CHAPTER ITHE PLANE TESTED

CHAPTER ITHE PLANE TESTED

SUPPER was over. The man and the boy, although they had finished, seemed in no hurry to clear the table. Darkness had come, and through the windows of their little houseboat twinkling lights on the shore half a mile away were reflected in the quiet waters of the bay. All was still except for the putt-putt of a motor-boat a long way off. The man in blue trousers and white shirt with the collar open seemed to be listening for something. The boy tried hard to get him to talk.

“How long will Dad be, do you suppose?” “Will he come back by train, or will he fly back?” were some of his questions.

Jack’s reply to them all had been, “We’ll see.”

The boy thought to himself, “What a silly answer,” but that seemed to be all the silent sailor man would say. He looked little enough like a sailor now, and not nearly as grand and imposing as when he had met the boy and his father in New York as they stepped off the train on their arrival from the West nearly a month ago. At that time he had appeared in his uniform of blue with gold braid andgold wings. As they had driven out from the station across the crowded city with its strange noises and bewildering lights, there had been time to do little more than notice the slim straightness of him.

His Dad had said to Jack, after the first greetings were over, “Well, here’s the young fellow I wrote you about. I couldn’t leave him out West, and besides he will be a great help around the hangar.”

And Jack had replied, as he shook hands, “One more Kiwi for our camp.”

“Right,” said Dad, “but I have had to make him a promise that he won’t be a Kiwi for long.”

Kiwi was a good enough name in its way, and it did seem to stick to him wherever Dad went. All his boy friends knew him as Snub but, of course, the boys knew so little about flying and few of them knew where the name of Kiwi came from.

Dad had told him that during the war—and Dad had been there, so he should know—all of the officers who did not fly had come to be known as Kiwis, named after a bird from Australia or New Zealand “which had wings but did not fly.”

So Kiwi he was. There seemed a promise in the name that one of these days he would learn to fly, for, after all, a Kiwididhave wings. It was something to start with, and on allthe flights he had gone on with Dad he had kept his eyes open and now felt that he understood all that had to be done to control the plane.

Often when they had landed after a flight, old war-time friends of Dad’s would come over with a loud “Well, Skipper, how’s the boy doing? Going to send him off solo[1]soon?”

1.After a pupil completes his training with an instructor, who has a duplicate set of controls, then he is sent on his first solo flight. To fly solo is to fly alone.

1.After a pupil completes his training with an instructor, who has a duplicate set of controls, then he is sent on his first solo flight. To fly solo is to fly alone.

1.After a pupil completes his training with an instructor, who has a duplicate set of controls, then he is sent on his first solo flight. To fly solo is to fly alone.

And Dad would reply, “Not yet awhile. He has a lot to learn and there’s plenty of time yet.”

So on that first meeting with Jack, as they rolled across the bridge to Long Island, Kiwi had wondered if this broad-shouldered sailor-flyer could be coaxed into teaching him.

Dad and Jack had been too busy talking to notice him. Dad was asking a thousand questions: how much had they got done on the ship? ... were the tanks installed yet? ... had the motor been shipped? Dad seemed upset that more had not been accomplished. “We must get a hustle on if we’re to get off by the 15th of June,” he had said.

After they had been riding for some time, Kiwi asked:

“Whose house are we going to, Dad?”

Dad turned to Jack, who hurriedly said, “Wait till you see. I have had a wonderful idea. You remember Old Bert who used to fly the pontoons over at Rockaway—who would loop any old crate they would let him fly? He has a shipyard over here and is building houseboats—two sizes—and he thought we would like to use one of the smaller ones—just one big room and a little kitchen and a porch. We can moor it where we like, sleep under the awning on top, and keep the car on the shore near by so that we can run back andforth to the field. That will only take about twenty minutes, and it means a good swim in the morning and another after mucking around the hangars all day. Does the Kiwi swim?”

“Like a fish.”

“Well, that’s settled then.”

A half hour later they swung down a long hill and into the main street of a little town, nestling in a deep valley, with a long, lake-like arm of the Sound coming nearly to the center of the village. They turned off and wound through a big yard where piles of boards and planks and beams rose uplike top-heavy buildings along the narrow roads. The smell of cedar and pine hung in the air. They drew up at the wide-open door of a shed from which came the whine of buzz-saws and the pounding of hammers. They had hardly stopped when a sunburned man appeared at the door, evidently expecting them.

