THE PELICAN MAKES ITS FIRST FLIGHT
Based on his hasty examination of the aeroplane, young Osborne
instantly suggested a few improvements or reinforcements. As most of
the work yet to be done, such as the attachment of the rudder, landing
skis, and wheels, would increase the car so much in size that it could
not be taken in and out of the shop, everything was immediately moved
out of doors.
Then, before actual labor began, Captain Anderson suggested that they
go into the house for a few moments. Andy chuckled. He knew that
the captain wanted to acquaint his suspicious wife with the turn in
affairs――possibly the captain was afraid that Mrs. Osborne might make a
real attack with her skillet.
Andy could not but envy the young aviator’s natty figure and the
professional look about him. It was with considerable pride that he
presented Osborne to Mrs. Anderson and his mother.
“Maybe you don’t know about him,” began Andy while Roy protested and
grew red in the face, “but there isn’t anyone in America, young or old,
who knows any more about flyin’ machines than he does. There’s a book
about him, and he ain’t but――how old are you?” exclaimed the boy.
“Oh, I can’t vote yet,” laughed Roy. “This is certainly a beautiful
place for a home, Mrs. Anderson.”
“And that book tells how he figured out an aeroplane express in the
deserts of Utah and found a lost tribe of Indians――”
“But I can’t see that anything I did was half as remarkable as the
making of a complete aeroplane down here,” broke in Roy.
“I never saw a regular flying machine,” said Mrs. Anderson, “but this
one doesn’t look like one to me. Do you think it is all right?”
“No aeroplane is absolutely all right,” answered Roy smiling. “But this
one out there is correct so far as I understand aeroplanes. Anyway, I’m
going to test this one out, and I don’t expect to kill myself doing it.”
“How far can you go in it?” asked Mrs. Leighton.
“If it works all right, I could go easily from here to Lake Worth, or
back over the Everglades, or even across to the Bahamas――”
“To the Bahamas?” broke in Andy.
“Certainly,” affirmed Roy. “I understand they aren’t over eighty-five
or ninety miles away. But I shan’t do any of these things. I’ll make a
thorough test of the apparatus and then show Andy how to operate it.”
“Andy!” exclaimed Mrs. Leighton in alarm.
“I promised to,” explained Roy, surprised. “That is, if he wants to try
it.”
But Mrs. Leighton was shaking her head.
“That’s part of my business, you know. I’ve taught a good many persons
and have never yet had an accident.”
“I don’t think I want him to learn,” said Mrs. Leighton slowly.
“Mother,” spoke up Andy, with energy, “didn’t you say I could try to
operate this car when Captain Anderson asked you to let me do it?”
“I――believe I did,” conceded that lady hesitatingly.
“Well, Captain Anderson,” exclaimed Andy stoutly, “don’t _you_ want me
to try it?”
“If Mr. Osborne tests it out and takes you up and shows you how, I
think it’ll be all right.”
“There,” urged the boy facing his mother, “are you going to keep your
word?”
“Let’s see what Mr. Osborne has to say about it after he has tried it,”
pleaded the boy’s mother.
That was all the concession Andy wanted.
At three o’clock the _Pelican_ was completed.
“You have to wait for the wind to go down, don’t you?” asked Captain
Anderson. “That’ll be about five o’clock.”
Roy shook his head.
“Some do,” he said, “but with a perfectly-made machine and a powerful
engine, I like a fair breeze.” He looked about. “I’m all ready.”
The river shore at each side of Captain Anderson’s place was crossed
by a wire fence. On the south side of the pier, the hard, white sand
stretched like a road for miles. Here and there was a little driftwood.
Captain Anderson removed the fence with a few blows of an axe, while
Andy ran down the shore to remove the driftwood.
“I suppose you think it strange I don’t help,” said Roy to Mrs.
Anderson and Mrs. Leighton, who were on the pier. “But that’s the first
thing an aeroplane operator has to learn. When I make an extensive
flight, I do no work that day if I can help it. My assistants fill the
tanks and get the car in place. I save every bit of muscle and nerve
force I have.”
