Читать книгу The Airship Boys in the Great War; or, The Rescue of Bob Russell - De Lysle F. Cass - Страница 6

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The rest of that day was a very busy one for the Airship Boys, even though Major Honeywell himself lent as much assistance as he could. There was a variety of miscellaneous supplies to be purchased, hurried letters to be written to Ned’s parents in Chicago and to Alan’s sister, Mary. Both boys agreed that it was best not to state the destination or object of their trip for fear that their beloved ones might suffer all sorts of anxieties until their safe return. So they wrote briefly that they were going off upon a little three or four days’ business trip in the Ocean Flyer and that it was the urgency of the business in hand that prevented their making the farewell visit they desired.

Their shopping for necessary supplies did not take the boys long, for they could estimate pretty closely what they would need. On account of the extremely high altitudes at which they would fly it was necessary for them to buy especially heavy underwear, felt boots, wool jackets, fleece-lined fingered mittens and heavy caps for four persons—as Alan said: “The fourth outfit for Bob Russell, so that he won’t freeze coming back with us.”

Then there were food supplies (the Flyer was equipped with a regular cook’s galley) to be bought, a dozen hair-trigger automatic revolvers, half a dozen light-weight repeating rifles of the latest pattern, cartridge belts, rounds of ammunition, and a large American flag. Neither the firearms nor the flag were to be used except in case of absolute necessity.

Major Honeywell got the aeroplane works in Newark, where the Ocean Flyer was being kept in storage, on the telephone, and issued instructions to the manager there to run the big aircraft out of the hangar into the inclosed experimental field ready for inspection, and to lay in fresh supplies of the special grades of gasoline and ether needed for power.

All incidental shopping completed, Major Honeywell placed his big automobile at the disposal of Ned and Alan, and the trip between Greater New York and Newark was accomplished at a rate that turned the speedometer needle halfway around its circumference and raised angry protests from every traffic policeman as the car whizzed by. This was not, of course, a wise thing to do, but the Major’s chauffeur was an especially good driver and the boys felt justified by the exceptional matter in hand.

An unusual stir was apparent inside the field of the aeroplane works as the Major’s automobile raced up to the high brick wall which insured privacy for the grounds. At the far end of the ground stretched the squatty brick buildings of the factory, with a wireless station and various other signaling devices on the parapeted roof. Extending out from the yard front and ending at the edge of the big experimental field, was the “setting-up room,” a drop of heavy canvas roofing, supported every hundred feet by rough, unpainted posts. Under this tent-like structure was to be seen almost every size and variety of flying craft made in America, to say nothing of several flying machines of obviously foreign design. Most of these were covered by heavy tarpaulins to protect them while not in use. A whole corps of mechanicians was just then pushing out into the aviation field another and very different type of flyer, the heroic proportions of which dwarfed all the other machines into insignificance.

The eyes of the Airship Boys lighted up.

“There she goes!” they cried in unison. “They are getting her all ready for us.”

They jumped out of the automobile and hurried across the field to where the peerless wonder of the world’s aircraft stood, a literal monument to their inventive genius.

The Ocean Flyer has been too fully commented upon and described in scientific journals, magazines and newspapers from coast to coast to require any very detailed account of it in this story.

Overlapping, dull glinting plates of the recently-discovered metal magnalium covered the entire body of the vessel like the scales of a fish. The planes and truss were likewise formed of this substance, which is a magnesium alloy with copper and standard vanadium, or chrome steel. The extreme lightness of magnalium, combined with a toughness found in no other metal or alloy, made possible the perfection of this largest of all airships.

The vessel was modeled after the general form of a sea gull, with wings outspread in full flight, its peculiarly ingenious construction insuring not only the maximum of speed, but also that hitherto elusive automatic stability of the planes which for years past has been the despair of aeroplane builders on both sides of the “big pond.”

