Ron Westrum: Sidewinder -
Creative Missile Development at China Lake
In the mid-1950s a small group of overworked, underpaid
scientists and engineers on a remote base in the Mojave
Desert developed a weapon no one had asked but everyone was
looking for. This is the story of how that unorthodox team,
led by visionary Bill McLean, overcome navy bureaucracy and
other more heavily funded projects to develop the world's
best air-to-air missile. Author Ron Westrum examines that
special time and place - when the old American work ethic
and "can do" spirit were a vital part of U.S.
weapons development - to discover how the dedicated team was
able to create a simple and inexpensive missile. Today, some
forty-four years after its invention, Sidewinder is still
considered the best America has.
The result of twelve years of research, including
hundreds of interviews, Westrum's study examines this unique
military-civilian cult of creativity. McLean and his China |
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Lake team produced an amazing array of technological and
engineering marvels. Their powerful insights were coupled
with outrageous creativity. In the intellectual pressure
cooker provided by the isolation of the desert, the
scientists dreamed and tinkered while test pilots such as
Wally Schirra and Glenn Tierney took to the air, often
risking life and limb to test the fledgling system. Westrum
captures the guiding vision of McLean, the Caltech-trained
physicist who intended to visit China Lake for two months
but stayed for twenty-three years. An expert in group
dynamics, the author shows why the team succeeded. He
reduces arcane missile techno-babble to language both the
specialist and lay reader will appreciate and enjoy, and he
offers lessons useful for leaders and managers in and out of
uniform.
In a time of
billion-dollar weapons development contracts, astronomical
cost overruns, and defense acquisitions scandals, this
revealing, highly readable tale about one of the most
successful weapons in history should be of interest to
everyone concerned about national security. |
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Sidewinder
