Part 2 (1/2)

”It is a sap's game,” I agreed with him. ”But starvation is dangerous too.” He laughed, and we all laughed.

He studied me for a minute. We hadn't seen each other in a couple of years. Finally he said soberly, ”You've grown older, Jim.”

”Yeah, I've grown older, Bill,” I answered him banteringly, ”and I want to grow a lot older too. I want to have a nice long white beard trailing out in the slip stream some day. So I hope you guys are building good airplanes for diving. By the way, let's go out in the hangar and take a look at the crate. After all, I'm mildly interested in it, you know.”

We all went out into the hangar. There was the s.h.i.+p, suspended from a chain hoist with its wheels just off the cement in the middle of a large cleared area. It was silver and gleamed even in the somewhat darkened interior. It looked st.u.r.dy and squat and bulldoggish, as only a military fighting s.h.i.+p can. I was glad it looked st.u.r.dy.

A group of mechanics were swarming around it and over it and under it.

They all looked up as we approached the s.h.i.+p. I knew most of them. I was introduced to the others. You could see that they felt toward that s.h.i.+p as a brood hen feels toward her eggs. They didn't want me to break it. I didn't want to break it either.

I walked around the s.h.i.+p and looked it over. The engineers pointed out special features and talked metal construction and forged fittings and stress a.n.a.lysis and safety factors, and I asked questions. I was fascinated by the wires that braced the wings. They looked big enough to hold up the Brooklyn Bridge. I liked those wires.

I learned that a pilot had been up there and had gone over the whole stress a.n.a.lysis with them and had recommended only one little change in the s.h.i.+p, which had been made. I learned that he had expressed willingness to dive the s.h.i.+p after that, but that he had been unable to because another job he had contracted to do some time previously was coming up at the same time this one was. I was glad to hear this man had gone over the s.h.i.+p. He was not only one of the most, if not the most, competent test pilots in the country, but also a very good engineer, which I was not.

I crawled into the c.o.c.kpit. There were more gadgets in it. Something for everything except putting wings back on in the air. The racket had changed, I decided. In the old days, dive demonstrating hadn't been so accurate a thing. You took a s.h.i.+p up and did a good dive with it and came down and everybody was happy. But now, as I could see, they had developed a lot of recording as well as indicating instruments. You used to be able to get away with something. You couldn't get away with anything now. They could take a look at all those trick instruments after you had come down and tell just what you had done. They could tell accurately and didn't have to take your word for it.

There was one instrument there, for instance, that the pilot couldn't see. It was called a vee-gee recorder. It made a pattern on a smoked gla.s.s of about the size of one of those paper packets of matches. This pattern told them, after the pilot had come down, just how fast he had dived, what kind of a dive he had made, and what kind of a pull-out he had done.

There was another instrument there that I had never seen before. It looked something like a speedometer and was called an accelerometer. I was soon to find out what that was for! Oh, they told me what it was for then. They explained everything in the c.o.c.kpit to me, and I sat there and familiarized myself with it as best I could on the ground before taking the s.h.i.+p out. But I wasn't really to find out what that accelerometer was for until I used it. And did I find out then!

We rolled the s.h.i.+p out that afternoon, after last-minute adjustments had been made on it-an airplane is like a woman that way: it always has to have last-minute adjustments-and I made a familiarization flight in it.

I just took it off and flew it around at first. Then I began feeling it out. I rocked it and horsed it and yanked it and pulled it and watched.

I watched the wires, the wings, the tail. Any unusual flexing? Abnormal vibration? Any flutter? I brought the s.h.i.+p down and had it inspected that night.

The next day I did the same thing. But I went a little bit further this time. I built up some speed. I did shallow dives. I listened and felt and watched. I did steeper dives. Anything unusual?

This went on for several days. Some minor changes and adjustments were made. Finally I said I was ready to start the official demonstrations, and the official naval observers were called out to watch.

I did five speed dives first. These were to demonstrate that the s.h.i.+p would dive to terminal velocity. Contrary to popular opinion, a falling object will not go faster and faster and faster and faster. It will go faster and faster only up to a certain point. That point is reached when the object creates by its own pa.s.sage through the air enough air resistance to that pa.s.sage to equal in pounds the weight of the object.

When that point is reached, the object will not fall any faster, no matter how much longer it falls. It is said to be at terminal velocity.

A diving airplane is only a falling object, but it is a highly streamlined one, and therefore capable of a very high terminal velocity.

A man falling through the air cannot attain a speed greater than about a hundred and twenty miles an hour. But the terminal velocity of an airplane is a lot more than that.

I led up to it carefully. I went to fifteen thousand feet to start the first dive. The s.h.i.+p dove smooth and steady. I pulled out at three hundred miles an hour and climbed back up to do the next dive. I dove to three hundred and twenty miles an hour this time. Everything was fine.

Everything was fine as far as I could tell, but when I had eased out of the dive I brought the s.h.i.+p down for inspection before I did the next two dives.

I did the next two dives to three hundred and forty miles an hour and three hundred and sixty. I lost seven thousand feet in the last one. It had me casting the old fish eye around to see if everything was holding before I got through it. Everything held, but I brought the s.h.i.+p down for inspection again before the final speed dive.

I went to eighteen thousand feet for the final one. It was cold up there, and the sky was very blue. I lined all up facing down wind and found myself checking everything very methodically. Was I in high pitch?

Was the mixture rich? Was the landing gear folded tightly? Was the stabilizer rolled? Was the rudder tab adjusted? I was a little extra methodical and extra deliberate. I knew that my mind wasn't normally clear. I was breathing harder than usual. It was the alt.i.tude. There wasn't enough oxygen. I was a little groggy.

I was a little worried about my ears. I had always had to blow my ears out when just normally losing alt.i.tude. I had funny ears like that that wouldn't adjust themselves. I might break an eardrum.

I eased the throttle back, rolled the s.h.i.+p over in a half roll, and stuck her down. I felt the dead, still drop of the first part of the dive. I saw the air-speed needle race around its dial, heard the roaring of the motor mounting and the whistle of the wires rising, and felt the increasing stress and stiffness of the gathering speed. I saw the altimeter winding up-winding down, rather! Down to twelve thousand feet now. Eleven and a half. Eleven. I saw the air-speed needle slowing down its racing on its second lap around the dial. I heard the roaring motor whining now, and the whistling wires screaming, and felt the awful racking of the terrific speed. I glanced at the air-speed needle. It was barely creeping around the dial. It was almost once and a half around and was just pa.s.sing the three-eighty mark. I glanced at the altimeter.

It was really winding up now! The sensitive needle was going around and around. The other needle read ten thousand, nine and a half, nine. I looked at the air-speed needle. It was standing still. It read three ninety-five. You could feel it was terminal velocity. You could feel the lack of acceleration. You could hear it too. You could hear the motor at a peak whine, holding it. You could hear the wires at a peak scream, holding it. I checked the altimeter. Eight and a half. At eight I would pull out.

Suddenly something s.h.i.+fted on the instrument board and something hit me in the face. I sickeningly remembered that dazing smack on the head of six years before, and the old electric startle shock convulsed me as I remembered the resounding crack of those wings tearing off. I involuntarily took a fear-glazed glance at my wings and instinctively tightened up on the stick and began to ease out of the dive. Through the half-daze pull-out and the dawning ice-cold clearness always aftermathing fright I dimly checked the trouble while I leveled out.