The rest of that day was a very busy one for the Airship Boys, even
though Major Honeywell himself lent as much assistance as he could.
There was a variety of miscellaneous supplies to be purchased, hurried
letters to be written to Ned’s parents in Chicago and to Alan’s sister,
Mary. Both boys agreed that it was best not to state the destination or
object of their trip for fear that their beloved ones might suffer all
sorts of anxieties until their safe return. So they wrote briefly that
they were going off upon a little three or four days’ business trip in
the _Ocean Flyer_ and that it was the urgency of the business in hand
that prevented their making the farewell visit they desired.
Their shopping for necessary supplies did not take the boys long, for
they could estimate pretty closely what they would need. On account of
the extremely high altitudes at which they would fly it was necessary
for them to buy especially heavy underwear, felt boots, wool jackets,
fleece-lined fingered mittens and heavy caps for four persons--as
Alan said: “The fourth outfit for Bob Russell, so that he won’t freeze
coming back with us.”
Then there were food supplies (the _Flyer_ was equipped with a regular
cook’s galley) to be bought, a dozen hair-trigger automatic revolvers,
half a dozen light-weight repeating rifles of the latest pattern,
cartridge belts, rounds of ammunition, and a large American flag.
Neither the firearms nor the flag were to be used except in case of
absolute necessity.
Major Honeywell got the aeroplane works in Newark, where the _Ocean
Flyer_ was being kept in storage, on the telephone, and issued
instructions to the manager there to run the big aircraft out of the
hangar into the inclosed experimental field ready for inspection, and
to lay in fresh supplies of the special grades of gasoline and ether
needed for power.
All incidental shopping completed, Major Honeywell placed his big
automobile at the disposal of Ned and Alan, and the trip between
Greater New York and Newark was accomplished at a rate that turned the
speedometer needle halfway around its circumference and raised angry
protests from every traffic policeman as the car whizzed by. This was
not, of course, a wise thing to do, but the Major’s chauffeur was an
especially good driver and the boys felt justified by the exceptional
matter in hand.
An unusual stir was apparent inside the field of the aeroplane works as
the Major’s automobile raced up to the high brick wall which insured
privacy for the grounds. At the far end of the ground stretched the
squatty brick buildings of the factory, with a wireless station and
various other signaling devices on the parapeted roof. Extending out
from the yard front and ending at the edge of the big experimental
field, was the “setting-up room,” a drop of heavy canvas roofing,
supported every hundred feet by rough, unpainted posts. Under this
tent-like structure was to be seen almost every size and variety
of flying craft made in America, to say nothing of several flying
machines of obviously foreign design. Most of these were covered by
heavy tarpaulins to protect them while not in use. A whole corps of
mechanicians was just then pushing out into the aviation field another
and very different type of flyer, the heroic proportions of which
dwarfed all the other machines into insignificance.
The eyes of the Airship Boys lighted up.
“There she goes!” they cried in unison. “They are getting her all ready
for us.”
They jumped out of the automobile and hurried across the field to where
the peerless wonder of the world’s aircraft stood, a literal monument
to their inventive genius.
The _Ocean Flyer_ has been too fully commented upon and described in
scientific journals, magazines and newspapers from coast to coast to
require any very detailed account of it in this story.
Overlapping, dull glinting plates of the recently-discovered metal
magnalium covered the entire body of the vessel like the scales of a
fish. The planes and truss were likewise formed of this substance,
which is a magnesium alloy with copper and standard vanadium, or chrome
steel. The extreme lightness of magnalium, combined with a toughness
found in no other metal or alloy, made possible the perfection of this
largest of all airships.
The vessel was modeled after the general form of a sea gull, with
wings outspread in full flight, its peculiarly ingenious construction
insuring not only the maximum of speed, but also that hitherto elusive
automatic stability of the planes which for years past has been the
despair of aeroplane builders on both sides of the “big pond.”