“You haven’t stuck to your rule to-day,” suggested Mrs. Leighton a
little anxiously. “You’ve worked harder than the others.”
“Oh, this isn’t a _real_ flight,” explained Roy. “I mean one in which
you’re going to do stunts in the way of an exhibition. I shan’t go high
or far. If I were going up several thousand feet――”
“Several thousand feet!” exclaimed both ladies.
“The safety in aeroplane work,” Roy explained, “is in going very high
or very low――no middle ground. Either go so low that a fall won’t hurt
you, or get up so high that if anything happens, your machine will have
time to get into a glide.”
The fence having been removed and the beach cleared, the taut,
bird-like aeroplane was carefully trundled around the pier and out on
the sand facing south, from which direction the breeze was blowing.
Andy and the captain were visibly nervous.
Then, as if it had just occurred to him, Roy said he would test the
engine once more. Mrs. Anderson and Mrs. Leighton had followed close
behind. Roy turned with a smile.
“You ladies had better step to one side,” he suggested. “There’ll be
quite a commotion behind. Take hold of her,” he said to the captain and
Andy.
He located Captain Anderson and Andy at the rear of the car on opposite
sides of the rudder frame and told them to sit on the ground and dig
heel holes in the sand as if pulling on a rope in a tug-of-war.
“And pull your hats over your eyes,” he ordered. “Hold your heads down
and hang on until you get the word to ‘let go’.”
The captain, not less eagerly than Andy, did as directed, and Roy,
having turned the propeller blades into place, started the engine. The
first whirr of the big blades began to agitate the loose sand and dry
grass. Then the young aviator turned on more power. The agitation grew
into a breeze, and that into a tornado-like storm of wind. The boy and
the man on the ground felt the aeroplane pulling, and as it began to
tug at its human anchors and rock from side to side, Roy quickly shut
off the engine.
“Fine,” he remarked without excitement, as the dust and grass settled
and Andy and the captain shook the dirt from their faces. “Nothing the
matter with that engine.” Then with another look about and a “feel” of
the hand for the wind, he walked to the front of the car.
The breeze seemed a little stronger now. As the young aviator noticed
this, he ran into the boathouse and appeared with his coat. This he
buttoned and then turned up the collar.
“There’s just a chance that I’ll have to go up a little to turn and get
back on the beach,” he explained, “and you don’t have to go very high
to find it considerably cooler.”
Then he turned the visor of his cap to the rear, and climbed into the
seat.
“Hold on till you get the word,” he commanded. At the same moment he
started the engine again.
Once more the rush of wind behind told the power of the revolving
propellers. Roy did not look behind. One hand on the engine valve
and the other on the lever control, he sat unmoving. Lower and lower
dropped the heads of the captain and Andy, as their heels sank into
the sand and their hands gripped the framework――the fragile car was
throbbing with power and the propellers were no longer visible.
“She’s slippin’――!”
“Let go!” shouted Roy.
As the captain and the boy fell backward, the untested aeroplane darted
forward. For a few yards, it bounded up and down, and then, as if
gathering new force, shot straight over the smooth sand.
Once it seemed about to rise, and then, striking the beach again, the
aviator seemed to lose control of the machine. The rushing aeroplane
shot sideways, as if to dash into the shallow river. Again it sprang
upward, and again darted toward the river. Just as the forward
wheel touched the water, the great planes caught the breeze, poised
themselves for an instant, and rose in the air like a fluttering duck.
Twice its rear wheels touched the surface of the river, and then the
spectators could see Roy shoot the bird-tail rudder shaft to the rear
and the pinions fly upwards.
“He’s off!” shouted Andy.
“You bet he is!” shouted Captain Anderson just as vigorously. “She’s
flyin’!”
On the sand, Andy raced back and forth, as if he had lost his senses.
With a loud whoop of joy, he turned a handspring as the only relief
for his bottled-up excitement.
