Читать книгу Peggy Wayne, Sky Girl - Betty Baxter Anderson - Страница 7

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Jane was leaning over Peggy’s shoulder for her first eager glimpse of the Chicago Municipal Airport.

There was a confused picture of street car tracks, hangar roofs, the iron fence of the terminal with watchers lined up beyond concrete runways, trolley cars and more roofs, as the plane came out of its spiral and glided in for the landing.

As the other passengers filed from the plane, Peggy asked her parents anxiously, “How did you like it?”

“Fine—fine,” her father answered, smiling. “Just the same, I’d like to know more about it.”

Jane, lingering for the others to leave, spoke in low tones to the hostess. “Do you know where we could get a guide to show us over the airport? Peggy’s parents want to get a picture of the whole thing before they consent to her going into this as her life’s career.”

Sally Rhodes frowned a little. “I’d love to do it myself, but I have an appointment at the hair-dresser’s in just half an hour.” She glanced up at the clock on the terminal facade. It was 2:05.

There was the click of the door from the cockpit. A tall, bronzed, rangy pilot stepped out.

“Tex!” Sally’s eyes brightened. “You’re just the one!” Swiftly she introduced First Officer Martin to the Waynes, Peggy, Jane and Inez. “Tex, these people would like to look over the airport, and I know how anxious you are to tell the world about aviation. Would you be free to do it?”

“As soon as I turn in my flight log,” he drawled, indicating the papers in his hand.

“Perhaps, you’re tired after your trip,” Peggy murmured. “I don’t think we should impose on you.”

“Miss Sally’s right,” the tall lad grinned good-naturedly. “I couldn’t be more proud of this port if I owned it myself.”

The hostess chatted with them while they waited. She pointed out the eight or ten transport planes ranged along the concrete. “Most of the lines use Douglas DC-3s for twenty-one passengers, just like the Skyliner you came in on. But over there’s a Midcontinent Boeing 237-D with the shield-and-silver-streak. Those three in front of Hangar Three are Overland’s sleepers, also DC-3s. Our emblem is the gold globe and wing.”

She touched the tiny pin above the pocket of her suit, then indicated the same symbol on the front of a big building, down the line beyond Overland’s Hangar Three. “But you’ll pick up all this information swiftly, long before your first week in the training course is finished.”

The long-legged pilot was hurrying back to the group. “Didn’t take so long. No Form Seven to fill out this time.”

“Tex, don’t talk like that, or you’ll have these landlubbers completely confused. Form Seven is the paper headed ‘Difficulties Noted During Flight’ which the crew fills out for the Maintenance Department, following a trip,” the hostess explained. “I’ve got to dash. I’ll be seeing you at headquarters, no doubt.”

She waved airily, as the girls expressed their gratitude, and strode swiftly down the row of hangars toward the building identified with the gold globe and wing.

“Gosh, isn’t she swell!” Peggy exclaimed impulsively.

“The very nicest gals in the world are in Skylines’ crews,” the pilot answered in his unmistakable Texas drawl. “Now, do you want the works or just a brief excursion?”

“If you’re willing to give us the time,” Mr. Wayne answered, “we’d like to see everything possible. It may be some time before Mrs. Wayne and I get back.”

“If you’ll excuse me,” Inez said, “I’ve some important shopping waiting down in the loop. Thanks just the same, officer.”

She turned coolly, and left the little group.

The pilot shrugged and said, “Now, this is a big port, but it isn’t the best in the world. Cleveland’s is a honey, and so is the new LaGuardia field in New York. But you girls will be seeing them in a few weeks.

“The passenger terminal is that small building, which looks quite small ’longside the hangars. But I think you’ll be most interested in our own headquarters. Come along!”

He led the way past the airliners on the concrete to Hangar Five. There was a racket in all the buildings; the humming and grinding of machine tools, the sharp rap of automatic riveters, the hiss of air. Steel lift-doors spanned the widths of the buildings, but all were raised now, and they could see the service crews busy at their work.

“I’m not much on statistics, as a general rule,” the pilot was saying, “but I memorized one set because I don’t think the public realizes how rapidly commercial aviation has been developing. In 1934, 22,130 planes and 125,944 passengers passed through the Chicago terminal. In the first six months of last year, 22,593 planes and 265,956 passengers were counted. More planes and twice as many passengers in half the time!”

Peggy glanced at her parents. She could tell that they were gradually being impressed with all this activity, all this fresh information.

“Not only that,” the pilot went on. “In the last ten years, fares have been cut in half and the speeds doubled.”

“Where will our classes be?” Jane asked.

“Up these iron stairs. Want to see?”

The girls nodded eagerly.

The quartet of observers followed the rangy pilot to the second floor. The rectangular room had about twenty desk chairs, set in rows, facing a large table covered with books, time tables, and pamphlets, and a blackboard beyond. Two walls were covered with huge maps. The fourth side of the room was all glass, with an unrestricted view of the entire field and the airport administration building.

“But this isn’t where you’ll spend all your time during the next few weeks,” Tex told them, chuckling. “You’ll have to learn how to make up the sleeper berths and serve meals in the planes. And you’ll have a much more thorough trip through Maintenance and the Control Tower than I’ll be giving you. You’ll learn about equipment and regulations for airplanes and flight, the forms and ticket procedure, and you’ll memorize all the regular schedules in the country, as well as to Mexico and Canada, and a little about radio and weather. You’ll be ticket-punchers, baggage smashers, information bureaus, guides, waitresses and little mothers to all the world before you’re through!”

Mrs. Wayne laughed. “Nursing sounds rather simple, compared to that.”

“But not as much fun!” Peggy retorted quickly.

First Officer Martin nodded approvingly. “That’s the spirit! Now, how about a look at the shops? You’ll realize why it takes thirty-six men and women, all experts in their work in air transportation, to keep one plane in the air.”

