Kelly Read online

  All sorts of corrections were considered, including change of the wing shape itself, to control local stall characteristics. In the wind tunnel, we put hundreds of tufts of yarn on the wing so that we could watch stall patterns develop in simulated flight. When would air flow separate and under what conditions? It wasn’t the first time we had used yarn to observe air flow, but it certainly was the most complete such test we ever had conducted.

  And for the first time we had an AO, automatic observer. A complete set of instruments was connected to the airplane’s systems. One camera would show the time and all flight conditions—airspeed, altitude, rate of roll—28 different recordings. This was synchronized with two other cameras that took pictures of the left and right wings when a stall developed.

  That test program probably was the most thorough for specific aircraft performance characteristics undertaken to that time. And then in flight I joined the pilots in making 550 stalls and falling all over the sky in the San Fernando Valley for several months. It was an interesting way to make a living.

  But it was not possible then to make these tests in the wind tunnel because we could not simulate the slip-stream effect of the propellers. When the electric motor models were scaled down to fit into the proper-scale engine nacelle they simply could not produce enough power for a realistic test. We had no choice but to fly.

  The result of this work was the “letter-box” modification already mentioned. A venturi-like opening at the bottom of the wing narrowed as it carried air through the wing, so that it was released over the top surface at much higher speed than normal at that point on the wing. And it was fresh air, not tired of flowing over half the wing. It was able to do this at angles of attack much more successfully than could any wing section alone. There were at the time other retractable wing slots—notably by De Haviland—but we found the complexity and maintenance problems not tolerable.

  What we did was based on the Coanda effect, named for the French engineer who discovered that if he blew air on a curved surface, the flow did not separate from it but tended to remain stable on that surface. The principle is used routinely now in boundary-layer control.

  These were good times for me personally. In 1938, I became chief research engineer for Lockheed.

  When Lockheed’s engineering department began to expand I recruited some of the students I knew from the University of Michigan. Willis Hawkins was first; I had corrected his papers for Professor Stalker and knew his scholastic ability. Rudy Thoren and John Margwarth followed. Carl Haddon, who had been a year ahead of me in college, joined us.

  It was almost like a university club. And then in night classes at Cal Tech I met another group of young engineers. Phil Colman was recruited there. With Irv Culver and E. O. Richter, these were the stalwarts I started with as chief research engineer.

  The work on the “Lockheed-Fowler Flap” brought me my first major award as an engineer, the Lawrence Sperry Award for “important improvements of aeronautical design of high speed commercial aircraft”, in 1937.

  The two major developments arising out of the Model 14 design, the Lockheed-Fowler flaps and the “letter-box” slots—both of which give the airplane excellent handling characteristics—were to become especially important in light of the unexpected role this airplane was to play in history.

  8

  War and Mass Production

  THE YEAR 1938 WAS TO CHANGE LIFE FOR US at the growing Lockheed plant as, indeed, it did for everyone around the world. Hitler was on the move in Europe, and the British military—despite their prime minister’s assurances of “peace in our time”—could see the inevitability of war. That flawed mission of Neville Chamberlain’s meeting with Hitler in Munich was flown, incidentally, in an Electra. That airplane and its two commercial derivatives had met wide acceptance.

  Remembering the lessons of World War I, the British knew that in event of war with Germany they could expect tremendous shipping losses. They needed, among other things, an antisubmarine patrol plane. In April of that year, they sent a purchasing commission to the United States to buy a training plane and a coastal patrol bomber.

  The committee was not even scheduled to visit the Lockheed plant. But the company officers were informed via telegram by the British air attaché in Washington just five days beforehand that the group would come to California. And they decided to do something about it. Our Model 14 was fast, about the right size, and capable of carrying the necessary equipment. We hurriedly built a full-scale wooden mockup of an antisubmarine version.

