Airfield Aptitude

~His quest for quality...Her conquest for a trusting heart~



Quality control manager Weston Durand searches out flaws and defects to keep airplanes in top shape, but when a test flight's propeller makes a collision course with the hangar door, he dashes to save upholsterer Myla Templeton from harm. Upping the group's aesthetics, blue-eyed Myla attends his Quality Circle meetings for continuous improvement in the workplace, where her brainstorming efforts contribute the first major improvement-a high-grade line of western-style upholstery. Admiration leads to romance when they celebrate success. While other members catch and spread the innovative vision for betterment, the new jet engines on a prototype aircraft become a pesky gadfly. Weston aids safety manager Duncan Reed, making changes in protocol that safeguard against the powerful engine's accidental ingestion of foreign objects, but sabotage rears its vengeful head, tipping the balance toward harm. Can Myla heed Weston's cautious warning of "poka-yoke" or is she already too aligned in the saboteur's crosshairs to avoid error?



Welcome to the false start of the jet age, a touch-and-go maneuver where an errant wrench-in-the-works can topple a vulnerable sky-giant.



Set in Wichita, Kansas, the Air Capital of the World, in spring 1953.