Braces extending from the bottom of the car body and metal cables from
the top partly supported the vast expanse of magnalium steel sheets,
but toward the outer ends, the wings, or planes, extended unsupported
in apparent defiance of all mechanical laws. Three sets of “tandem”
planes projected with slight dihedral angles for a distance decreasing
from eighty, to sixty, to forty feet, on each side of the ship body,
affording a wing-spread never before successfully attained, and giving
the whole the exact resemblance of a gigantic metal bird.
Each of these planes was made of three distinct telescoping fore and
aft sections, with a full spread of twenty-one feet. By means of the
immense pressure gauges almost concealed under the curved front of the
main plane, the rear sections were drawn in by cables on a spring drum
until the width of each of the three planes was reduced to seven feet.
The moment the air pressure was lessened by descent or lessening of
speed, the narrow wing surfaces automatically spread. In rapid flight
the reverse pressure on the gauges allowed the spring drums to reel in
the extension surfaces, housing all extensions securely, either beneath
or over the main section of the wings. In this way the buoyancy of the
airship remained always the same.
The body of the _Ocean Flyer_ consisted of two decks or stories, with a
pilot house, staterooms, fuel chambers, engineroom, bridges above and
protective galleries. The completely enclosed hull, pierced with heavy,
glass-protected ports, and doors, was twelve feet wide, thirteen feet
high and thirty feet long, ending in a maze of metal trusswork at the
rear, and a magnalium-braced tail, seventy-three feet more in length,
exclusive of the twenty-foot rudder at the stern.
To drive this huge craft, a much higher percentage of motor power than
ever before secured had to be transformed into propulsive energy. The
ordinary aeroplane propeller permits the escape of much of the motive
power, but the _Ocean Flyer_ was equipped with the new French “moon”
devices, which do away with the “slip,” and allow the full power of the
engine to be applied to the greatest advantage. Viewed sidewise, this
new form of propeller looks exactly like a crescent, its tips curving
ahead of its shaft attachment. The massive eleven-foot propellers of
the _Ocean Flyer_, with a section five feet broad at the center, gave
ample “push.” They were located just forward of and beneath the front
edge of the long planes. Powerful magnalium chain drives connected
these with the shaft inside the hull. Behind the chain drives, a light
metal runway extended twelve feet from the car to the propeller
bearings, so that the latter might be reached while the car was in
transit, should adjustment or oiling be found necessary.
Within the hull of the vessel, four feet from the bottom, a shaft
extended carrying a third or auxiliary “moon” propeller, differing from
the exterior side propellers by being seven instead of eleven feet in
length. This reserve propelling force was for use in case either of the
other propellers became disabled.
The motive force of the _Flyer_ was secured by a chemical engine,
run by dehydrated sulphuric ether and gasoline. Magnalium cylinders
sustained the shock of the tremendous “explosions” as the cylinders
revolved past the exploding chamber and developed a power previously
undreamed of.
Each of the two huge engines used was six feet in diameter, with
four explosion chambers cooled by fans which fed liquid ammonia to
the cylinder walls in a spray and then furnished power for its
re-liquefaction. In form, each engine resembled a great wheel, or
turbine, on the rim of which appeared a series of conical cylinder
pockets. These, when presented to the explosion chambers, received
the impact of the explosion, and then, running through an expanding
groove, allowed the charge to continue expanding and applying power
until the groove terminated in an open slot which instantly cleansed
the cylinders of the burnt gases. By this arrangement there was
only a twentieth part of the engine wheel where no power was being
simultaneously imparted, thus giving practically a continuous torque.
Weighing over five hundred pounds each, and with a velocity of one
thousand five hundred revolutions per minute, those big turbines
generated nine hundred and seventy-three horse power, natural brake
test, and this could be raised to more than a thousand horse power
without danger. Revolving in opposite directions, they eliminated all
dangerous gyroscopic action. As has been said, power was applied to the
propellers by special magnalium gearing.
