Slide Rule

http://nhw.livejournal.com/978094.html

It's a book in three parts: the first couple of chapters describe Shute's boyhood and youth, where the most exciting part is his close observation of the Easter Rising of 1916 - his father, as it happens, was the Secretary of the Irish Post Office, so there is a certain immediacy to Shute's account, from an angle one doesn't often get - that of a middle-class English teenager pressed into service as a stretcher-bearer.

Then a bit over half the book is devoted to a fascinating account of Shute's involvement with the R100, the private sector counterpart to the doomed state-funded R101 British airship. This was at the cutting edge of technology, a prestige engineering project every bit as important in show more its way as the moon landings, which was to open up mass travel between the continents at a time when it was thought that aeroplanes would never be able to be big enough or fast enough to satisfy the commercial demand. Shute clearly loved his own creation (he was deputy to Barnes Wallis but ended up de facto in charge) and goes into fascinating detail about the problems they faced, both technical and political; and looming over the narrative, of course, is the eventual R101 disaster, which he blames on the failings of senior civil servants as technical managers and on the general policy of having any state-run industry (and specifically the ego of Lord Thomson, the Air Minister, who paid for it with his life and the lives of dozens of others).

The final chunk of the book, a bit over a third of it, is Shute's account of setting up his own aircraft company, and the difficulties of running a hi-tech startup in the context of the Great Depression. Again, an interesting human tale of innovation, struggle against the odds, the difficulties of balancing the books and the personalities, the intimate involvement of people and capital; I think it ought to be required reading for anyone thinking of setting up their own business. On top of that, the looming clouds of war - in Spain, China and Ethiopia, and coming up close to home - were crucial in making the company break even by the time he was eased out with a golden handshake in 1938.

Shute isn't shy about his politics, which are certainly to the right: I guess that being caught on the wrong side of a revolution at 17, and then seeing your professional colleagues killed by the hubris of a Labour government minister, may well be formative experiences, but he also argues for the retention of the moneyed aristocracy as a source of start-up finance for innovation. I'm not in huge sympathy with him on these points, but I like his clear and occasionally self-deprecating prose; the two books of his that I have read, Pied Piper and Trustee from the Toolroom, are both rather enchanting tales of older men who accidentally go on long journeys to do good deeds, and it's interesting to see where this comes from. show less

This book looks at Nevil Shute's role in starting up an aviation business in the early days of that industry. While the book is very dated in terms of language and its treatment of women, it remains relevant in some ways. It shows the challenges of operating a start-up in an emerging industry; the issues caused by political imperatives and a reluctance to speak truth to power. I found the discussion of the ethics involved in writing a prospectus interesting. It's easy to see from this book how Mr. Shute gained success as a novelist -- clear, crisp writing.

This is supposed to be Nevil Shute's autobiography but I would say it is more a memoir about his career in aviation. He doesn't delve into his personal life too deeply. There is nothing about his childhood, his marriage, becoming a father, or much of his writing career, for example. You don't know much about his family life/childhood, how he met his wife, when he had children, or even how he became a writer in the first place. Slide Rule is more about Shute's life in aviation; how he became a calculator for the firm of DeHavilland when they were designing rigid airships. What's fascinating is his company was in competition with the government to build airbuses. After an airbus disaster Shute founded the company Airspeed, Ltd and had show more lukewarm success being profitable building private planes. At the start of World War II the nature of the business changed and Shute slowly started to withdraw emotionally from Airspeed. The memoir ends with him leaving Airspeed after being voted out by the board. Meanwhile, his career as an author was just starting to take flight. show less

Nevil Shute Norway was happy to work in Aeronautics following WWI. Unfortunately, He worked with the Airships, not the monoplanes, and his future got blighted by the 1930's airship disasters. He found, however that writing worked out better for him. This is a "how I came to be a full time writer biography," and, it seems to have been reprinted in this millennium. I recall it was clearly written and mildly diverting.

Very good personal account of engineering careers in the early 20C and of development of dirigibles.

Of major interest to people curious about the interwar history of Airplane design in England, it also has some interesting points about growing up in Britain and Ireland before and during world war I, including an adventure during his easter holidays in 1916 where he became a volunteer stretcher-bearer during the 1916 rising in Dublin.

Interesting book. the author Nevil Shute was an engineer involved in the building of the R100/R101 and the establishment of the Airspeed aircraft building company. Concentrates on the interval between the two world wars, when he was a young man, working his way in aircraft design. Was recomended to me as good reading for how a small company grows and the growing pains it has to endure. It was actually quite illuminating in that regard.