Braces extending from the bottom of the car body and metal cables from the top partly supported the vast expanse of magnalium steel sheets, but toward the outer ends, the wings, or planes, extended unsupported in apparent defiance of all mechanical laws. Three sets of “tandem” planes projected with slight dihedral angles for a distance decreasing from eighty, to sixty, to forty feet, on each side of the ship body, affording a wing-spread never before successfully attained, and giving the whole the exact resemblance of a gigantic metal bird.

Each of these planes was made of three distinct telescoping fore and aft sections, with a full spread of twenty-one feet. By means of the immense pressure gauges almost concealed under the curved front of the main plane, the rear sections were drawn in by cables on a spring drum until the width of each of the three planes was reduced to seven feet. The moment the air pressure was lessened by descent or lessening of speed, the narrow wing surfaces automatically spread. In rapid flight the reverse pressure on the gauges allowed the spring drums to reel in the extension surfaces, housing all extensions securely, either beneath or over the main section of the wings. In this way the buoyancy of the airship remained always the same.

The body of the Ocean Flyer consisted of two decks or stories, with a pilot house, staterooms, fuel chambers, engineroom, bridges above and protective galleries. The completely enclosed hull, pierced with heavy, glass-protected ports, and doors, was twelve feet wide, thirteen feet high and thirty feet long, ending in a maze of metal trusswork at the rear, and a magnalium-braced tail, seventy-three feet more in length, exclusive of the twenty-foot rudder at the stern.

To drive this huge craft, a much higher percentage of motor power than ever before secured had to be transformed into propulsive energy. The ordinary aeroplane propeller permits the escape of much of the motive power, but the Ocean Flyer was equipped with the new French “moon” devices, which do away with the “slip,” and allow the full power of the engine to be applied to the greatest advantage. Viewed sidewise, this new form of propeller looks exactly like a crescent, its tips curving ahead of its shaft attachment. The massive eleven-foot propellers of the Ocean Flyer, with a section five feet broad at the center, gave ample “push.” They were located just forward of and beneath the front edge of the long planes. Powerful magnalium chain drives connected these with the shaft inside the hull. Behind the chain drives, a light metal runway extended twelve feet from the car to the propeller bearings, so that the latter might be reached while the car was in transit, should adjustment or oiling be found necessary.

Within the hull of the vessel, four feet from the bottom, a shaft extended carrying a third or auxiliary “moon” propeller, differing from the exterior side propellers by being seven instead of eleven feet in length. This reserve propelling force was for use in case either of the other propellers became disabled.

The motive force of the Flyer was secured by a chemical engine, run by dehydrated sulphuric ether and gasoline. Magnalium cylinders sustained the shock of the tremendous “explosions” as the cylinders revolved past the exploding chamber and developed a power previously undreamed of.

Each of the two huge engines used was six feet in diameter, with four explosion chambers cooled by fans which fed liquid ammonia to the cylinder walls in a spray and then furnished power for its re-liquefaction. In form, each engine resembled a great wheel, or turbine, on the rim of which appeared a series of conical cylinder pockets. These, when presented to the explosion chambers, received the impact of the explosion, and then, running through an expanding groove, allowed the charge to continue expanding and applying power until the groove terminated in an open slot which instantly cleansed the cylinders of the burnt gases. By this arrangement there was only a twentieth part of the engine wheel where no power was being simultaneously imparted, thus giving practically a continuous torque.

Weighing over five hundred pounds each, and with a velocity of one thousand five hundred revolutions per minute, those big turbines generated nine hundred and seventy-three horse power, natural brake test, and this could be raised to more than a thousand horse power without danger. Revolving in opposite directions, they eliminated all dangerous gyroscopic action. As has been said, power was applied to the propellers by special magnalium gearing.

