“So, how do we get it in position?” I ask as we walk over to the trailer.
“Despite its looks, it’s really not that heavy - eighty-seven pounds for your spreadsheet - so we should have no problem. The hard part is going to be centering it under the cowling. See these holes?” he asks pointing. “Once it’s lined up, we have to drill holes in the cowling and bolt it in place with these pieces to add support inside the cowling.” He reaches into another area and pulls out six, two inch wide, u-shaped aluminum brackets. There are holes drilled at the bottom of the ‘U’, each having an aluminum bolt with nut and washer already hanging through it. The tops have been joined with another piece to complete the loop. All the joints are expertly welded and two more holes are drilled through the top piece.
“How’d you do these gadgets?” I ask, taking one of them and looking at it from every angle.
“Last weekend, when you weren’t here, I came over and Jared helped me fashion a jig out of a two by eight piece of wood. We cut it to fit the rounded shape of the cowling. Then at home, I bent some steel around it to make a form. Then, with a little heat, it was easy to press these aluminum pieces into the form to match the exact shape of the cowling.”
“Wow!” I exclaim, marveling at his ingenuity. He makes it sound so easy.
“The top pieces here,” he taps lightly, “will support the frame for the gyro wheels and the cockpit.”
We lift the gyro frame off the trailer and set it on the ground point up. Willie gets the cordless drill ready while I wonder how we are going to center the frame. He hands me a long bolt with washers and a nut screwed on. Then he pulls out two lengths of wood, each with five holes drilled into them; one on each end, two about six inches from each end, and the third in the middle. We push everything under the cowling, and I watch as he quickly positions one of the boards so it spans the inside opening.
“Time to turn it point down,” he says. We put the cone shaped frame right side up so it’s balancing on the point. “Hold it steady, okay?”
“Sure,” I say. I have to wrestle with the frame for a minute as he worms his way in between the legs, standing up through the center.
He takes the second board, inserts the long bolt up through the center hole before positioning it under the top of the frame, between the frame’s legs. Tilting the gyro slightly, he’s able to slide the bolt through the first board that is resting inside the cowling, placing a large washer over the top before spinning the nut on finger tight.
“Let go, okay?” he asks. As I do the frame shifts a little. “Now, can ya lift a little?” I sit on the floor, straddling the point so I can lift it with my legs. The frame rises at least two inches before it touches the cowling. Willie has been tightening the nut the whole time. “That’s good. You can stop now.”
I release the gyro frame which doesn’t drop at all. It’s pressing against the cowling almost all the way around. “Good planning, Willie,” I compliment him. He looks down at me and beams.
“Originally I thought to tie the pieces of wood to the ribs. That’s what all the holes are for. But then this idea came to me and it’s working a lot better. All we have to do is get equal measurements from the cowling to this bolt and we should be pretty well centered.”
“Sounds good to me,” I agree.
“Hand the tape up, will ya?” he asks.
“Hang on a minute.” I look around for the measuring tape. When I hand it up to him, he has positioned himself parallel to the top board. My job now is to hold the tape against the cowling as he nudges and bumps the frame one way or the other to center it. In between measurements, I get a chance to look closely at the gyroscope frame.
The point looks like is has been cut from a single six inch cube of aluminum. Six sides have been cut at an angle creating a hexagon on the bottom. The once sharp cut edges, and the bottom, show abrasion where they have been rounded off with a grinder. Out of this, six legs are welded to the point. At the top of the legs is a circular beam that will soon be attached to the cowling. I see that it is made up of six, one and a half inch wide by three quarters inch high sections of aluminum all welded together.
“How did you get this top piece so round?” I ask Willie while he’s trying to finish up.
“Another jig,” he answers. “I had the diameter of the cowling, so I cut a piece of plywood the same size and matched the aluminum to it.” Then he mutters softly, “Wish I had my fine adjustment tool.”
“What’s that?”
“My fine adjustment tool,” he repeats louder, his voice revealing a small degree of frustration. “A hammer! Is there a hammer nearby?”
“I’ll get it.” Fine adjustment tool. That’s funny.
Hammer in hand he lightly taps in a few places. “How’s it look?”
“What am I looking for?”
“Check to see if the gyro frame looks centered under the cowling. You’ve got a good eye. Eyeball it.”
I crawl all around the cowling looking at the distance from the outside of the cowling to the frame and then from the frame to the inside of the cowling. It looks good to me. “I think you got it,” I report.
“Good. Grab the drill and drill those six holes into the cowling,” he instructs me. “But first, hand me one of those u-shaped frames. Keep the bolt with you, though,” he quickly adds. “As you do each hole, poke the bolt through and I’ll put the frame in place and thread the nut on. Then we’ll do the frame opposite this one.”
I hand one of the u-shaped frames to Willie, forgetting to remove the bolt. He doesn’t seem to mind. When I pick up the drill with its heavy battery, I wonder how I am going to get enough leverage to drill up. It’s awkward enough, crawling around under the cowling. I end up sitting cross-legged, holding the drill in my right hand, supporting my right arm with my left hand.
