CHAPTER VII
NED NAPIER ADVANCES SOME THEORIES
NED NAPIER ADVANCES SOME THEORIES
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 newOcean Flyerto 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 theOcean Flyerif 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 theHeraldproject came up for analysis Major Honeywell and the boys discussed it in all its phases.
When theHeraldmanager 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 theHeraldmanager 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 theOcean 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 acontractas 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 theHerald, which was to install the device under young Osborne’s supervision. The question of a landing in London was a harder nut to crack. Onthis 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 theHeraldrepresentative. “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 theHeraldis 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 upTelegrammatrices fromHeraldsea tug on East River between 2 P. M. and 2:20 P. M. Thursday, June 21, and carrying them by aeroplane for theHeralddirectly 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 theHeraldrepresentatives 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 theHeraldand delivering the same within ten miles of theHeraldoffice, 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 theHeraldare delivered on American soil within twenty-four hours.”
“In other words,” explained Major Honeywell, “if theOcean 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 orthirty-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 theHeraldboat if it shows prearranged signals?” asked the editor.
“Why not show the same signals on theHeraldbuilding?” 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 theHeraldroof,” 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 theOcean Flyerhas 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 theHeraldmanager 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 accomplishedmiles in the air. Let me explain. Say we have an airship such as theOcean Flyerthat 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 theHeraldmanager 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. TheOcean Flyerhas 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. TheOcean Flyerhas 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. TheOcean Flyerhas 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 airtightcompartment. 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 leastmathematically,” 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 thisOcean Flyer. I think I’ve made the best bargain of my business life.”