The Ocean Flyer was equipped with the first enclosed car or cabin ever used on an aeroplane. The compartments of its two decks connected with each other, but all could be made one air-tight whole. Even the engines were within an air-tight compartment. Attached to the bow of the hull was a large metal funnel with a wide flange. Tubes leading from the small end of this passed into each room on the vessel. Flying at sixty miles or more an hour caused the air to rush into this funnel with such force as soon to fill any or all of the compartments with compressed air. At a speed of two hundred miles per hour, this was likely to be so great that, instead of having too little air, there would be far too much were it not for regulating pressure gauges which shut off the flow from time to time. Thus the aeronauts were not only assured plenty of breathing air even in the highest altitudes, but the pressure gave sufficient heat to prevent frost bite from the intense cold which prevails beyond a certain height above the earth’s surface.

A supply of oxygen was of course carried for use in case of necessity, although the Airship Boys had in the past proved that their funnel device obviated all need of it.

The pilot room was located at the bow on the second deck. In appearance it largely resembled the wheel-house of the ordinary ocean liner. The compass box, with its compensating magnetic mechanism beneath, stood just in front of the steering wheel, below and parallel with which, but not connected with it, was a wheel for elevating or depressing the planes. Both of these wheels operated indirectly, utilizing compressed air cylinders to move the big rudder and wing surfaces. At the right of these wheels was the engine control, consisting of a series of starting and stopping levers for each engine and the gear clutch for each wheel.

At the left, in compact, semicircular form, was the signal-board, the automatic indicator recording at all times the position of each plane, the set of the rudder and the speed of the engines. Below this was the chronometer and a speaking tube which kept the pilot always in communication with every other part of the vessel. Immediately behind the pilot’s wheel was a seeming confusion of indicators and gauges for the making of observations. There was the aerometer, the automatic barograph, the checking barometer, the equilibrium statoscope, a self-recording thermometer, the compressed air gauge for all compartments, chart racks, indicators to show the exact rate of consumption of fuel and lubricating oil and so on.

As may be surmised, the duties of the pilot were not merely to steer and keep a lookout ahead, but also to watch the machine and counteract the influence of unexpected air currents and those atmospheric obstructions like “pockets,” indistinguishable puffs of air, and the like, which are always very dangerous and will jolt an airship exactly as a rock or piece of wood will bounce an automobile into the air and maybe completely overturn it. Among experienced aeronauts, these air-ruts are recognized as being one of the chief perils in aviation.

Ned Napier and Alan Hope usually took turns acting as pilot on a three-hour shift, any longer interval of duty being too nerve-racking a strain. The third man whom they usually took with them on the Ocean Flyer was supposed to be stationed in the engine room. It was his duty to watch the automatic fuel and lubricator supply feed pipes, the compressed air gauges and pipe valves, the signal and illuminating light motor, the oxygen tanks and the plane valves, in addition to the wireless apparatus for communication with the outside world.

On long flights one of the three aviators slept while the others remained on duty. Thus one of them was always kept fresh and alert to meet the demands of any unforeseen emergency.

Ned, Alan and Major Honeywell made a careful investigation of every detail of the Ocean Flyer, satisfying themselves that it was in all respects perfect for their hazardous trip. They found everything to be absolutely shipshape, and those additional supplies which had arrived, were already being stowed away on board.

“Well,” said Alan, “everything seems to be attended to properly, and there is no reason why we can’t start any time we like. The sooner the better, because there’s no telling what they may be going to do to Bob over there in Belgium any one of these days.”

“Right,” echoed Ned. “Let’s see. To-day is Wednesday. What do you say to starting off to-morrow morning early. Then we can arrive in Muhlbruck not later than some time early Friday morning. We will have darkness to cover our arrival there.”

“That’s a good idea,” supplemented Major Honeywell. “I don’t like to see you boys risking this thing, but if it must be done you should take every possible advantage. And now, if you’re through inspecting the Flyer, what do you say to riding back to New York with me in the automobile and taking dinner at my house?”

“The major is a man after my own heart,” cried Ned.

“My stomach cries out for him,” grinned Alan, as they made their way back to the waiting motor car.