The first hole gets drilled, shavings of hot aluminum dropping on my fingers. Willie hands me the bolt. I slide it into place and he quickly secures it with the nut. “Next,” he says, moving to the opposite side of the cowling.
Before I crawl around, I push each of the other frames in the approximate area where their corresponding hole will be drilled. “Can you reach those?” I ask Willie.
He stoops down and grabs the second frame without saying anything. I slide the drill ahead of me, getting into position for the next hole. Willie checks the measurement one last time before I start.
When we have all six bolts in place, he removes the pieces of wood that have been holding the frame in place. The area where Willie is standing is now open. My back aches from being underneath for so long. I crawl out, stand, and stretch my muscles back to normal again. Willie joins me.
“Just need to get a couple of wrenches to tighten those bolts down,” he says with satisfaction. “Tomorrow we can weld the frame to the cowling.”
“What about the wheels?” I ask. “How do they go in?”
“At first I thought we might be able to drop them in using the wrecker’s hoist,” he answers, sounding puzzled. “But I can see now that the hoist’s arm just isn’t long enough. We’ll figure it out.”
I silently agree. We’ve figured everything out so far.
“Hey you slackers!” a voice calls out from behind. I turn around to see Kylie walking in the door. “Did you miss me?”
“Nope,” Willie jokes, turning to face her. “Tyler was a lot more help in your absence.” That makes her smile as she comes up to join us.
“It just needs to be welded now,” I say, indicating the gyro point. “Then we need to drop the wheels in somehow.”
She ponders the puzzle for a moment, but offers no solution.
“Well, we can at least unload them,” Willie suggests. “C’mon Ty.”
We lift the gyroscope’s wheels off the trailer. They are both mounted on a single axle now, and begin to spin independently and in opposite directions as we set them down. “What do these weigh?” I ask, straining with the effort.
“About a hundred and thirty-five,”
Willie answers with an exhale after the wheels hit the floor with a thud. “A hundred and forty-seven with these,” he adds as he reaches for the framing they will be mounted in place with.
“So, how’s this going to work again?” Kylie asks.
I look at Willie, who looks back at me to supply the answer. “Well, one wheel will spin in one direction while the other spins in the opposite direction.”
“But, how’s that going to affect the saucer’s flight?” she presses.
“Okay. The top here,” Willie interrupts, indicating the wheels, “is attached to this rigid frame, attached to the cowling. The bottom here,” he points to the other end, “is attached at the bottom of the gyro frame. The centrifugal force of the spinning wheels will cause the saucer to spin in the desired direction.”
“Under what controls?” Kylie asks.
“Probably foot,” Willie answers.
“I was afraid you were going to say that. My model, the program I wrote for school last fall, was virtual and pretty easy. The reality of flying is going to be more difficult.”
“Reality usually is,” Willie states like a wise old sage, “but I don’t think you need to program for these. Maybe we could use the hy-ped’s throttle control attached to the pedals somehow.”
“So I don’t need to program them?” Kylie asks, walking over to review the plans again.
“I don’t think so,” Willie answers loud enough so she will hear.
I try to envision pushing the pedals to cause the saucer to pivot. “You know, I think that’ll work,” I agree quietly.
“Can you help me hook up again so I can get out of here?” Willie requests, while looking at his phone for the time.
“Sure Willie,” I answer. I head for the trailer. “I feel like we made real progress today.”
“All week, I’d say,” he corrects me. Heading for the wrecker, he gets in to back it around so it faces out the door. Then we spin the trailer around so he can secure the two together.
“Thanks Ty,” he says. “See ya Kylie!” He waves as he gets into the wrecker to drive away.
I walk over to join Kylie by the pilot’s chair. She looks up from the plans. “So let me get this straight,” she says, reaching for the lever to the left of the pilot’s seat. “This is going to control up and down via the lifters, and the throttle here will control the power. A joystick will control the pitch forward or backward and left or right.”
“That sums it up pretty good,” I say, complimenting her understanding. “I thought you were already programming this stuff?”
“Well, yeah, in a way,” she replies hesitantly. “I’ve been working on a separate sub-program to make sure I address the interface your Gramps developed. I just have to incorporate it in the actual program at two levels, I guess.”
“Is that difficult?” I ask. I know something about programming, but this is way more advanced than anything I ever coded.
“Not really. Just time consuming. The thing I think is funny,” she continues, looking up with a smile, “is that you’re going to fly almost all of this with game controllers.”
I hadn’t considered it much, but I could see the irony in her observation. It suddenly occurs to me how stupid it is to trust virtual reality controllers in a real world application. “Do you think it will work?”
“Oh, it’ll work. And it’ll be reliable as long as we remember to tighten all of the connections to the computer.”
“Then we’ll have to make sure we do that,” I agree. Reaching for the clipboard, “Let me write the weights Willie gave me, before I forget.”
She gets up from the pilot’s chair. “So what are we up to?” she asks.
“About eight hundred, ninety-five pounds.”
“And what’s left to install?”
“Pilot’s chair, controls, computer, fuel cells, hydrogen tanks, skin… lots of stuff.”
“Well, that’s enough for today. Drop me off on your way home?”
“Sure,” I agree happily.
