DICK HANDLES A CONTROL JOB
Flying close to three thousand feet above Oyster Bay, level and stable,
the airplane seemed to be in perfect condition.
Jeff, for all his superstition, would have given it as a pilot's opinion
that only some mistake on Larry's part, or a quitting engine, leaving
them with a dead stick, could cause danger.
Just the same the unexpected happened!
"There's where President Roosevelt lies," Dick, in the last seat,
because their places were rearranged by Larry's position as pilot,
indicated to Sandy, just ahead of him, the cemetery beneath them.
Very tiny, in its iron fenced enclosure, the last resting place of a
national idol, was almost invisible with its simple headstone; but
Dick's statement was understood by Sandy to mean the location more than
the exact spot.
"I'll get Jeff to ask Larry to spiral down for a better look," Sandy
decided.
He transmitted the suggestion.
"Sandy wants to see President Roosevelt's place in the cemetery," Jeff
spoke into the tube of the Gossport helmet Larry still used.
"There it is, just off our left wing, buddy. That's right--stick goes to
the left and a touch of left rudder, but when you moved the stick
sidewise to adjust the ailerons you neglected that-there bit of forward
movement to tip us down into a glide. Remember, it's the double use of
the stick that works ailerons and elevators both."
Larry had overlooked that point for the instant. It was his only
difficulty in flying, to recollect always to control all the different
movements together. The joystick, operating the wing-flap ailerons by
the left-or-right, lateral movement, also raised or depressed the
elevators by forward-or-backward movement. However, in any lateral
position, the forward and backward set of the stick worked the elevators
and in executing a control maneuver, even as simple as going into a bank
combined with a turning glide, or downward spiral, the movement of the
stick should be both slightly sidewise, for sufficient bank, and, with
the same movement, slightly forward, for depressing the nose into a
glide, returning the stick from slightly forward back to neutral to
avoid over-depressing the nose into too steep a glide; if not put back
in neutral when the right angle was attained, the depressed elevators
would continue to turn the forward part of the craft more steeply
downward.
"Not too steep, Larry. Back with the stick."
Just at the instant that Larry was about to obey Jeff's instruction a
gust of air, coming up warm, tilted the lifted wing more, and as he
corrected for that, trying to get the wing up and the nose higher for a
flatter spiral, his movement was a little too sharp, and the sensitive
controls, working perfectly, but too sharply handled, sent the craft
into an opposite bank, rolling it like a ship in the trough of a
sidewise wave.
Also, Larry meant to try to draw the stick backward at the same time,
coordinating both corrections; but Jeff, a little less calm than usual
because of the superstitious fears that kept riding him, neglected to
speak the words by which he would inform Larry that _he_ was "taking
over" until the correction was made.
By that neglect, both drew back on the stick at the identical instant,
and the nose came up much too sharply.
Larry, not aware that Jeff meant to handle the job, almost pulled the
stick away from Jeff in his anxiety to get the nose down again, and
Dick, in the last seat, thought he felt a sort of thud.
"Hands off! I'll take over!" Jeff said tardily.
He drew back on the stick for, with the throttle rather wide--because
Larry had feared a stall as the nose went up and had thrust the throttle
control sharply forward--the craft began to go down in a very steep
glide, not quite a dive, but with engine on full gun, sending it in a
sharp angle toward earth.
Naturally, when he pulled back on the stick and it did not yield, Jeff
shouted through the speaking tube, "Let go!" for he thought Larry had
lost his head and was fighting his control.
Larry was not doing anything. He had removed his hand from the stick,
his feet merely touched the rudder bar.
Jeff called out something.
They did not realize his words, but Sandy saw his expression.
Almost as though he had been able to hear, Sandy knew Jeff's idea.
"The jinx has got us."
Jeff cut the gun swiftly, and came out of the bank pointed toward the
wide, shimmering waters of Oyster Bay.
"What's the matter?" Larry swung his head to call back.
"Stick's jammed!" Jeff grunted through the tube.
"Jammed?"
"Stuck. It won't come back. It's the jinx! Hoodoo! We're heading down
for the bay and I can't get the nose up!"
Dick, from the back place, saw Jeff struggling with the stick.
If he did not hear, at least his flying study informed him that
something had gone amiss.
Equally, his quick mind arrived at a good guess at the trouble.
The only reason Jeff would swing toward the water and give up working
with the stick must be that the stick would not operate the elevators.
And that, to Dick, spelled disaster.
Its speed accelerated at the start by the engine the airplane picked up
speed rapidly because its nose was steadily going down.
