No Highway

Our novel studied for English in Fourth Form (Year 10) in 1963 was No Highway by Nevil Shute published in 1948. In 1951 a film, No Highway in the Sky, based on the story in the book was released. I remember seeing the film on television many years later. Recent aviation crashes and Boeing's reaction to these events caused me to check my bookshelves to locate my copy of the novel to read again.

The novel is narrated by Dr Dennis Scott who is in charge of the Structural Department at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) at Farnborough. One of the projects, conducted by Mr Theodore Honey, is researching the theory that the tail of the new Reindeer aircraft that flies across the Atlantic has a fault causing the tail to fall from the plane resulting in the plane crashing. One plane had recently crashed in northern Canada though the crash report stated pilot error as the problem.

The trial conducted by Honey is planned to test the stability of the tail of a plane for the equivalent of 1440 hours flying time. Scott suggested to management that the Reindeer aircraft in service should be grounded when they have flown for 720 hours-  a suggestion that many disagree with, especially the owners of the planes and the department that prepared the report about the plane crashing in Canada. However it was agreed that an engineer from RAE should travel to Canada to inspect remaining sections of the tail for evidence of corrosion. Mr Honey is sent to carry out this task but part way through the flight discovers that the Reindeer aircraft on which he is travelling has flown 1422 hours. His attempts to persuade the pilot to turn the plane around and land in Ireland were not successful.

Much of the novel concerns the character of Mr Honey who is considered a quiet, strange little man with good technical knowledge and experience but also having a number of questionable, semi religious beliefs. Other characters in the story include Honey's twelve year old daughter, Elspeth and two women that befriend Honey on the plane trip.

Nevil Shute was an engineer and worked in the aircraft industry so throughout the book he includes a number of technical references which add authenticity to the story. It must, however, be remembered that the novel was written in the late 1940s so some of the attitudes described, particularly towards women and housekeeping, should now appear outdated in 2019. They should, however, be read as capturing and describing attitudes in recent history - 71 years ago. The story also contains references to the Cold War - Western Countries versus Russia.

This book made a lasting impression on me when I read it at school and unfortunately it foretells of a number of aircraft accidents in the then future plus the continued reluctance of some manufacturers to accept that the accident may be caused by a problem with the plane and not always be the fault of the pilot.

Biography of Nevil Shute - Australian Dictionary of Biography
No Highway reviews - Good Reads
No Highway - Wikipedia