  Kenneth Smith, then working as a sales representative for Robert Gross, studied newspaper photos of the group and memorized their names. When they landed at Glendale airport, he greeted each and invited the group to inspect the mockup Lockheed had developed. They did—that very day.

  Our mockup, of course, was only our guess as to what the British would need. But when they saw how enthusiastic we were about the project, they gave us a better idea of what they had in mind. Their visit was on a Friday. We incorporated what changes we could over the weekend and called them on Monday for another inspection. And we had prepared reports to show the plane’s performance. They were so impressed that this little company had the gumption to address their problem that they invited us to England to talk to their technical people.

  Robert Gross’s younger brother, Courtlandt, who had by now joined Lockheed management, led the team. The other three were our lawyer from Boston, Bob Proctor; Carl Squier, then vice president for sales; and I. We sailed on the Queen Mary. Courtlandt has insisted that I found this means of locomotion very inefficient and mentally redesigned the ship on the way over. It sounds typical, and I suppose I did.

  At the Air Ministry, our proposal lasted about 30 minutes. We had made the mistake of basing our mockup on stacking the bombs and torpedoes in the manner of the U.S. Army Air Corps in racks from floor to top of cabin. The British wanted everything in the bomb bay. They wanted to install their own oxygen system and other equipment so that everything would be supportable directly from their stores. And they wanted a gun turret to protect the plane from the rear and also forward-firing guns. There wasn’t a powered turret that would fire in any direction in the United States at that time. All of these changes affected the entire structure of the airplane—weight, balance, performance. This required almost a complete redesign and we decided to undertake it on the spot.

  Following the meeting, we bought a drawing board, some T-squares, triangles, and other drafting equipment, and headed back to our quarters in Mayfair Court. I had to fit in all this new equipment, re-arrange copilot and radio operator positions, make weight and structural analysis, figure contract pricing, and guarantee that the design would meet certain performance requirements.

  It was a three-day holiday weekend—Whit Sunday, Whit Monday. I worked a solid 72 hours on this redesign—not taking time for sleep, just catnapping briefly when absolutely necessary. I was a rumpled figure.

  When finally I fell into bed for some very sound sleep—in the room I shared with Courtlandt to save on expenses—it was the first time I had removed my clothes in 72 hours. I awoke the next morning to discover that he had had my suit pressed and my shoes shined. How wonderful, I thought, that the head of the company would do something like that for an employee. That kind of consideration was typical of the gentlemen I worked for.

  When we reappeared at the Air Ministry with a complete new layout on Tuesday, the British were surprised that we had worked through the holiday. In another week or so of meetings with the British, we were able to answer most of their questions. But they had one for Court Gross. He was called aside by the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Virnay, and asked, as best Gross remembers:

  “Mr. Gross, we like your proposal very much, and we very much like to deal with Lockheed. On the other hand, you must understand that we’re very unused in this country to dealing—particularly on transactions of such magnitude—on the technical say-so of a man as young as Mr.
Johnson. And, therefore, I’ll have to have your assurance, and guarantee, in fact, that if we do go forward, the aircraft resulting from the purchase will in every way live up to Mr. Johnson’s specifications.”

  Courtlandt assured the Air Marshal that he and his brother, Robert, had “every confidence” in me and that their trust in Lockheed would not be misplaced. I was 28 years old, quite a mature age, I thought. Courtlandt was 36.

  Within a few days, on June 23, the Air Ministry gave Lockheed an order to build 200 airplanes of the model that became known as the Hudson, nicknamed “Old Boomerang” because it so often came back when very badly shot up. The contract also called for as many more than 200, up to a maximum of 250, as could be delivered by December 1939. This was the largest aircraft production order placed up to that time in the United States.

  Johnson’s mentor and organizational genius Courtlandt S. Gross who with brother Robert helped shape Lockheed’s destiny.

  The British hadn’t wanted us to discuss their equipment and plans over the transatlantic phone to the plant, so Hibbard and Gross and the others were quite surprised when we returned with an order for an airplane considerably different from the original design.

