Editing Nevil Shute (section)

== Career in aviation ==
An [[aerospace engineering|aeronautical engineer]] as well as a pilot, Shute began his engineering career with the [[de Havilland Aircraft Company]]. He used his pen-name as an author to protect his engineering career from any potentially adverse publicity in connection with his novels.{{sfn|Shute|1954|p=63}}

Dissatisfied with the lack of opportunities for advancement, he took a position in 1924 with [[Vickers#Aviation|Vickers Ltd.]], where he was involved with the development of [[airship]]s, working as Chief Calculator ([[stress engineer]]) on the [[R100]] airship project for the Vickers subsidiary Airship Guarantee Company. In 1929, he was promoted to deputy [[chief engineer]] of the R100 project under [[Barnes Wallis]]. When Wallis left the project, Shute became the chief engineer.<ref name="A. P. Ryan" />

The R100 was a prototype for passenger-carrying airships that would serve the needs of Britain's empire. The government-funded but privately developed R100 made a successful 1930 round trip to [[Canada]]. While in Canada it made trips from [[Montreal]] to [[Ottawa]], Toronto, and [[Niagara Falls]]. The fatal 1930 crash near [[Beauvais]], France, of its government-developed counterpart [[R101]] ended British interest in [[dirigibles]]. The R100 was immediately grounded and subsequently scrapped.

Shute gives a detailed account of the development of the two airships in his 1954 [[autobiography|autobiographical]] work, ''[[Slide Rule: Autobiography of an Engineer]]''.{{sfn|Shute|1954|pp=54-149}} When he started, he wrote that he was shocked to find that before building the [[R38-class airship|R38]]  the civil servants concerned '"had made no attempt to calculate the aerodynamic forces acting on the ship"' but had just copied the size of girders in German airships.{{sfn|Shute|1954|p=55}} The calculations for just one transverse frame of the R100 could take two or three months, and the solution '"almost amounted to a religious experience."{{sfn|Shute|1954|p=76}} But later he wrote that '"the disaster was the product of the system rather than the men at Cardington"; the one thing that was proved is that "government officials are totally ineffective in engineering development" and any weapons (they develop) will be bad weapons. The R101 made one short test flight in perfect weather, and was given an airworthiness certificate for her flight to India to meet the minister’s deadline. Norway thought it probable that a new outer cover for the R101 was taped on with rubber adhesive which reacted with the dope.{{sfn|Shute|1954|pp=128,129}} His account is very critical of the R101 design and management team, and strongly hints that senior team members were complicit in concealing flaws in the airship's design and construction. In ''The Tender Ship,'' [[Manhattan Project]] engineer and [[Virginia Tech]] professor [[Arthur Squires]] used Shute's account of the R100 and R101 as a primary illustration of his thesis that governments are usually incompetent managers of technology projects.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Squires |first=Arthur M. |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-1-4757-1926-0 |title=The Tender Ship |date=1986 |publisher=Birkhäuser Boston |isbn=978-0-8176-3312-7 |location=Boston, MA |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-1-4757-1926-0}}</ref>

In 1931, with the cancellation of the R100 project, Shute teamed up with the talented de Havilland-trained designer [[A. H. Tiltman|A. Hessell Tiltman]] to found the aircraft construction company [[Airspeed Ltd]].<ref name="A. P. Ryan" />  A site was available in a former [[trolleybus]] garage on Piccadilly, [[York]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=Stead|first1=Mark|title=New aviation museum planned for city centre|url=http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/10765852.New_aviation_museum_planned_for_city_centre/|work=[[The Press (York)|The Press]]|date=26 October 2013|location=York|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150714012006/http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/10765852.New_aviation_museum_planned_for_city_centre/|archive-date=14 July 2015}}</ref> Despite setbacks, including the usual problems of a new business, Airspeed Limited eventually gained recognition when its [[Airspeed Envoy|Envoy]] aircraft was chosen for the [[King's Flight]]. With the approach of the [[Second World War]], a military version of the Envoy was developed, to be called the [[Airspeed Oxford]]. The Oxford became the standard advanced multi-engined trainer for the [[Royal Air Force|RAF]] and British Commonwealth, with over 8,500 being built.

For the innovation of developing a hydraulic retractable undercarriage for the [[Airspeed Courier]], and his work on R100, Shute was made a Fellow of the [[Royal Aeronautical Society]].

On 7 March 1931, Shute married Frances Mary Heaton, a 28-year-old medical practitioner. They had two daughters, (Heather) Felicity and Shirley.