Wheels and Windings
Jared is busy welding the gyro frame underneath the cowling when I arrive at the hangar the next morning. When he completes his weld, he realizes I’ve arrived and stops working.
“You guys got a lot done yesterday,” he calls out from under the ribs and spars.
“Yeah, we did,” I say with pride. “How was your day with Jennifer?”
“We had a good time. I’m charged up and ready for more of this,” he declares, tapping the torch against the frame. Then he gestures towards the wheels. “The only way I can see of getting those in is to set a hoist across some scaffolding and lower them down.”
“You mean the scaffolding from down in the tunnel?”
“Yep. We’ll have to bring some up. About five sections I figure.”
It would be nice to do something different for a while. “Well, let’s get busy mister!” I respond joyfully. Jared grins and crawls out from under the saucer.
Getting the scaffolding is easy enough. The building we are in doesn’t have tunnel access but the next one over, building ‘F’, does.
Unlike the other four buildings, the two buildings on this side of the taxiway have their side doors near the taxiway. Crossing between the two buildings will be less conspicuous because we don’t have to open the huge hangar doors in the other building. Except for the taxi tractor, building ‘F’ is empty. It still retains some cool air from the night, but the heat of the day can already be felt radiating off the sheet metal roof.
I feel sneaky again, like the night we crept into the shiff and retrieved the first bits. This time there is no need to be sneaky, but I grow anxious as we descend the stairs from the hangar down into the Maglev prep area once again.
It’s quiet. The contractor who had been hired to finish the cleaning and painting is already done. After Jared turns on a few lights, we walk over to where the sections of scaffold are stored. The air is heavy with fumes from the fresh paint. My nose and eyes quickly become irritated.
“We better hurry. I don’t know how much of this I can take,” I inform Jared.
He nods agreement. “I feel it too. I think we can take two sets at a time.” He singles out two sets of legs and we lift them simultaneously. “What do you think?”
“I’m okay. Let’s get going.” I really need some fresh air.
We rapidly make our way across the room and through the doors at the far side. The air is immediately fresher and I take some deep breaths to clear my lungs out. “Man! That’s nasty stuff!”
“That’s why Dad couldn’t let us paint,” Jared says as we start up the corridor to the stairs. “He wanted an industrial grade coating for the main room. The tunnel really isn’t seen by anyone.”
Soon we’re setting the scaffolding down by the saucer. It hasn’t taken long, but the large, unwieldy sections have required some maneuvering. We stand for a minute, catching our breath and rubbing our eyes.
“Ready for more?” Jared asks after a couple of minutes.
Before we finish, we have made three trips to carry the leg sections up, and four more for bracing and planks. The fumes had given me a headache by the forth trip down. I think Jared was affected also. He hasn’t said much other than instructions to coordinate our efforts.
“Boy. Am I glad that’s over. My head is splitting!” he exclaims.
“Me too. I’m getting some water. Want a glass?”
“Yeah. Thanks.”
I’m back quickly from the mini-fridge. The fresh water washes away the bitter taste from my throat, and I feel the chemical fog lift from my consciousness. “I wonder how many brain cells we just killed.”
He nods once, then moves his head side to side saying, “I can’t imagine what those kids who were caught huffing last spring were thinking. I can’t imagine doing something like that for fun.”
“Me neither,” I agree, taking another drink of water.
It’s about twenty minutes before we feel like doing anything again. The late mo
rning warmth circulates around the saucer and helps sweat any residual chemicals out of our bodies.
“So what’s next?” I ask Jared.
“Well, starting on the back side, we’ll set one section up next to the cowling, then another on this side. The next one will go between those two, over the cowling, and the last one goes here to reach over the skirt. We’ll be able to bridge them all together with the planks giving us our walkway to lift the wheels over the saucer’s frame, then up and over the cowling so we can drop them in.”
I look at the scaffolding. Something doesn’t fit. “You know, the cowling isn’t as wide as the scaffold,” I state as we are about to start sliding things into position.
“What are you thinking?” he asks, sounding almost too agreeable. His day with Jennifer really did improve his disposition.
“Well,” I begin, “couldn’t the scaffold be set up around the cowling?”
He stares at the leg sections for a moment, then a smile crosses his face. “You know, I think you’re getting the hang of this! That’s a really good idea. It will be a little sturdier, and we can have a second access way to the outside of the skirts if we need it.”
We need no more words to begin. It seems the longer we work together, the more we can anticipate what the other is going to do. In a way it seems telepathic.
In forty-five minutes, we have the scaffolding in place with the planks connecting the sections together. It gives the whole setup an ‘under construction’ look that helps me feel more inspired.
“So should we drop them in?” Jared asks.
I smile. “If you’re ready. I mean if the welds are ready.”
“They are. I was thinking this morning, once we get the scaffolding in place, we can drop the wheels in and have them framed before lunch.”
“You must have started early.”
“Actually, I was in such a good mood, I started on them last night.”
“Okay then. Let’s do it.”
The wheels are a bit of a struggle to lift, even for the two of us. It is a little less than five feet up to the first level of scaffold planking. I have to keep them from rolling off while Jared climbs up. Then I join him.
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