Out over the river the _Pelican_ flew a few hundred feet, and then,
veering toward the beach, began to rise. Her propellers seemed to sound
louder as she lifted herself. And southward, Roy held her, between two
hundred and three hundred feet above the beach, for perhaps a half mile.
Then her operator began to mount higher. As he did so, he turned out
over the water and brought the machine about toward the north, at least
eight hundred feet above the water.
Andy ran to his mother and threw his arm around her.
“Watch it!” he cried. “Isn’t it a wonder?”
But his mother was too astounded to make a reply.
Having tested the machine, Roy could not resist one of his exhibition
stunts. His propellers going full speed, he headed the car toward the
beach at a point a little south of where the fence had stood.
Coming directly toward his audience, his speed could only be guessed by
the rapidly growing outlines of the car.
This was shooting downward like some swift bird in search of prey. At
the angle at which it was traveling, it must surely dash itself on the
beach.
“Look out!” yelled Andy, alarmed.
Then something happened. With coolness that had come only with many
flights, the boy in the machine made two swift motions. As one hand
shut off the engine, the other shot back the rudder lever. The darting
machine responded to the guiding planes, rose lightly as if it had
struck an atmospheric hill, and then, the propellers coming to an
instant stop, the machine floated gracefully forward as if on invisible
tracks. Touching its wheels daintily on the ground a few times, it came
to a gentle run which ended as Roy gradually applied the wheel brake.
“She wants a little ballast on the right side,” said Roy as he slid
from his seat. Then he reached out his hands to the captain and Andy,
and said, with a laugh:
“Any time you gentlemen need jobs, I’ll undertake to get them for you
in Newark. Your machine is all right. The bird-tail guide certainly
helps. I found a little trouble to start because I didn’t give it
enough play; I didn’t allow for the counter-action. But it certainly
helps. Did you see the turn? With a plain rudder, I’d have come almost
to a standstill doing that. I had a dip, but nothing like the usual
one.”
“Do you think we can get a patent on it?” asked Andy almost
perfunctorily, for he was already feeling the engine cylinders and
inspecting the shafts for hot bearings.
“I don’t know,” said Roy, loosening his coat and reversing his cap.
“The idea I’ve heard of before――maybe it is patented. But I’d try. And,
if you can, I hope you’ll give us the first chance at it――I mean our
company.”
“Weren’t you scared?” asked Mrs. Leighton.
“Mrs. Leighton,” answered Roy, “you can’t make an aviator――he’s born.
That is, you can’t educate away fear. I am scared sometimes, but it’s
from the engine behind my back, never because of the height at which
I’m working. But I wish they’d put an engine where you could watch
it. A hundred feet up or three thousand, it’s all the same to me. The
engine is what I’m afraid of. But here’s one I’m less afraid of than
any I ever saw.”
The short winter day was coming to an end, but the sun was yet above
the horizon. The breeze had dropped a little. Andy turned suddenly from
his examination of the motor and whispered to Roy. The latter smiled
and nodded his head.
“Mother,” said Andy, “Mr. Osborne won’t be here long. I’m going up with
him.”
“I――” began Mrs. Leighton. “Are you sure it’s safe, Mr. Osborne?”
“We can never be sure of that,” answered Roy. “But I’d rather trust
myself in an aeroplane than on a motorcycle.”
“What if your engine stopped?” suggested the disturbed woman.
“It stopped just now. Or, I stopped it,” added Roy. “I can’t go up
without the engine, but I can come down without it.”
“Well――” began Mrs. Leighton.
“Can you hold her alone, Captain Anderson?” shouted Andy joyously,
knowing that consent had been given.
“I can hold her until she pulls away,” responded the captain soberly,
“and when she does that, I guess she’ll be pullin’ some.”
“That’ll do,” said Roy. “Climb aboard.”
Three minutes later, Andy Leighton rose from the ground in his first
aeroplane flight――but not the last by any means.