NED NAPIER ADVANCES SOME THEORIES
Neither J. W. Osborne, president of the Universal Transportation
Company, nor Major Baldwin Honeywell, its treasurer, had any financial
interest in the new airship. This had been planned and manufactured
under the supervision of and paid for by young Napier, Hope and Russell.
The cost, approximately $25,000, did not include any pay for the
services or ideas of the projectors.
After a trial of the novel airship it was understood that the machine
was to be sold to the Aerial Utilities Company in which the Airship Boys
and the underwriter of the Universal Transportation Company were the
sole stockholders. In the few minutes that Ned and Alan were together in
their office on the first floor they decided that the sale of the new
_Ocean Flyer_ to the Aerial Utilities Company should not be consummated
until the transatlantic flight had been made.
In the progress of their hasty talk, however, Ned managed to read
several personal letters. One, in a feminine hand and postmarked
Chicago, he did not throw back on the desk for his files. This one he
carefully put in his pocket. It was signed by Alan’s sister, Mary Hope.
“Your letter is here,” it read, “but I do not share in your enthusiasm
over the near completion of the new aeroplane. We are not happy to know
that Alan and you are to risk your lives again in a new experiment.
While you do not say so, Alan has written to father that it is your
intention to make a long water flight in the _Ocean Flyer_ if it proves
a success. I know what that means. I remember the speech you made at
your birthday party last summer about crossing the Atlantic! Don’t you
think that you and my brother have enough fame and reward to stop these
risks? I suppose it is presumption for me to attempt to interfere in any
way with what you and Alan look on as your ‘profession,’ but don’t you
believe your families ought to receive some consideration? And I’m sure
it would make us all very happy to hear that you are not going to try to
cross the ocean in an airship even if you did make the machine yourself.
Please send me word that you are not going to do it.”
Ned neither showed the letter to Alan nor referred to it. In fact, he
had recently reached a point in his acquaintance with Mary Hope that did
not inspire conversation in relation to her—least of all with his chum,
her brother. When the three boys met in Major Honeywell’s office a busy
hour followed. There was not only much talk concerning the new airship
but the temporarily postponed business of the Universal Transportation
Company demanded consideration. When the matter of the _Herald_ project
came up for analysis Major Honeywell and the boys discussed it in all
its phases.
When the _Herald_ manager arrived, a little after noon, the visitor was
first escorted through the various offices. Although he was acquainted
in general with the importance and magnitude of this newly organized
company, the details of its operating machinery astounded the
journalist. For some time after the _Herald_ manager reached Major
Honeywell’s office, he insisted on additional information on this
astounding aeroplane transportation service. The route maps, latitude
and longitude tables for all cities, magnetic variation and compass
deviation tables for aviators, photographs of the newly completed metal
monoplanes and the air-line hangars on the 750 mile route to Chicago
almost drove the proposed ocean flight out of the newspaper man’s mind.
“At least,” he said, “what you’ve shown, proves to me that we can’t fail
in what we’re about to attempt. I’m mighty glad I missed my luncheon.
I’ll not be satisfied now till I’ve seen your latest aeroplane.”
“This afternoon!” responded Ned with enthusiasm. “Mr. Russell has just
been in wireless communication with the factory. Daylight didn’t show a
scratch on the _Ocean Flyer_. We’d like to have you and Major Honeywell
go out with us this afternoon.”
“Delighted,” responded the managing editor. “We’ll pick up a bite on the
way. And as that is to be pleasure, let’s get down to business. Of
course you’ll want a contract.”
“Only a memorandum,” answered Ned. “Not so much a _contract_ as a record
of what we are to undertake.”
Thereupon Ned reviewed the talk he and his friends had had at breakfast,
the journalist making brief notes. The plan for picking up the matrices
at the start was received with enthusiastic approval. The boys were to
deliver the Osborne postal crane to a sea tug to be furnished by the
_Herald_, which was to install the device under young Osborne’s
supervision. The question of a landing in London was a harder nut to
crack. On this there was prolonged debate. The boys felt forced to put
the arrangement of this up to the newspaper.
“I have had but one idea on that,” explained the manager. “It may not be
wholly feasible but it is all I have in mind. Hyde Park is the biggest
open place near the ‘city.’ It is only about two miles from Fleet Street
or ‘newspaper row.’ There is plenty of room in this park to make a
landing and a new start just north of the Serpentine—that’s a long,
irregular bit of water you know.”
“Will the police permit it?” asked Alan.
“They can’t prevent the landing,” laughed Bob, “but we may all be in the
police station when it’s time to start back.”
“I’ll have to undertake to arrange that,” volunteered the manager. “Our
men in London ought to have enough influence to get a special permit.”
“That’s a point that’ll have to be covered in the contract or
memorandum,” suggested Major Honeywell. “The boys being strangers to
London can not undertake to guarantee this privilege to themselves. If
detained by some power beyond their control, the project might fail
through no fault of theirs. This contingency should be anticipated.”
“I concede that,” said the _Herald_ representative. “And yet, naturally,
an accident of that kind would defeat the main purpose of the project.
We might be paying our money for a practical failure.”