“Hello, Bert,” they called.

He rushed over to the car, shook hands with Dad, and there was a great hubbub of questions and answers. He said their boat was waiting, and it would be a tip-top place to spend a cool hour or so hearing all the news.

They were rowed out, and Kiwi spent busy minutes exploring the little houseboat. He came into the sitting room in time to hear Dad say to Bert, “As soon as the backers came across with the money, I wired Burrows to start work on the plane as we had planned it and to rush it through so that we could make our tests and still get off in June while the weather was good. Then I turned heaven and earth trying to find Jack. I had no idea whether he was out East with the fleet or had come back. When I did locate him, he was able to get leave from the Navy to make the flight, and hopped a train for Washington and got right to work on weather maps. He seems to have the navigation part of our trip very thoroughly in hand. Tomorrow I will get over to the factory and see if they cannot be hurried with the plane.”

And from then on there had been endless conferences with old friends and new about equipment to be taken, routes to be followed, wind currents to dodge. The days had stretched into weeks, and still the plane was on the ground.

Kiwi had been taken to the factory twice. The plane lookedenormous even in its unfinished state. The body of the machine still lacked its covering, but in its middle sat an enormous metal tank. Control wires seemed to run in all directions. The big wing also carried two tanks, and only the wing-tips were hollow. The engine was still missing. There were reports that it had been shipped, but for days after that it did not put in an appearance.

Nearly always Jack and Kiwi spent the day on the houseboat or driving over the winding country roads near by. Jack pored over maps and strange charts. He brought home queer instruments and tested them from the roof of theirhouseboat during the moonlight nights. They swam, and once or twice they went fishing.

At last the day came when the plane was finished, and must be taken up for its first test flight. Jack and Dad had talked it over the day before, and it was decided that Jack and Kiwi should stay on the boat and let Dad do the testing.

“You’ll get plenty of chances, Jack, later on, after I get the feel of it.”

So now Jack and Kiwi sat there on the houseboat after supper, impatiently waiting for the sound of oars. About nine o’clock they heard a little boat bump against their home, and both rushed out.

It was Dad.

“Jack, she flies—she really does! She lifted off the ground in about two hundred yards and handled like a dream. Of course, there are some things to be done, but they can be fixed when we get the plane over at our field. You and I will go after it tomorrow and start our own work on it.”

“May I go with you to bring it back, Dad?” Kiwi asked.

“Well, not this time. You’ll have other chances later on.”

The day that Dad and Jack went after the plane draggedendlessly for Kiwi. He had been driven over to the airdrome early so that he could welcome them when they arrived. Ordinarily he would have been interested in the other planes that were busy about the fields. They were continually hopping off and landing, being fuelled up with gasoline and going up again. But today it was different. His mind was on Dad and Jack, and he was constantly on the lookout for their return.

At last, late in the afternoon, the sound of a different motor drew the attention of the pilots and mechanics to a new plane coming in from the west. It circled the field several times, and came down to land at the far end. Wheels and tail skid gently touched, and the plane rolled along with scarcely a bump. It taxied up to the hangars and was soon surrounded by an excited group curious to see all the new features of this bird which was to attempt such a tremendous hop. For the word had traveled that here was a new challenger for the long distance record. Here was a machine, equipped with all the latest gadgets,[2]in which two experienced flyers were planning to leave New York and not touch their wheels again till they arrived in far off India.

2.A term used in referring to the instruments on a plane and the levers or buttons which control them.

2.A term used in referring to the instruments on a plane and the levers or buttons which control them.

2.A term used in referring to the instruments on a plane and the levers or buttons which control them.

Its single huge wing glistened in the sunlight. The pilot and navigator’s cockpit, covered with glass, was just in front of this wing and behind the huge radial engine which was even then slowly and smoothly turning the propeller. Just behind the wing in the body of the machine was a tiny window, through which those who were tall enough could peek in and see a small compartment behind the gas tank.The two wheels of the undercarriage[3]bore massive balloon tires and were further protected by large shock absorbers upon which the weight of the plane rested. The whole plane was painted a brilliant orange.

3.The undercarriage consists of two wheels and a frame-work which are attached to and support the body of the plane.

