fly directly through it, despite the protestations of the captain. Scott had decided time was of the essence—suicide for an airship! As they entered the swirling black mass, the ship went from 1000 feet up to 5000 feet in a matter of seconds. To her credit, and the engineering genius of Barnes Wallis, the ship remained in one piece.
Peering down over the St. Lawrence that day helped somehow in my writing about these life-threatening, fist-biting events in The Airshipmen. I had to wonder what Nevil would have thought if he’d been able to look up and see our Boeing 777 careering along at 600 mph at 40,000 feet. He may have thought we were the crazy ones!
In Slide Rule, Nevil also tells of his business dealings with Airspeed. I hadn’t appreciated his entrepreneurial brilliance. He built an aircraft company rivaling De Havillands. His decency comes out in that text, his concerns for his employees (800 of them), if they went bust—which always appeared to be looming on the horizon. That was the core of Nevil’s personality: decency, goodness and modesty. I enjoyed this autobiography and seeing more than I’d seen in earlier readings over the years.
Some say the most important thing about a book is whether it changes the way you view life. Well, Nevil Shute’s novels certainly had an effect on me as a teenager. After reading his autobiography and novels, I wanted to build a company, to travel, to sail and to fly and yes, to write. I came close to accomplishing the first and managed the rest. I even ended up including Nevil in my own book. He was a thoroughly decent English chap, modest and underestimated. He was the type of man you’d want as a friend—a standup guy. I hope I’ve done him justice. I portrayed him as the most lovable character of them all.
In 1915, Nevil and his family were sent to Ireland. His father was to be the Post Master for the British Postal Service. Nevil described how happy he and his brother, Fred, had been. But this was short-lived. Nevil happened to be standing on Sackville Street in Dublin, near the post office, when all hell broke loose; the armed Irish uprising had begun. The rebels rushed into the post office and took it over. The Irish didn’t much like an Englishman being sent to run their postal system! Luckily, Nevil’s dad was in another building at the time or he may have been a casualty. As a young lad of seventeen, Nevil acted as a stretcher bearer during those dangerous hours. He later received a commendation for his bravery.
Two years on, his brother, who Nevil said was the real literary one, was dying from shell wounds and gangrene inflicted at the Front in France. His mother and father had rushed to his bedside. Nevil knew it was just a matter of time before he, too, was sent to France to die—it was the fate of all young men. They expected it. After being called up and trained for combat, he was sent to the Isle of Grain for a time and, fortunately for him (and for us), the war ended and he was spared.
In Slide Rule, Nevil described going to Oxford and studying engineering at Balliol College. He said it was a pleasant experience, but his vacation time was even better, since he went to work for DeHavillands (for no pay!). There, he met important people who would shape his life and teach him about aeroplane design and flying.
Later, he was hired by Barnes Wallis as Chief Calculator at Vickers Aircraft to work on the design of Airship R100. He was based at first in Crayford, Kent, where he put his team together and worked on initial design calculations. He used to ride horses in Petts Wood in the early mornings on the common before going to work. I know that beautiful area—I once lived there with my own family.
As part of his research (bear in mind he knew nothing about airship design), Nevil studied the spectacular Airship R38 disaster of 1921 which occurred over the River Humber and killed most of the American and British crewmen aboard as that ship broke in two. His thoughts and writings on this tragic event were vital and for my own book.
R38’s midair breakup had severe ramifications effecting airship design as well as the final outcome of the airship program. Cardington was desperate not to repeat previous mistakes. As a consequence and understandably, they designed for strength, but this tended to make their creation heavier. It was a delicate balance and maddening.
Nevil was scathing in his criticism relating to the R38 in those early days—just as he would be nine years later after R101’s demise—not so much of the characters involved as with the system that caused it to occur, or perhaps I should say, that failed to prevent it occurring. He highlighted what happens when government gets into the mix in aviation development and experimental flight. The Challenger Disaster might be pointed to as a modern day example.
Nevil describes how in 1924, Lord Thomson set up the new British Airship Programme, whereby two teams, one private and one government, would work in competition. Thomson thought that he’d show once and for all that ‘government enterprise’ could out do ‘private enterprise’. Thomson believed the two systems were motivated by different underlying forces—the government by ‘the public good’, the private sector by ‘profit’—or as some called them: money-hungry profiteers!