The _Ocean Flyer_ was equipped with the first enclosed car or cabin
ever used on an aeroplane. The compartments of its two decks connected
with each other, but all could be made one air-tight whole. Even the
engines were within an air-tight compartment. Attached to the bow of
the hull was a large metal funnel with a wide flange. Tubes leading
from the small end of this passed into each room on the vessel. Flying
at sixty miles or more an hour caused the air to rush into this funnel
with such force as soon to fill any or all of the compartments with
compressed air. At a speed of two hundred miles per hour, this was
likely to be so great that, instead of having too little air, there
would be far too much were it not for regulating pressure gauges which
shut off the flow from time to time. Thus the aeronauts were not only
assured plenty of breathing air even in the highest altitudes, but the
pressure gave sufficient heat to prevent frost bite from the intense
cold which prevails beyond a certain height above the earth’s surface.
A supply of oxygen was of course carried for use in case of necessity,
although the Airship Boys had in the past proved that their funnel
device obviated all need of it.
The pilot room was located at the bow on the second deck. In appearance
it largely resembled the wheel-house of the ordinary ocean liner. The
compass box, with its compensating magnetic mechanism beneath, stood
just in front of the steering wheel, below and parallel with which,
but not connected with it, was a wheel for elevating or depressing the
planes. Both of these wheels operated indirectly, utilizing compressed
air cylinders to move the big rudder and wing surfaces. At the right of
these wheels was the engine control, consisting of a series of starting
and stopping levers for each engine and the gear clutch for each wheel.
At the left, in compact, semicircular form, was the signal-board,
the automatic indicator recording at all times the position of each
plane, the set of the rudder and the speed of the engines. Below this
was the chronometer and a speaking tube which kept the pilot always
in communication with every other part of the vessel. Immediately
behind the pilot’s wheel was a seeming confusion of indicators and
gauges for the making of observations. There was the aerometer,
the automatic barograph, the checking barometer, the equilibrium
statoscope, a self-recording thermometer, the compressed air gauge for
all compartments, chart racks, indicators to show the exact rate of
consumption of fuel and lubricating oil and so on.
As may be surmised, the duties of the pilot were not merely to steer
and keep a lookout ahead, but also to watch the machine and counteract
the influence of unexpected air currents and those atmospheric
obstructions like “pockets,” indistinguishable puffs of air, and the
like, which are always very dangerous and will jolt an airship exactly
as a rock or piece of wood will bounce an automobile into the air
and maybe completely overturn it. Among experienced aeronauts, these
air-ruts are recognized as being one of the chief perils in aviation.
Ned Napier and Alan Hope usually took turns acting as pilot on a
three-hour shift, any longer interval of duty being too nerve-racking
a strain. The third man whom they usually took with them on the _Ocean
Flyer_ was supposed to be stationed in the engine room. It was his
duty to watch the automatic fuel and lubricator supply feed pipes, the
compressed air gauges and pipe valves, the signal and illuminating
light motor, the oxygen tanks and the plane valves, in addition to the
wireless apparatus for communication with the outside world.
On long flights one of the three aviators slept while the others
remained on duty. Thus one of them was always kept fresh and alert to
meet the demands of any unforeseen emergency.
Ned, Alan and Major Honeywell made a careful investigation of every
detail of the _Ocean Flyer_, satisfying themselves that it was in all
respects perfect for their hazardous trip. They found everything to be
absolutely shipshape, and those additional supplies which had arrived,
were already being stowed away on board.
“Well,” said Alan, “everything seems to be attended to properly, and
there is no reason why we can’t start any time we like. The sooner the
better, because there’s no telling what they may be going to do to Bob
over there in Belgium any one of these days.”
“Right,” echoed Ned. “Let’s see. To-day is Wednesday. What do you
say to starting off to-morrow morning early. Then we can arrive in
Muhlbruck not later than some time early Friday morning. We will have
darkness to cover our arrival there.”
“That’s a good idea,” supplemented Major Honeywell. “I don’t like to
see you boys risking this thing, but if it must be done you should
take every possible advantage. And now, if you’re through inspecting
the _Flyer_, what do you say to riding back to New York with me in the
automobile and taking dinner at my house?”
“The major is a man after my own heart,” cried Ned.
“My stomach cries out for him,” grinned Alan, as they made their way
back to the waiting motor car.