Roaring Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age

The Great War has been over for a decade but a new Cold War between the Soviet Communist blocs and the West is frighteningly on the brink of turning hot with atomic weapons that will make the fire bombings and the two atom bomb blasts of WW II look like a picnic. In this new world order of hostile rivalry with both sides wanting to bury the opponent, competition is on the land, sea and air. The American aviation industry with powerful political pressure and support knows they must reengineer (anachronism that fits) their design to produce faster and more mobile fighter jets and a spy plane that can take pictures of Russian activity, but fly above radar. In that environs, family patriarch Vance Shannon and his twin sons, Tom and Harry, work on the new technology that leads to spy planes, supersonic jets and other flying vessels but it is Sputnik that changes the interrelation dynamics. Though the plot is thin, the story line is exciting and faster than an SST as Walter J. Boyne uses a family of flying aces aviation engineers to showcase the Cold War in the sky circa 1955- 1973 (Nixon is the bookends). Readers will feel the pressure that every Russian advancement and every Khrushchev shoe-stomping bravado causes the Americans to feel inadequate and in need to do more than keep up if they are to win the Cold War, which is at one of its prime peaks of enmity. SUPERSONIC THUNDER provides insight into the beginnings of the Jet Age as former enemies from WW II become bedfellows while former allies become deadly adversaries in a changing world that is difficult for people living during the Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon Administrations to comprehend as they did not have this entertaining novel to guide them. Harriet Klausner

Walt Boyne's "Roaring Thunder" is an entertaining flight through the origins of jet aviation. As a long-time jet pilot in the same B-52s Col. Boyne used to command, I knew some of this history, but Boyne brings this colorful - and true - tale of the jet to life through the eyes of his central characters, the Shannon family. Their flying and business experiences in the pre-WWII aviation industry, followed up with some harrowing combat scenes set in the Second World War and Korea, serve to narrate the revolutionary changes that jet engines brought to military and commercial aircraft. You'll meet the German and British fathers of the turbojet engine, von Ohain and Whittle; the brilliant Lockheed designer Kelly Johnson, Boeing test pilot Tex Johnston, and the jaded Luftwaffe ace, General Adolf Galland. These historical characters, animated so well by Boyne, give us a "you are there" rush as aviation history unfolds before our eyes. This is a jet-powered story that soars high and races along at the speed of sound. Strap in and take off!

'Roaring Thunder: A Novel of the Jet Age' is another tour de force for veteran aviation writer Walter Boyne. I've read all of his fiction as well as his nonfiction, and I looked forward to this book with great anticipation. I was not disappointed. For anyone who enjoyed the 'Eagles' trilogy, 'Dawn Over Kitty Hawk', or 'Wild Blue', this may well be Boyne's best fiction yet. The jet engine is something everyone in the world has learned to take for granted, and yet it is one of the most important inventions of the past seventy years from a military, business and pleasure standpoint. It is exciting and educational to see how the idea germinated in a few brilliant minds. Boyne uses his background as one of the world's foremost aviation historians to expertly interweave the stories of real historical characters and fictional ones. Stepping out of the pages are jet aviation pioneers such as Sir Frank Whittle, the inventor of the jet engine, Hans von Ohain, a German jet-engine designer who ends up working for the United States, aeronautical engineer Kelly Johnson, test pilot Tex Johnson, business jet founder Bill Lear, and more. Boyne introduces us to a fictional family of fliers and inventors by the name of Vance. Boyne is able to put his fictional characters in all the right places at all the right times, and whether its roading down Mig Alley, trying to figure out the flaws in the DeHavilland Comet, or helping to get the American Dash 80 into service, each situation rings true and is packed with depth and plenty of excitement. I don't think this technique of mixing fictional characters with historical characters has worked this well since Herman Wouk's 'Winds of War' Trilogy. One thing that I particularly like about Boyne's fiction is that his characters are three-dimensional, unlike so many characters in historical fiction. Boyne's characters suffer, triumph, perservere and evolve in a way that draws the reader into their world and into the dawn of the jet age. There is plenty of action, but the focus is on the strong and brilliant personalities who made the jet engine a reality, first in military aircraft and later in commercial aircraft. Particularly well-drawn is Sir Frank Whittle, a British inventor whose ideas are regularly appropriated by the British government with small thanks and very little compensation. There is even a fictional character who combines just the right amount of evil with some amusing comic irony--an opportunistic Nazi who tries to get Von Ohain to invest in a dealership for a strange little car with no future called the Volkswagen in return for jet industry secrets. Also fascinating is the story of the development of Germany's great Me262 jet fighter. The technical details of 'Rolling Thunder' are couched in laymen's terms and are easy and interesting to follow. After reading this first installment of the new trilogy, it will be a difficult wait for the sequels. Boyne remains at the top of his game,

Walter Boyne's latest novel, Roaring Thunder, lives up to the title. It is historical fiction at its best...an afterburner-roaring ride across three continents and through two wars that delivers the history of the development of the jet engine in a hugely entertaining manner. Boyne resurrects the German and English titans of the early jet age to show them laboring under the bureaucratic short-sightedness of their respective countries to independently come up with a machine that would revolutionize air warfare and give birth to the modern airline industry. In the telling of that story, Boyne takes the reader into primitive laboratories where geniuses tinker and into the cockpits with the earliest test pilots to experience their harrowing first jet flights. Boyne's accounts of German jet fighters hurling through squadrons of B-17 bombers will really get your adrenaline pumping. The reader is introduced to the fictional Shannon family...an aviator father and his two military-pilot sons. ...and live the tale of the early jet age through their eyes. These are not flawless, two-dimensional heroes. We see them as real people afflicted with the burdens of humanity...ill-conceived decisions, fear, love, betrayal. I can't wait to see them developed in the rest of Boyne's trilogy. Roaring Thunder is a great read!

In a creative way of sharing aviation history, Boyne's first in a planned trilogy describes the dawn of the jet age, and covers the first 15 years through the Korean War. The novel revolves around a fictional patriarch, and aviator, Vance Shannon, and his two fighter pilot sons, and the real life industry geniuses of Sir Frank Whittle, the British inventor of the jet engine; Hans von Ohain, a German jet engine designer; and Dr. Anselm Franz. Famed aeronautical engineer Kelly Johnson; the daring test pilot Tex Johnston, and others are found throughout the story. In the first half of the book, Boyne gives the reader a "fly-on-the-wall" perspective between the German aviation industry and the British/American industry. The United States was slow to enter the field of jet propulsion. Political and military leaders chose to concentrate on mass-producing the conventional airplanes that could contribute more quickly to the war effort. Imbedded in the novel are a number of "what if" questions about this nearly fatal miscalculation. After World War II, Boyne describes the confluence of American and German scientists, and industry giants who brought the United States and the world into the jet age. Boyne is at his best as he describes the aerial warfare in Europe and in the skies over Korea. Boyne has written a first-rate story, and a dramatic accounting of one of the 20th century's greatest human accomplishments. Readers, who enjoy aviation history, and/or aviation novels, will enjoy this epic tale.