When the private enterprise ship, R100, was ready and tested, it only remained for her to make a return flight to Canada. Later, the government ship, R101, was to make a voyage to India with Thomson on board. It was found that R101 was too heavy, while R100 adequately met contract requirements. The government team at Cardington made backdoor representations to the private team at Vickers to postpone their voyage. This was high stakes now. After being treated so badly by the government team for four years, Nevil and his bosses, Barnes Wallis and Dennis Burney, refused. They could hardly be expected to bail the other team out. So, in July of 1930, they slipped from the mast and set off for Canada.
The private Vickers team was lucky and made it to Canada and back while R101 was being cut in half so that an extra gas bag could be inserted to get her precious extra lift. On October 4th, 1930, R101 took off in a storm bound for India. Thomson had his schedule, which could not be delayed. She crashed on a hillside in Beauvais, the ignition of six million cubic feet of hydrogen lighting up the French countryside for miles. All but six were killed, including Thomson himself. There’s a lot more to this story in terms of human drama, making it an epic on a par with Titanic.
After that disaster, there was an inquiry of course. And like most government inquiries, no one was found guilty of anything. The airship program was abandoned and Nevil’s beloved Airship R100 was destroyed. The only people left in Britain qualified enough to testify were members of the Vickers team. The government did not ask them to testify, or even to attend the massive state funeral in London. Many of Nevil’s friends were among the dead.
In 2010, I was traveling from Heathrow to Dulles and I was reading Slide Rule again on my Kindle. I wanted to learn more about Nevil Shute’s life as an airshipman when he was Deputy Chief Engineer building Airship R100 in that monster shed in Howden, Yorkshire. Eyes tired, I put the book aside and looked out the window. We were flying along the St. Lawrence Seaway, Canada. I peered down at the Laurentian Mountains in the province of Quebec and marveled at the thought of how brave those men were when they flew just above the water down there on that Thursday, July 31, of 1930. They had flown over the majestic steamships Duchess of Bedford and Empress of Scotland, with their stately dark blue hulls and white topsides—with thousands cheering wildly up at them from their decks.
They had beat against a headwind making way at about 36 knots. During this leg of the voyage they experienced two severe problems, although Nevil seems to rather play it down in his stiff-upper-lip account. The first was due to turbulent air flowing down from the Saguenay River Valley that ran between 4,000 foot mountains into the St. Lawrence. It caused R100 to roll wildly and made for panicked moments on board. The crewmen in their engine cars signaled to say they had spotted severe damage to the cover on the tail sections. The ship was maneuvered to a calm area near an island on the opposite shore where the riggers precariously clambered around on the tail fins, high above the water, making repairs. After patching her up temporarily, they set off again.
The second incident occurred quite unnecessarily, through poor judgement, according to Nevil. While crawling around on the roof, the second officer and some riggers eyed a dangerous thunderstorm looming on the horizon. Major Scott, the most senior officer, ordered them to fly directly through it, despite the protestations of the captain. Scott had decided time was of the essence—suicide for an airship! As they entered the swirling black mass, the ship went from 1000 feet up to 5000 feet in a matter of seconds. To her credit, and the engineering genius of Barnes Wallis, the ship remained in one piece.
Peering down over the St. Lawrence that day helped somehow in my writing about these life-threatening, fist-biting events in The Airshipmen. I had to wonder what Nevil would have thought if he’d been able to look up and see our Boeing 777 careering along at 600 mph at 40,000 feet. He may have thought we were the crazy ones!
In Slide Rule, Nevil also tells of his business dealings with Airspeed. I hadn’t appreciated his entrepreneurial brilliance. He built an aircraft company rivaling De Havillands. His decency comes out in that text, his concerns for his employees (800 of them), if they went bust—which always appeared to be looming on the horizon. That was the core of Nevil’s personality: decency, goodness and modesty. I enjoyed this autobiography and seeing more than I’d seen in earlier readings over the years.
Some say the most important thing about a book is whether it changes the way you view life. Well, Nevil Shute’s novels certainly had an effect on me as a teenager. After reading his autobiography and novels, I wanted to build a company, to travel, to sail and to fly and yes, to write. I came close to accomplishing the first and managed the rest. I even ended up including Nevil in my own book. He was a thoroughly decent English chap, modest and underestimated. He was the type of man you’d want as a friend—a standup guy. I hope I’ve done him justice. I portrayed him as the most lovable character of them all.
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