“That’s what I’d like to see,” Mr. Wayne said.

The pilot led the way down the stairs to the open hangar. “This is just for service maintenance,” he explained. “Our major overhaul shop is down at the end of the line.”

There were men in mechanics’ overalls everywhere. Crouching under wings or fuselage; atop engine mounts; on tall step ladders looking for, or repairing surface defects.

“Back here’s the instrument room, where the brains of the ships are checked and re-checked.” Tex pointed out gyroscopes, barometers, altimeters. Silent workers at the benches, studying minute parts through a microscope, or handling the pin-point blow torches, didn’t look up as they passed.

“I don’t feel I’m absorbing a tenth of this!” Peggy groaned, as the pilot took them through radio maintenance, and then the big operations room and the flight superintendent’s office at the rear of the hangar. Martin pointed out the drafting tables. Next, they paused and watched the meteorologist assembling a weather map from the teletype reports. From an open window in a partition came a scrambled racket of Morse code, static, and the steady rat-a-tat of the teletype.

“Before we go to the traffic control tower across the way, I’d like you to see the pilot’s best friend,” the tall young man told them. “You may have heard of the Link trainer.”

“I’ve seen it mentioned a lot,” Jane told him. “Can you learn to fly in them?”

The pilot chuckled. “No, but you can learn a lot after you think you know how! The first time I tried, I landed six hundred feet below sea level!”

From the open door of the hangar, and above the noise of the service crews, came a voice from the port’s loud-speaking system. “Overland’s Flight Seven from New York, landing at Gate Five in five minutes! Overland’s Flight Seven from New York, landing at Gate Five in five minutes!”

“Oh, dear! There are just too many exciting things going on all at once,” Peggy wailed.

The pilot had skirted around the big planes being serviced until he came to a door with a high sill. He chuckled as he stepped over into a shadowy corridor beyond. “You’ll soon get so used to it, you won’t even look up. When you realize there are more than a hundred and fifty planes landing here during a day, the novelty wears off quickly.”

He opened a door marked, “Captain Weill, Flight Examiner.”

It was a barren room, empty except for the instructor’s desk, a few benches, and an odd, stubby little machine, set in a circular pit. First Officer Martin signalled for silence, as the older man at the desk called out his orders.

“Climb to five thousand at five hundred feet per minute and make a hundred and eighty degree turn to your left. When you’re finished, descend to three thousand, making a ninety degree turn to your right.”

The watchers were breathless as the hooded device nosed up, turned, nosed down, turned again. Their guide was standing at the desk, watching the “crab,” the pantograph pencil, which transcribed the simulated flight on a co-ordinated map.

“When you’ve completed the last maneuver, make a twenty degree turn to the right and stop. Hold that course for forty seconds, and follow with a sixty degree turn to your left. When you’re through with that, open up the hood.”

A few minutes later, a flushed, perspiring young man threw back the cover of the device, and the watchers caught a glimpse of the instruments on the panel inside. The pilot in the trainer took a deep gasp of fresh air, cut the switch, and climbed out. “How did I do?”

“Fair,” the instructor told him. “Take five minutes, then we’ll try a little radio range flying, and a low approach on an airport. Here’s an approach map to look at, while you’re resting.”

The older man at the desk turned and gave Tex Martin a broad grin. “Hi yah, fellow. Want to do a little brushing up?”

“In the morning,” the tall boy told him. “Just got in on Flight Ten from Denver. Showing these folks around. I couldn’t leave out the most important place in the business.”

“That blarney’s not going to help you in the morning when you miss the Sandusky beam, young man.”

Laughing, the tall pilot gave the instructor a mock salute, and turned to his fascinated followers. “Tired? Want to see more?”

At their enthusiastic response he said, “Okay. We’ll have a look at the traffic control tower in the administration building, then I’ll treat you to a cup of tea at the lunchroom.”

The pilot marshalled his small group across the field to the principal building, and led them to the circular room at the top, the walls and ceiling of which were constructed of clear glass.

Several men were working here, absorbed in aeronautical charts and diagrams at a table, or busy with the knobs and dials on a number of tall radio cabinets. A voice cracked out of the loudspeaker on top of one of these, “Midcontinent Flight Four calling Chicago. Midcontinent Flight Four calling Chicago.”

One of the radio operators spoke into an ordinary telephone transmitter. “Chicago to Midcontinent Flight Four. Go ahead.”

Martin nodded toward the man at the transmitter. “They always say ‘go ahead,’ so they’ve been nicknamed ‘goat heads.’ ”

The voice came again from the loudspeaker. “We’re over Lansing marker at five thousand and climbing at fourteen ... one, four. We estimate Goshen at six thousand at forty-three ... four, three.”

The radio operator repeated, “Lansing marker at five thousand, climbing. You estimate Goshen at forty-three. Your additional traffic will be an Army B-18-A flying eight thousand from Selfridge field to Chanute. He estimates Goshen at three-zero.”

Mrs. Wayne exclaimed wearily, “Did I hear someone suggest tea? I’m exhausted with all this mass of information.”

“Right away!” First Officer Martin cried. “I’m so enthusiastic about this whole set-up, that I forget how tired of it other people might get.”

“Oh, I’m not tired of it!” Mrs. Wayne retorted spunkily. “I’ve just reached the saturation point on knowledge and impressions for today. Peggy, I don’t blame you for being enthused about this as a career.”

“Dad! How do you feel about it?”

Mr. Wayne grinned. “I’m just sorry it’s so hard to teach an old dog new tricks. I’d like this business myself!”

“Whee!” Peggy cried exultantly. “Jane, isn’t it wonderful?”

“Now, all we have to do is to convince Skylines, Inc., that they want us!”