THE HOODOOED AIRPLANE
After their exciting day, the next two weeks proved more than dull to
the youthful members of the Sky Patrol.
Nothing happened to clear up the mystery.
To the surprise of the yacht crew, Captain Parks kept them all busy
preparing, the day after Mrs. Everdail's dramatic discovery, for a run
to Bar Harbor, Maine.
That was unusual. After a trip across the Atlantic, the yacht was
ordinarily laid up for awhile, giving its crew some shore liberty.
Captain Parks, however, agreed with Mr. Everdail, who trusted him
absolutely--if Sandy did not--that it would be wise not to give any
person who had been on the yacht during its crossing any chance to get
away.
"On the run," Mr. Everdail told Sandy and Dick, "and while we lay over
at Bar Harbor, you two can watch for anything suspicious. My wife won't
let me say that Mimi, the maid, could be guilty--besides, how could she
get into Captain Parks' safe?"
"I think, myself, some man of the crew would be the one to watch," Dick
agreed. "Maybe the steward, who could have a reason for getting into the
captain's quarters."
"But it was a woman Larry saw, through the glasses, at the stern," Sandy
objected.
"Well, then--there's the stewardess who attends to the ladies' cabins,"
argued Dick. "We can watch her."
They did, but no one on board asked for shore leave, either on the day
before lifting anchor or during the stay in the Maine waters. Dick and
Sandy used ears and eyes alertly; but nothing suspicious looking
rewarded their vigilance.
Larry, staying at the old estate home with Jeff, had some compensation,
at least, for being separated from his chums. Not only could he keep an
eye on things and be ready if Jeff called for an aide; as well, he had
his daily instruction in ground school and in the air.
Already "well up" on all that books could tell about engines, types of
airplanes, construction methods, rigging and even handling a craft in
the air, he got the practical personal experience that is the only real
teacher, and the thrill of donning the Gossport helmet, with its ear
'phones and speaking tube through which Jeff, in the second place of the
amphibian or the airplane, instructed him, correcting faults or gave
hints, was a real thrill.
He learned, first of all, not to start up an engine while the tail of
the ship pointed toward a hangar, or other open building, or toward a
crowd, in future, on a field.
The propeller blast threw a torrent of dust and as Jeff told him, he
mustn't become that most unpopular of airport nuisances, a "dusting
pilot," whose carelessness flung damaging clouds on airplanes in hangars
and people on the fields.
Learning to warm up the engine, to check up on instruments, to keep the
ship level while taxiing down the field to head into the wind, to make
the turn, either in stiff wind or gentle breeze, so that the wind did
not tip the craft and scrape wingtips--these and a dozen other things he
acquired in several early lessons.
The second place of the airplane had been fitted with a set of dual
controls, rudder bar, throttle and "joystick" so that Jeff, for two
successive hops, let Larry put feet on his rudder bar and lightly hold
the stick as Jeff manipulated the controls and explained, by use of the
Gossport helmet, why he did this or that.
Jeff believed, as does every good instructor, that showing, and
explaining, is necessary as a first step, but that a flyer is developed
only by practice during which he makes mistakes and is told why they are
mistakes and how to correct them, thus gaining confidence and assurance
by actually flying.
"That-there time," Jeff might say, "when the caretaker 'playing
mechanic' and pulling down the prop till the engine catches, didn't you
open up the throttle too wide? Better to open it just enough to give the
engine gas to carry along on--and even cut the gun a bit more to let it
run fairly slow till it warms up. Turning her up to full eighteen
hundred revs don't gain while she's cold, and it throws dust like sin!"
Or, as Larry taxied, learning to manage speed on the ground by use of
wider throttle for more speed, cutting down the gas if the craft began
going too fast, he would catch an error:
"Did you forget last time to put the stick back and make the blast on
the elevators hold the tail down while we taxi? Sure, you did--but you
won't again, because you saw that if you didn't we might nose over. You
'over-controlled', too, and almost nosed over before you caught it--and
then, we were going so fast I don't know what kept this-here crate from
starting to hop.
"That's right--easy movements always--don't jerk the controls--take it
fairly easy. And you are doing right to move the stick back to neutral
this time when the tail came up--kick rudder a bit, isn't she slanting
to the right? That's it, buddy, left rudder and back, and now the right
rudder--there she is, headed right."
Mostly, Larry caught his own mistakes in time.
Ordinarily cool-headed, he had to be told only once or twice, and
reminded almost never that jerky manipulation of the controls was not
good practice or helpful to their evolutions. Easy movements, continual
alertness and a cool head stood him in good stead.
