<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV<br/> <span class="cheaderfont">GETTING THE “OCEAN FLYER” READY</span></h2>
<p>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
<em>Ocean Flyer</em> and that it was the urgency of the
business in hand that prevented their making
the farewell visit they desired.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum">[34]</span>
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.”</p>
<p>Then there were food supplies (the <em>Flyer</em> 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.</p>
<p>Major Honeywell got the aeroplane works in
Newark, where the <em>Ocean Flyer</em> 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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum">[35]</span>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The eyes of the Airship Boys lighted up.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum">[36]</span></p>
<p>“There she goes!” they cried in unison.
“They are getting her all ready for us.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The <em>Ocean Flyer</em> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum">[37]</span>
builders on both sides of the “big pond.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum">[38]</span>
main section of the wings. In this way the
buoyancy of the airship remained always
the same.</p>
<p>The body of the <em>Ocean Flyer</em> 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.</p>
<p>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
<em>Ocean Flyer</em> 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 <em>Ocean Flyer</em>, with a section five
feet broad at the center, gave ample “push.”<span class="pagenum">[39]</span>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The motive force of the <em>Flyer</em> 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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum">[40]</span>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The <em>Ocean Flyer</em> was equipped with the first
enclosed car or cabin ever used on an aeroplane.
The compartments of its two decks connected<span class="pagenum">[41]</span>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum">[42]</span>
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum">[43]</span></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <em>Ocean Flyer</em> 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.</p>
<p>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<span class="pagenum">[44]</span>
the demands of any unforeseen emergency.</p>
<p>Ned, Alan and Major Honeywell made a careful
investigation of every detail of the <em>Ocean
Flyer</em>, 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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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 <em>Flyer</em>, what do
you say to riding back to New York with me in
the automobile and taking dinner at my house?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum">[45]</span></p>
<p>“The major is a man after my own heart,”
cried Ned.</p>
<p>“My stomach cries out for him,” grinned
Alan, as they made their way back to the waiting
motor car.</p>
<hr class="chap" />
<p><span class="pagenum">[46]</span></p>
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