Jeff tugged madly again.
The stick, part of an installed auxiliary control for instruction work,
snapped out of its bed.
Jeff flung it disgustedly out to the side.
Larry sat quietly, knowing well that in no time they would be diving
toward a wet, deep bay--and the end!
Sandy, not fully aware of the situation, but tense, thought of his
'chute, in the seat-pack. Would there be time? Could he use it? He
waited, watching Jeff and Larry.
None of the three noticed Dick.
Seconds counted, he knew.
If the stick was jammed, it might be possible to get into the fuselage.
There he might operate the elevator cable by hand enough to get that
nose up more, flatten the glide, maybe enough to enable Larry, who alone
had a stick, to swing around and come down on land--somehow.
A crack-up would not be as bad, perhaps, as a plunge, a dive into the
bay!
Before his mind flashed the recollection that in construction plans he
had seen provision for getting into the after part of the fuselage.
Not wasting a second, he was already free from his safety belt, climbing
with agile quickness for all his plumpness, onto the fuselage.
It was a fearful risk.
Their speed sent them through the air so fast that the wind was a gale
there on the unprotected top fabric of the fuselage.
With his cotton-stuffed ears tortured by the pressure, with the fierce
wind tearing at him, Dick clutched the seat top as he tore away the
fabric flap covering a sort of manhole back of his place.
Headfirst he plunged in, scrambling, instantly beginning to seek the
points where the control cables passed through channeled guides at each
side.
He was in a dark, stuffy, closely confined and narrow space, his legs
hanging out in the roaring gale, unable to see, half suffocated by the
fumes collected in that restricted area.
He found a cable with exploring hands.
He tugged at it.
It was slack. That told his feverishly acute intelligence that it was
the cable whose lever did not operate. He had seen that Jeff, when he
flung the stick forward to try to free it, had been able to pull it back
again without operating the elevators.
Almost as his hand touched the cable and twitched at it, his other hand,
as he lay with his weight on his chin, face and chest, contacted
something else--a large, roundish object, feeling like a spare landing
wheel tire.
He knew as though the light photographed the truth to his eyes, that
this tire-like object had moved, shifted, fallen onto the cable, wedging
it.
Instantly Dick pushed it into the center of the small space.
Gripping the cable, he twitched it sharply once--twice--three times!
In the dark, he did not know how close the water was. He could not tell
if his alertness had been able to give back the use of the elevators in
time.
Larry, his hand idly on the useless stick, felt it twitch three times.
Automatically he tested it. It came back, and the nose began to come up
a trifle. He did not dare over-control. He had learned that lesson!
The water was rushing up at them--but the stick--might----
Seconds to go!
He must not drag the ship out of that dive too swiftly--a wing might be
torn off.
But with his nerves taut, by sheer power of his cool will forcing
himself to work steadily but not sharply, he brought the nose up,
closing his eyes to that wild nightmare of water seeming to be leaping
toward the airplane.
Jeff shut his eyes. Then he opened them again. No use to try a jump, no
use to do anything but be ready if----
Sandy braced himself.
The airplane was flattening out!
Larry was operating the stick!
The nose came up steadily--with a fraction of time to the good, they
began to come out of the glide to level flight.
Larry braced himself against the slap of the wheels into the surface
water. That might offer just enough resistance to nose them in.
He must be ready to open the throttle and pull up the nose--but he must
not do it too soon, or do it at all in his strained, excited state--he
might go too far.
Level! The airplane skimmed, it seemed to Larry, inches above the
slightly ruffled water.
Gently he drew back the stick, opening the throttle carefully.
"Golly-to-gosh!" he muttered, "that was close----"
When he had lifted the craft and headed for home, he glanced back.
Two legs waved over the last cockpit place.
And in that ridiculous position Dick, a hero upside down, came to earth
at the end of Sandy's birthday flight--on the thirteenth, a Friday, as
Jeff, white and shaken, hastened to remind them.
"But you sure done some swell control job," he told Dick.
"Thanks," Dick retorted, without smiling.
He turned to Larry.
"You did the trick, Larry," he declared. "I only loosened the
cables--freed them----"
"What made them jam, I wonder?" mused Sandy.
"The jinx!"
Dick turned on Jeff.
"Yes," he said very quietly for him. "The jinx! The hoodoo. I think it's
broken, though--in fact, I know it is."
"Why?"
"Because." Dick began to chuckle, "I've thought of a sure way to break
it."
"How?" Jeff was regaining his color and his curiosity.
But Dick grinned and shook his head.
He knew the answer to the puzzle of the missing emeralds!