“Why not arrange a sliding scale of compensation?” suggested Major
Honeywell.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” continued the editor smiling. “The mere
crossing of the Atlantic on a mission for the _Herald_ is valuable
advertising. But, since so much depends on the time of the return trip,
I’d like to make an extra incentive, if possible, for its exact
fulfillment.”
“In other words,” exclaimed Ned, “you feel that part of the
responsibility of successfully getting away on the return trip ought to
be on us.”
“Perhaps that is the plain way of putting it,” announced the editor.
“I don’t know but what that’s fair,” responded Ned. “It’ll make us stir
our stumps at least. Let’s make it a sliding scale.”
“On that basis,” said the journalist quickly, “I’ll make a better offer
than I submitted last night—I’ll add $10,000 if the scale covers both
the east and west voyages. What do you suggest?”
Major Honeywell was already figuring. In a few moments he read the
following: “For picking up _Telegram_ matrices from _Herald_ sea tug on
East River between 2 P. M. and 2:20 P. M. Thursday, June 21, and
carrying them by aeroplane for the _Herald_ directly to European soil
within not more than eighteen hours, the sum of $25,000; for delivering
the same, within the same period, in England, $10,000 in addition; for
delivering the same within the same period into the hands of the
_Herald_ representatives in Hyde Park, London, $5,000 in addition. For
conveying from London, between the hours of 1:30 P. M. (London time)
June 22 and 2 A. M. (New York time) June 23, three representatives of
the _Herald_ and delivering the same within ten miles of the _Herald_
office, the further sum of $25,000. In case of a failure to carry out
the conditions of the last clause, the party of the second part is to
receive a bonus of $5,000 if the representatives of the _Herald_ are
delivered on American soil within twenty-four hours.”
“In other words,” explained Major Honeywell, “if the _Ocean Flyer_,
carrying your matrices, reaches any European point within eighteen
hours, the boys get twenty-five thousand dollars. If they reach London
successfully they are to be paid ten thousand dollars more or
thirty-five thousand dollars. If they make the trip back in the same
time, carrying your three people, they get another twenty-five thousand
dollars or sixty thousand dollars altogether.”
“That is the idea.”
“And if they fail to get back on time they get only five thousand
dollars for the return trip.”
“I’ll do better than that,” added the editor. “I have with me our
cashier’s check for $10,000 payable to the Airship Boys. The above terms
are agreeable to me. If they are satisfactory to the young men, I’ll pay
over the check now, unconditionally. It will have been earned if a start
is made in good faith.”
Ned at once waved the check aside.
“We’ll sign the contract and we’ll start not only in good faith but in
good hope. But we’ll call for our money on the morning of June 23, and,”
he added, his eyes twinkling, “when you may as well have a check for
sixty thousand dollars ready. We’ll earn it.”
While Major Honeywell’s secretary prepared a duplicate copy of the
memorandum contract Alan raised another point:
“Has any one figured where and how we are to deliver your reporters,
their copy, the photographer and his pictures? Remember, it will be
about two o’clock in the morning.”
“Can’t you drop the manuscript and the pictures somewhere out in the bay
near the _Herald_ boat if it shows prearranged signals?” asked the
editor.
“Why not show the same signals on the _Herald_ building?” asked Bob.
“Our customary green diamond?”
“But we can’t drop the reporters,” laughed Ned.
“If you can land our stories and our pictures on the _Herald_ roof,”
exclaimed the editor with new interest, “you may dump the reporters in
the Jersey flats and let ’em swim.”
“We’ll come over and look at the roof,” exclaimed Ned smiling. “The men
can take a chance with us.”
“Now,” began the editor in a new tone, “with these business details out
of the way, I want to ask something. I wish you’d explain to me how you
are going to travel one hundred and eighty miles an hour.”
“To confess the truth,” answered Ned promptly, “it’ll be two hundred
miles an hour. One hundred and eighty is our minimum.”
The editor’s face wore a puzzled look.
“This rate of two hundred miles an hour,” explained Ned, “involves no
new ideas. That is the natural evolution from the sixty mile an hour
rate due to a better built machine and more powerful engines. All
aeroplanes will reach that speed in time just as railway trains go
faster with more powerful engines, heavier road beds, better tracks and
more daring engineers. But the _Ocean Flyer_ has possibilities far
beyond two hundred miles an hour—theoretically at least.”
“More than two hundred miles an hour?” gasped the journalist.
“Mathematically,” answered Ned. “I can hardly say how near practice will
coincide with theory.”
“And how fast mathematically?” asked the _Herald_ manager quizzically.
“Anything up to eight hundred miles an hour. Possibly one thousand.”
Even Major Honeywell started with astonishment. The newspaper man shook
his head.
“Beyond sixty miles an hour,” he replied in a puzzled tone, “speed
doesn’t mean much to me. I can’t realize what it means to travel one
thousand miles an hour.”
“Here’s an illustration,” volunteered Alan. “At one thousand miles an
hour, an aeroplane could circumnavigate the globe, in the latitude of
Paris, in seventeen hours.”
“And beat the sun?” exclaimed the newspaper man.
“Mathematically,” repeated Ned, his smile broadening.