3.The undercarriage consists of two wheels and a frame-work which are attached to and support the body of the plane.

3.The undercarriage consists of two wheels and a frame-work which are attached to and support the body of the plane.

Switching off the engine, Dad stepped out with a happy smile. “So far, so good.”

Then came days of trying and testing. Fortunately they were favored with splendid weather. For a day or two it rained during the morning, but they were able to get in one or two flights before dark.

They took the machine up so that Jack could test his wireless. A Lieut. Connors flew over from Washington with a small, compact set which he hoped would be better thanthe one they already had in the machine. On one of the tests it seemed as though the ultimate in wireless transmission and reception had been accomplished for an airplane.

The machine went to two thousand feet, the wireless aerial was lowered, and Kiwi stood beside Lieut. Connors, who was manipulating the receiving set in the back of a small truck. Jack and Connors tested their signals both flying away from and toward the receiving set. The dots and dashes of the code came in equally strong either way.

Kiwi put on the head-phones to listen while Connors clicked out a message to those soaring above. Jack had taught Kiwi the wireless code for his name, and soon he was thrilled to hear “H-e-l-l-o K-i-w-i” come down from the air.

However, there were other days when the set seemed not to work so well, and it took hours of tinkering before all the troubles were found and adjusted. The set in the plane was finally moved to a place away from the main tank and the engine.

Then there was the compass to be corrected. Kiwi had not realized that correcting a compass was such a long operation, although Dad had told him that the magnetic compass in an airplane was a very sensitive instrument. There was much iron and steel in the motor, and there were many conflicting forces pulling the magnetic needle from its position toward the north magnetic pole.

To compensate for these forces, small metallic rods had to be added.

So Kiwi followed as the plane was wheeled out onto a cement circular platform on the ground away from the buildings. Marked on this circular platform were the north,south, east and west points. Pointing the plane due north, the bits of iron were placed in position in the compass to counteract the attraction of the motor and other metal parts. These bits of metal were about the size of the lead in a pencil, and were of various lengths. After they had been inserted in holes provided in the base of the compass, they were secured in place.

As soon as the needle pointed to the north as it should, the plane was wheeled around till it pointed east and the process was repeated until the compass had been corrected for each direction.

However, they knew that many times a pen-knife or some such similar object in the pockets of a pilot would serve to throw the compass off its proper direction.

Knowing the particularly delicate nature of compasses, the Skipper was very cautious about putting too much trust in them, and insisted that their compass be carefully checked.

They also had an earth inductor compass, which was more reliable, but which had to be adjusted by an expert from the factory.

The ride home from the field in the cool of the evening was usually taken up with long discussions about balanced rudders and whether they did not need more surface on the elevators.

Later on, even the evenings, which Kiwi always lookedforward to, were taken up with test flights. They tried out their navigation lights and landing by flares.

Many evenings Kiwi would go sound asleep in the back of the car until the voice of Jack awoke him suggesting that they rush home for their swim and supper.

During all this time, coax as he would, Kiwi had not been taken on his promised ride. Dad had always answered in that same hateful formula, “We’ll see.” Why were grownups so fond of those two words? He promised himself never to use that expression when he was grown up.

Kiwi had made many friends around the field—the men in greasy overalls who tinkered with the engines, Old Bill who kept the lunch stand at the end of the field and who had made his name famous for having packed the sandwiches for several earlier cross-Atlantic flights. But there was a scarcity of boys of his own age. There were plenty who were older and who seemed to be able to convince the instructors on the field that they could learn to fly.

Kiwi felt a lack of the proper arguments to use. He was sure he could fly if they would give him a chance. But as soon as he brought up the subject, they insisted on talking down to him as if he were a child.

Kiwi felt that it was Old Bill at the lunch wagon who eventually got him his first ride in the new plane. His father and Jack had dashed down for a hurried lunch, and Old Bill said to Kiwi, “Well, how does she handle?” Kiwi had blushed to the roots of his hair and admitted that he did not know. Whereupon Old Bill had turned to his Dad and said, “What, you haven’t taken this boy up yet?” And his father had answered, “He’ll get his ride—perhaps tomorrow.”

That night, after considerable pestering, his father gave him a definite promise that if the next day were fine he’d get that first ride.

Old Bill

Old Bill

Old Bill

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