Customer Reviews

Advanced Engine Development at Pratt and Whitney: The Inside Story of Eight Special Projects, 1946-1971

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One word that doesn't apply very often to books about highly technical subjects is "charming," but I think it perfectly captures the tone and spirit of "Advanced Engine Development at Pratt and Whitney: The Inside Story of Eight Special Projects, 1946-1971." Author Dick Mulready comes across as a regular long-in-the-tooth kind of guy who has a lot of insider information to share with a few close friends. I can almost imagine him pulling up a chair at a bar table, taking a sip from his pint of ale and saying, "Y'know, we did a lot of really interesting things when I worked at Pratt & Whitney. Let me tell you about a few of them..."

Mr. Mulready's book consists mainly of reminiscences about his 25 years working on advanced-technology propulsion system projects at P&W starting just after World War II. As such, the stories, while they are mostly quite technical, are also very personal. They are not detailed, chronological, formal histories of the eight projects that he covers. Rather, they are "oral-history-type" accounts that focus on the parts in which he was personally involved. They tend to be unstructured, perhaps a little rambling, a bit repetitious at times--but they are ALWAYS interesting. For example, his description of the processes used to assemble hundreds of tapered hollow tubes to create the thrust chamber of an RL10 liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engine is the most detailed and complete that I've ever read, and I feel that I really do now understand it. The details that he provides on the liquid-hydrogen-powered 304 jet engine, destined for the proposed but never built Lockheed CL-400 "Suntan" spy plane, are available nowhere else in print, as far as I know, and they are fascinating indeed. The entire book is filled with facts and anecdotes offered by a true "insider," and they are the kinds of things that cause a technical weenie's heart to beat faster.

So what is the "charming" part? Simply this--Mr. Mulready's writing style is very informal and conversational. It's like talking with him over a beer, as I said before. Sometimes he forgets names and exact dates, and some of his stories have a "you ain't gonna believe this" flavor to them. But his book is chock full of interesting technical tidbits, and I think it nicely fills a niche in the history of aviation and space propulsion that no other book in print addresses, to my knowledge. Sure, it could have used an editor, and a glossary of technical terms would have been nice. Some of the specialized terms he uses are unique to the engine business and were a mystery to me, even though I worked in the aerospace industry for decades (not in propulsion, however). Despite these minor quibbles, I most heartily recommend "Advanced Engine Development at Pratt and Whitney: The Inside Story of Eight Special Projects, 1946-1971" to all aviation and spaceflight enthusiasts. I guarantee you'll find things in it that you did not know.

Mulready lived through a remarkable set of project and simlar to the experiences of many engineers in aerospace faced a time of enourmous chalenge - prodigious funding and urgent timelines.

As Industiral History this make a excellent insight into the culture and attitudes of P&W in this period - here was a mojor company run by engineers and thriving - before "management"took over the world.

Really worth a read - just a shame that it isn't better edited as it is on occasional difficult to follow.

Hi, just like the title says, this book is about one guys involvement with advanced engine projects at P&W. There is no math, just memories. The math can be picked up elsewhere. This contains insite about rocket engine development you wont find anywhere else.

I found this book interesting since it had so much technical detail and some of the political dealing with the NASA and space shuttle. Maybe a little sour grapes, but getting paid a lot of money should be enough, plus the writer said he had fun at his job. Sometimes people think they should get glory, credit and money, but because they do not have charity, they will only get credit or glory or money. But usually not all three. Think about Steve Jobs, he has gotten all three, however, he probably will not live out the year.

However, if you like machines, and research & development, you maybe will find this book, fun to read. I read it twice to get more out of it. I learned so much about reliability in jet engines, shuttle engines, difficulty in manufacturing machines with extremely low failure rates.