Seeing those fine qualities, Jeff had Larry thrilling and happy on the
fourth day by letting the youthful enthusiast for aviation take over for
a simple control job, straight, level flying.
"You'll want to get the feel of the air, and see how stable the average
modern crate is," Jeff spoke through the Gossport tube. "How does
that-there wing look to you--kind of dropping?--remember what I
did--that's the stuff, stick to the left a bit and back to neutral, so
the other wing won't drop! No use teetering back and forth. They put
neutral position into a control so you can set ailerons or rudder or
elevators where you want them and hold them."
There was more than Larry had ever dreamed there would be to keep in
mind: there was the maintaining of level flight; even in his simplest
personal contact with the controls; then there was the job of keeping
the horizon line at the right location by watching past a chosen spot on
the engine cowling, else they would start to climb or go into a glide.
There was the real horizon to distinguish from the false horizon, which
an airman knows is, through some trick of the air, the visible horizon
that is just a little bit above the true horizon, so that to hold level
flight in a forward direction, that false horizon is not held on a line
with the top of the engine cowling, but, to hold a line with the true
horizon the marking point is held just a trifle below that false,
visible horizon line.
Had that been all he had to comprehend Larry's first control job would
have been simple. There was much more to watch--the tachometer, to keep
track of engine speed; the air speed was learned by watching the
indicator on the wing of that particular type of airplane; the position
of the nose with relation to the horizon had to be constantly noted and
a tendency to rise or lower had to be corrected: little uprushes or warm
air made the airplane tilt a trifle to one side or the other and
ailerons had to be used to bring it back, the stick had to be returned
to neutral gently at exactly the point of level flight after such
correction and not sent to the other side or the craft tipped the other
way and opposite aileron had to be applied; then there was the chosen
point such as a church steeple, tall tree or other landmark selected as
a point on the course to hold the nose on--that must be watched and a
touch of rudder given if the craft deviated from its straight line.
Nevertheless, complicated as flying appeared to be on that first
handling of joystick, rudder and throttle, Larry knew that the happiest
time of his life would be his first successful solo hop, and that the
complicated look of the maneuvers and the number of things to
watch--level flight, direction, maintaining flying speed, seeing that
altitude was maintained, that his own craft was not menacing or menaced
by any other in the air, all these would become simple, second nature as
soon as the flying hours piled up and gave him more skill and
experience.
Morning and afternoon Jeff took him up.
Quick to learn, retentive of memory, not repeating the same
mistakes--even working out some points for himself--Larry, at the end of
the fifth day, was gratified to have Jeff, as he slipped off the
Gossport, tell him:
"The only trouble about this-here instruction is that I'm scared you're
going to make a better pilot than your teacher."
"Oh, thanks--but I never could be any better than you, Jeff."
"Yes, you can," the older man's face became doleful. "You ain't the kind
to let that-there superstition bug bite you."
"No," admitted his pupil. "I think superstition is just believing
something somebody else tells you until you are so busy watching out for
something to go wrong that you aren't 'right on the job' with your own
work--or you are so busy waiting for some good thing to 'happen' that
you don't see Opportunity when it comes up because you're not watching
Opportunity--you're watching Luck, or Omens."
"Don't I know it!" Jeff was rueful. "I want to kick myself
sometimes--but when you know other folks has had their crates 'jinxed'
by being in the same hangar with one that has got the name for being
hoodooed--what would you do?"
"Just what I'm doing now," Larry grinned. "I know Mr. Everdail paid the
company for the ruined seaplane and moved it into the hangar, here. I
know your airplane almost touches it, every night. But I don't let that
worry me, because----"
"Well, it worries me. I try not to let it, but the worry is there, no
matter what I do. You see, I never thought, out in the marsh, about
anything going wrong because I took that big wrench and put it in my
tool kit after we salvaged it out of the water. But I dreamt about
emeralds, last night, and so I went to a fortune teller gypsy woman and
she told me a dream like that meant bad luck in business, and so I said
I was a pilot and told her all about the seaplane----"
"You ought to be careful," Larry interrupted. "If she puts two-and-two
together, emeralds and a chase and a wrecked seaplane----"
"Oh, she was too busy talking to listen that close."
"They're awfully quick--the way they guess what's in your mind proves
that."
"Oh, she won't think anything about it. Anyhow, she told me not on any
chance to touch that cracked up seaplane or anything that ever was on
it--and so--I put the jinx on my own crate without meaning to."
"I'm still willing to learn in it."
"Well--I don't know--it worries me."
"It doesn't bother me, Jeff."
And it didn't, for several more busy days.