“I don’t believe you could travel at the rate of two hundred miles an
hour and live,” argued the editor.
“Oh yes you can,” retorted Alan. “How do you suppose birds cross the
ocean without food or water? Don’t you know that there are birds that
migrate the length of the Pacific ocean? There are Arctic birds that
winter in the tropics and fly to the polar regions in the summer—birds
that are never seen on land between those zones.” The newspaper manager
and the major were listening intently. “German scholars have discovered
that many migrating birds fly at such a high altitude that they can be
seen only by means of a powerful telescope. The flight of some of these
birds has been measured. Four miles a minute or two hundred and forty
miles an hour is not uncommon.”
The surprised manager made no comment.
“The mathematical possibilities of airship speed,” resumed Ned, “are
based on height or altitude. The maximum of speed at or near sea level
is no indication of what may be accomplished miles in the air. Let me
explain. Say we have an airship such as the _Ocean Flyer_ that can fly
two hundred miles an hour near sea level where the air pressure is
greatest.”
“Yes.”
“Then imagine the same airship seven miles in the air.”
“You’d freeze. Or if you didn’t you’d die from lack of oxygen.”
“Balloonists have gone that high. They were cold enough but they carried
oxygen with them and didn’t die.”
“Well!”
“At seven miles in the air the air pressure is reduced one half. The
forward speed of your airship, assuming that it is flying on the same
angle, ought to be doubled. You’d be advancing at the rate of four
hundred miles an hour.”
“I thought the buoyancy decreased with the pressure,” broke in Major
Honeywell who had absorbed more or less of the terms of aeronautics.
“So it does,” explained Ned, “but the buoyancy of an aeroplane is due
wholly to its rapid flight. If we are going at the rate of two hundred
miles an hour and are then able to double this, we have compensation for
the loss of half our buoyancy. So, all other things being equal, we have
a theory that like a migrating bird, the higher we ascend, the faster
our flight. And, one other thing. The faster you rise from the earth the
less the force of gravity. At eight miles altitude, where the air
pressure is one fourth that at the sea level, and where,
mathematically,” he looked at the astonished editor mischievously, “the
two hundred mile an hour aeroplane would be traveling at the rate of
eight hundred miles an hour, it has already been calculated that the
specific gravity of the airship would be two per cent less than at sea
level. Do you understand what that means?”
“That the force of gravity would be less,” answered the editor.
“And that the centrifugal tendency would be greater,” continued Ned. “In
other words there would be an appreciable inclination of the airship to
fly away from the earth.”
“Oh, I see,” exclaimed the journalist. “We have at last come around to
Jules Verne’s cannon ball that was fired at the moon.”
“Only that in this instance,” replied Ned soberly, “we have a guidable,
continuously propelled cannon ball.”
“Didn’t an aeroplane man go up eleven thousand feet?” queried the
_Herald_ manager suddenly. “Did he fly faster?”
“On the contrary,” explained Ned, “he had great trouble in maintaining
his position and in controlling his machine. But that wasn’t because the
mathematics of it was wrong,” and again he laughed. “All other
conditions changing at that enormous height, your mechanical appliances
must also change. Propellers made alone for the heavy air of the lower
altitudes are not adapted to use in the rarefied atmosphere seven or
eight miles up. The _Ocean Flyer_ has propellers that compress the thin
air of the upper levels. Gasoline engines doing their best work when
ordinary air is used in the explosion chambers are far less efficient
when air at one-half or one-fourth pressure is used. The _Ocean Flyer_
has an arrangement for compressing air. Its liberated, exploded gas
expands even better in thin air. Present-day aeroplanes and their
engines and propellers are made for sea level work. Hoxie, who did that
eleven thousand elevation feat skyward had no excuse for such a flight.”
“And you think you can live at that altitude?”
“We’ll carry oxygen, of course,” went on Ned, “but we won’t even need
that. The _Ocean Flyer_ has the first enclosed car or cabin used on an
aeroplane. The compartments of its two decks connect with each other but
all can be made one airtight whole. Even the engines are within an
airtight compartment. Attached to the point or bow of the car is a
large, metal funnel with a wide flange. Tubes leading from the small end
of this pass into each room. Flying at sixty miles an hour causes the
air to rush into this funnel with such force that all or any one of the
compartments are soon full of compressed air. At a speed of two hundred
miles this would be so great that, instead of having too little air, we
would have too much unless the pressure gauges were watched and the flow
shut off from time to time.”
The great editor looked on the young aviator as if the latter possessed
some of the mysterious power of a wizard.
“That does seem reasonable,” was his comment at last.
“At least _mathematically_,” went on Ned with the same smile. “This will
not only give us breathing air but the pressure ought to give us
sufficient heat to prevent frost bite. It will certainly do another
thing. If we are driven to use our engine at such a height, we can draw
the air for mixing with its gas directly from the engine room where it
can be regulated to sea level pressure.”
“Major,” suddenly exclaimed the puzzled and not unexcited editor, “send
me those contracts when they are ready. I’m going over to Newark and
have a look at this _Ocean Flyer_. I think I’ve made the best bargain of
my business life.”