Re-Discovery
One of the prevailing themes of my life since starting Wild Blue Gear has been rediscovery. As a career aerospace engineer, part of my job was taking promising technologies from proof of concept to value creation in a system -- a concept known as 'advancing TRL'. Somebody invents a promising new technology, like a material that withstands very high temperatures, and we try to work out the kinks until it actually improves thermal efficiency of a jet engine, for example.
It's a deliberate path of careful planning, stakeholder engagement, execution, documentation and communication. Every once in a while, often unexpectedly, that gradual pace is punctuated by a small discovery -- a win. Some small step forward reassures you there is light at the end of the tunnel. One might expect to have only one or two such wins a year.
Ironically, those small victories are quickly overshadowed by the next challenge, and tempered by uncertainty that they will withstand peer and market scrutiny. While in the moment all glory is fleeting, those small victories are ironically the indelible hallmarks of such a career.
When I was a teenager I watched "Wings" on the Discovery channel regularly. My fascination with that show came primarily from two things: firstly, a desire to learn and squirrel away aircraft trivia (see below for examples). Secondly, how the development cycle of these aircraft was efficiently condensed into a single episode. That show is one of the main reasons I chose to study aerospace, and before that, math and physics.
And while I continue to revere an industry that drives technology forward on manifold frontiers, that progress is often the integral of small steps forward, added up across innumerable brilliant people and long periods of time. "Wings" was like a time-lapse video of aircraft development, by comparison.
There are many challenges with technology development, including: (1) it might never work as hoped; (2) it might work but never find the right application to establish itself; and (3) it might find the right application but not displace the incumbent technology.
It takes money, brainpower, connections, opportunity and luck for even a chance at success. Sometimes an abundance of one can make up for a paucity elsewhere. We have progressed most rapidly when all these conditions were right, and some of the most admired aircraft in history are monuments to those improbable alignments. Conversely, some equally ambitious aircraft became historical footnotes when those conditions changed (again, see below).
Taken altogether, being an aerospace engineer has a potential long term payoff - I can point to one or two small advancements in which I proudly played a part. However, on a day-to-day basis that pace rarely fulfilled me as an aircraft enthusiast.
In order to create products that really connect with the aviation community, we get to go back to "Wings"; and to the library; and to the museums; and to our customers themselves... to inspire our designs. What I barely had time for as an engineer is one the most rewarding and essential parts of working on Wild Blue.
So in that spirit, here are some things I learnt over the holiday, all in the realm of Naval aviation:
The bi-plane Fairey Swordfish, already considered obsolete at the start of WW2, frequently punched above its weight, dooming the German battleship Bismarck and subsequently finding its niche in u-boat hunting. While its slow 95mph cruising speed made it vulnerable, it also proved bafflingly fortunate. "And [Squadron Commander] Percy Gick, remembering the black shell-bursts ahead of him, thought the German gunners, not believing that any warplane could fly so slowly, had allowed too much deflection," wrote Ludovic Kennedy in Pursuit: The Chase and Sinking of the Battleship Bismarck.
HMS Victorious, whose deck launched the first of three Swordfish attacks on Bismarck, was loaned to the US Navy late in 1942 to bolster the Pacific fleet after carrier losses at the Battle of Santa Cruz. She was modified at Pearl Harbor to launch and recover US aircraft including the Grumman Hellcat and Avenger. The following autumn, Victorious was recalled to the Atlantic where she took part in attacking Bismarck's sister ship, Tirpitz.
The Convair F2Y Sea Dart was an amphibious variant of the Delta Dagger intended to circumvent the difficulty of operating supersonic aircraft from a carrier. Supersonic aircraft required long take-off distances and carrier operations with early jets were very risky. For reference, the supersonic F-8 Crusader had a very high mishap rate: "The vast majority (88 percent!) of Crusaders ever built ended up as smoking holes in the ground, splashes in the water, or fireballs hurtling across a flight deck," wrote Robert C. Rubel in "The Navy's transition to jets". While it never entered service, all four Sea Dart prototypes are intact and it remains the only demonstrated supersonic seaplane.
A thousand stories like these attracted myself and countless other young people to pursue careers in aerospace, aviation, and the armed services. We salute those whose stories are now being written, certain to inspire today's youth to endeavor.