  We came back on the German ship Bremen because its sailing time was much more convenient than the Queen Mary’s. We wanted to return as soon as possible and get to work. Within 30 minutes after we had boarded, stowed our gear, and found the ship’s bar, our cabins had been thoroughly searched. They knew who we were. Our plans were in the diplomatic pouch on board the Queen Mary.

  We had burned all of our preliminary drawings in the fireplace at Mayfair Court, setting a fire in the chimney. So much carbon had collected within it over a great many years that it burned like coal. Chunks of it fell down along with flaming papers. Fortunately, the fireplace drew beautifully. We really cleaned it out. The fire scared hell out of us, though. We raced outside and saw the flames leaping up, then retreated quickly so we wouldn’t call attention to it and our own involvement. We didn’t want to have to pay for any damage caused. Luckily, there was none. The whole experience lasted only 15 or 20 minutes, but it seemed much longer at the time.

  Taking on such a big production order took courage on the part of the Grosses. In 1936, the company had purchased more land in Burbank and the next year had expanded production, administration, and engineering facilities. Total floor space was 250,000 square feet, employment rose to 2,500, net working capital reached $650,000, and the company had about $334,000 in the bank.

  After the British order was placed, a young bank vice president, Charles A. Barker, Jr., who had been following the growth of the company joined it as vice president for finance. He and Gross were able to raise $1,250,000 in short-term financing and, in 1939, Lockheed offered its first public stock valued at $3,000,000. That 250th Hudson was produced more than seven weeks ahead of schedule.

  When the first three Hudsons were delivered, I returned to England with them for a flight-test and familiarization program, and to prove guaranteed performance. I was able to take Althea with me on the Queen Mary, and she loved life aboard ship. We danced every night and had a real vacation. In London, she loved to explore the city while I was working. Althea returned home when I went up to Martlesham Heath northeast of London for the flight-test assignment. The site was the British equivalent of the test center at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. I remained there about three months.

  Lockheed test pilot Milo Burcham was with me. I particularly remember one event—the diving demonstration. We wanted clear weather for this and waited ten days or so before, finally, some holes appeared in the cloud overcast. We decided to chance it and took off when we had our calibrated barograph aboard and the plane loaded with the equivalent weight of arms. Almost immediately, the weather began to close in again.

  Althea Johnson, left, and Kelly, right, aboard the Queen Mary with the Lockheed team that sold the Hudson light bomber (left) to the British—the first in the company’s series of successful maritime patrol aircraft.

  “Let’s try it anyway,” Milo suggested.

  After we’d climbed to altitude, we roared down with full power to our designed dive speed and leveled out. Low. So low that I remember distinctly flying by a cottage and seeing a woman looking out at us through the flowered curtains of her kitchen window.

  “What pretty curtains,” I thought.

  We both were shaking slightly after in the eight minutes from takeoff to landing, but we stepped out as if we did that sort of thing every day.

  The British drafted me into the Royal Air Force unofficially for the familiarization flights. They wouldn’t take an American pilot, but assigned me—in an RAF blue flight suit—as flight engineer because I had to show them how to operate the engines for maximum range on fuel and demonstrate other operating procedures.

  One of my early endeavors must have made the British wonder if I really knew what I was talking about. I wanted to show them what an excellent safety control we had on the landing gear—that it was not possible to retract it accidentally on the ground as you could with retractable gear in most other aircraft at the time. So one of the first things I did in the cockpit on ground inspection was to reach for the handle to show that it could not be raised, that it was held down by a solenoid. Of course, the handle came up. Fortunately, the weight of the gear was enough that the gear itself did not come up. Well, we re-rigged that and went ahead with the flight and familiarization. I had to prove all the performance figures we had guaranteed earlier.

  It was in the course of these proving flights that I had my first dramatic encounter with the effectiveness of the English radar system.

