"Using this glider as a reconnaissance aircraft."
"Captain, I warn you! Aircraft were not in use in warfare until--"
But Joe Mauser cut him off, equally briskly. "Aircraft were first used
in combat by Pancho Villa's forces a few years previous to World War I.
They were also used in the Balkan Wars of about the same period. But
those were powered craft. This is a glider, invented and in use before
the year 1900 and hence open to utilization."
The Hungarian clipped, "But the Wright Brothers didn't fly even gliders
until--"
Joe looked him full in the face. "But you of the Sov-world do not admit
that the Wrights were the first to fly, do you?"
The Hungarian closed his mouth, abruptly.
Joe said evenly, "But even if Ivan Ivanovitch, or whatever you claim his
name was, didn't invent flight of heavier than air craft, the glider was
flown variously before 1900, including Otto Lilienthal in the 1890s, and
was designed as far back as Leonardo da Vinci."
The Sov-world colonel stared at him for a long moment, then gave an
inane giggle. He stepped back and flicked Joe Mauser a salute. "Very
well, captain. As a matter of routine, I shall report this use of an
aircraft for reconnaissance purposes, and undoubtedly a commission will
meet to investigate the propriety of the departure. Meanwhile, good
luck!"
* * * * *
Joe returned the salute and swung a leg over the cockpit's side. Max was
already in the front seat, his semaphore flags, maps and binoculars on
his lap. He had been staring in dismay at the Sov officer, now was
relieved that Joe had evidently pulled it off.
Joe waved to the plane ahead. Two mechanics had come up to steady the
wings for the initial ten or fifteen feet of the motorless craft's
passage over the ground behind the towing craft.
Joe said to Max, "did you explain to the pilot that under no
circumstances was he to pass over the line of the military reservation,
that we'd cut before we reached that point?"
"Yes, sir," Max said nervously. He'd flown before, on the commercial
lines, but he'd never been in a glider.
They began lurching across the field, slowly, then gathering speed. And
as the sailplane took speed, it took grace. After it had been pulled a
hundred feet or so, Joe eased back the stick and it slipped gently into
the air, four or five feet off the ground. The towing airplane was
still taxiing, but with its tow airborne it picked up speed quickly.
Another two hundred feet and it, too, was in the air and beginning to
climb. The glider behind held it to a speed of sixty miles or so.
At ten thousand feet, the plane leveled off and the pilot's head
swiveled to look back at them. Joe Mauser waved to him and dropped the
release lever which ejected the nylon rope from the glider's nose. The
plane dove away, trailing the rope behind it. Joe knew that the plane
pilot would later drop it over the airport where it could easily be
retrieved.
In the direction of Mount Overlook he could see cumulus clouds and the
dark turbulence which meant strong updraft. He headed in that direction.
Except for the whistling of wind, there is complete silence in a soaring
glider. Max Mainz began to call back to his superior, was taken back by
the volume, and dropped his voice. He said, "Look, captain. What keeps
it up?"
Joe grinned. He liked the buoyance of glider flying, the nearest
approach of man to the bird, and thus far everything was going well. He
told Max, "An airplane plows through the air currents, a glider rides on
top of them."
"Yeah, but suppose the current is going down?"
"Then we avoid it. This sailplane only has a gliding angle ratio of one
to twenty-five, but it's a workhorse with a payload of some four hundred
pounds. A really high performance glider can have a ratio of as much as
one to forty."
Joe had found a strong updraft where a wind ran up the side of a
mountain. He banked, went into a circling turn. The gauge indicated they
were climbing at the rate of eight meters per second, nearly fifteen
hundred feet a minute.
Max hadn't got the rundown on the theory of the glider. That was obvious
in his expression.
Joe Mauser, even while searching the ground below keenly, went into it
further. "A wind up against a mountain will give an updraft, storm
clouds will, even a newly plowed field in a bright sun. So you go from
one of these to the next."
"Yeah, great, but when you're between," Max protested.
"Then, when you have a one to twenty-five ratio, you go twenty-five feet
forward for each one you drop. If you started a mile high, you could go
twenty-five miles before you touched ground." He cut himself off
quickly. "Look, what's that, down there? Get your glasses on it."
Max caught his excitement. His binoculars were tight to his eyes.
"Sojers. Cavalry. They sure ain't ours. They must be Hovercraft lads.
And look, field artillery."
Joe Mauser was piloting with his left hand, his right smoothing out a
chart on his lap. He growled, "What are they doing there? That's at
least a full brigade of cavalry. Here, let me have those glasses."
With his knees gripping the stick, he went into a slow circle, as he
stared down at the column of men. "Jack Alshuler," he whistled in
surprise. "The marshal's crack heavy cavalry. And several batteries of
artillery." He swung the glasses in a wider scope and the whistle turned
into a hiss of comprehension. "They're doing a complete circle of the
reservation. They're going to hit the Baron from the direction of
Phoenicia."
X
Marshal Stonewall Cogswell directed his old fashioned telescope in the
direction his chief of staff indicated.
"What is it?" he grunted.
"It's an airplane, sir."
"Over a military reservation with a fracas in progress?"
"Yes, sir." The other put his glasses back on the circling object. "Then
what is it, sir? Certainly not a free balloon."
"Balloons," the marshal snorted, as though to himself. "Legal to use.
The Union forces had them toward the end of the Civil War. But
practically useless in a fracas of movement."
They were standing before the former resort hotel which housed the
marshal's headquarters. Other staff members were streaming from the
building, and one of the ever-present Telly reporting crews were
hurriedly setting up cameras.
The marshal turned and barked, "Does anybody know what in Zen that
confounded thing, circling up there, is?"
Baron Zwerdling, the aging Category Transport magnate, head of
Continental Hovercraft, hobbled onto the wooden veranda and stared with
the others. "An airplane," he croaked. "Haer's gone too far this time.
Too far, too far. This will strip him. Strip him, understand." Then he
added, "Why doesn't it make any noise?"
Lieutenant Colonel Paul Warren stood next to his commanding officer. "It
looks like a glider, sir."