Walter Boyne, one of the first major content contributors to Wings Over Kansas has completed his latest book, "Hypersonic Thunder," which concludes the trilogy of novels on the history of jet aviation. The first two in the series, "Roaring Thunder" and "Supersonic Thunder" were well received by aviation enthusiasts. Comments from veterans of the industry were quite favorable on the authenticity of Boyne’s material.
Boyne stated, "It was a real challenge to compress the almost seventy-year history of jet aviation (1939 to 2008) into novel form, particularly because I intended from the first to use real people, real events and real aircraft to relate the story. There is no ‘Acme Aircraft" in this book — there’s Lockheed and Boeing and Messerschmitt and General Dynamics and all the rest. And there are all the real people – Sir Frank Whittle, Dr. Hans Von Ohain, Kelly Johnson, Tony LeVier, Adolph Galland, Howard Hughes and all the other greats. One thing that made this easy is that I knew almost everyone I mention, at one point or another in their careers, and I represent them as they really were (or are) in life."
Boyne further explained, to actually make his idea work, he created a fictional family, the Shannons. The main protagonist in the first two books is Vance Shannon (his name taken from Vance Breese and Sam Shannon, both great test pilots). Vance has twin sons, Tom and Harry, and they, just as Pug Henry did in "Winds of War" always somehow find themselves right on the spot with each new development in jet aviation. The book obviously proved to be excellent in story concept and writing, as it received excellent reviews from Publishers Weekly.
- To read a review on two previous books written by Boyne, "Operation Iraqi Freedom: What Went Right, What Went Wrong, and Why"
- For a review on "Dawn Over Kitty Hawk, the novel of the Wright Brothers!"
- To read additional feature aviation articles written by Walter J. Boyne, please access "Walter J. Boyne’s World Aviation History"
- To read Boyne’s biography
- For more information, http://www.hypersonicthunder.com