  The Hudson program was conducted under Commander “Red” Collins with whom I made many flights. He found the “iron mike”—the Sperry autopilot—the greatest of inventions. In the lead ship of a three-plane formation one day—with one Hudson fifty feet off our right wing and another fifty feet off our left wing—he put his plane on autopilot and proceeded to read the London Times. I hoped that the autopilot was good enough to fly us in formation for as long as this flight was going to last, but I went ahead with my work in the copilot’s seat, leaning out the fuel flow to the engines to achieve maximum range.

  We were aiming for a 2,200-mile flight to prove that the plane had that range without refueling and we had to fly all over Great Britain, Ireland, and the English Channel to cover that mileage. All was going well, but as we approached Scotland I saw dead ahead some huge black thunderheads we were going to fly right into. Commander Collins was still reading his newspaper.

  “Look, Red,” I interrupted, “I don’t think we should tangle with that, do you?”

  “Oh, my God, no!” He reacted immediately, reached up to disconnect the autopilot, and wheeled the airplane hard left. One Hudson went over us—I could see flames from its exhaust pipe—and the other passed underneath. Both went into the storm. We didn’t, but had lost our formation.

  With the aid of ground radar the three aircraft were rejoined.

  We completed our range demonstration—and the Times—and flew back to base. But I had seen demonstrated the early English radar that was to serve so well later in the Battle of Britain. The ground crews had been able to locate all three aircraft in that stormy weather, guide us back into formation, and track us for the entire flight.

  The RAF made good use of the Hudson, which performed as a fighter in the Battle of Dunkirk. In its primary role on antisubmarine patrol, it became the first airplane ever to capture a submarine. The U-boat had surfaced when spotted, and the Hudson kept its guns trained on the sub until a destroyer arrived.

  Before the U.S. produced anti-submarine aircraft of its own, we actually had to borrow back some Hudsons. After this country entered the war, German submarine “Wolf Packs” began attacking our oil tankers within ten miles of the East Coast. Night after night they could be seen burning, and we had not a single anti-submarine warfare (ASW) airplane in the U.S. at the time. So we b
orrowed 19 Hudsons from the British and began to build some ASW planes for our own defense. Nearly 3,000 Hudsons were built by war’s end for the British, Australia, and the U.S.

  The Hudson, in fact, was the first in a long line of ASW aircraft, produced to this day, by Lockheed. The early ones, the Navy’s PV-1 and PV-2 were derivatives of the Lodestar transport, a “stretched” Electra. New designs emerged later, for anti-submarine warfare is a very specialized, highly-sophisticated science.

  On the PV-2, we did some pioneering work on “high-activity” propellers—out of necessity, a frequent reason. The aircraft’s engines in the original design had so much power that we could not swing a propeller of the proper diameter to take advantage of it. We really needed a 17-foot propeller, which would have chopped about a foot into the fuselage! Starting with a new design, we put the engine nacelles far enough out on the wing to provide for the proper-diameter propeller. Ten feet, six inches was the largest diameter we could handle with that configuration.

  So, to solve the immediate problem with the PV-2, I asked Hamilton Standard to reduce a 17-foot prop to 10 feet 6 inches to see how it would work. The prop was shorter but wider, grabbed a bigger bite of air while turning more slowly, and thereby avoided problems with air buildup at the tips.

  Rapid technological development in propellers had begun in 1936 and ’37. We were getting into variable pitch, full feathering, constant speed, and propeller reversing.

  It was and is important for an engineer to keep up with advancing technology. Studying, fortunately, still held for me the same fascination that it had when I discovered the Carnegie library in Ishpeming. On one summer vacation in those early years, I reworked all of the problems in Fred Weick’s classic book, Aircraft Propeller Design. On another vacation years later, I reworked every problem in Dr. Clyde E. Love’s, Differential and Integral Calculus, which I had completed in college. I was determined not to lose my capability in mathematics. And I enjoyed both vacations.