Grantville Gazette, Volume XII

by Eric Flint

  The letter would go out to Kelly, to Kitt and to anyone else who might be doing anything serious in terms of aviation.

  * * *

  "I'm not sure I believe this." Georg Markgraf sat at the desk, staring at the computer screen.

  Farrell glanced over. "What'ya got?" The computer was running an Excel spreadsheet, full of formulas, drag coefficients, lift calculations, wing stresses . . . all he had to do was plug-in a few variables and out came a pretty good estimate of the flight speed, stall speed, ceiling, empty weight, loaded weight. In general, the results were the probable flight envelope of the projected aircraft.

  "That letter we got from TransEuropean Airlines. It got me to thinking. So I started plugging in numbers to see what I got."

  "Umm hum?" The spread sheet had had started with something Farrell's father, Hal, and Vanessa Holcomb had put together. Excel was such a powerful program that the various designers, including Georg, had started adding bits. More formula based on up-time books, then more based on experimentation to fill in the gaps. It was a pretty good tool by now, one that let you try things and get a rough idea how they would work.

  "Well, I plugged in a hundred and twenty-foot wingspan and got a stall speed of like twenty miles per hour."

  "Never work. With the materials . . ." Farrell stopped speaking because Georg was glaring at him. He had forgotten Georg's wing stress kludge.

  "I know that." Georg's irritation was as evident in his voice as it had been in his look. Then he visibly shook it off. "We couldn't support even an eighty-foot wingspan. Not in a monoplane."

  "A biplane? They're a lot less efficient. You only get about eighty percent as much lift for the wing area."

  "Sure. But the upper and lower wings support each other, so they don't have to be nearly as strong. And if the lower wing is shorter than the upper, we only lose lift where both wings are involved. It lets us extend the upper wing farther out. With a seventy-foot lower wing, we could have a hundred-foot upper wingspan."

  "What about drag?"

  "A lot, but drag is a function of speed and this would be slow." Georg laughed. "To think I would ever call sixty miles per hour slow. I'm more concerned about the strutting disrupting laminar flow."

  Farrell scooted his chair over to the computer and started examine Georg's numbers for real. The four Jeep engines would only put out a grand total of maybe six hundred horsepower. But that was all this thing would need if the numbers were right. "A biplane with those? And have the darn thing fly?"

  Georg waved his hand at the computer. "The spreadsheet says we can." He drew pictures in the air. "The upper wing would have a hundred feet of span, the lower seventy. The lower wing is as much to support and strengthen the upper as to give added lift." He sat back down at the desk. "I've got to check these figures. Go away."

  Farrell did. There wasn't much point in trying to talk to Georg when he was calculating.

  * * *

  Slowly, as he went through checking the formulas to be sure he hadn't dropped a decimal some place, Georg began to believe it. It would be, he was convinced, unlike any plane that had ever flown. It would be more like a powered glider than an ordinary airplane.

  Georg loved the DC3. He had ever since he had seen one in the movies; more so after he had read up on them. A lot of flight enthusiasts loved that plane, he'd discovered. The DC3 Dakota was perhaps the most-loved plane in up-time history. It was also totally out of the technical reach of anyone down-time. It had two radial engines, each putting out over a thousand horsepower. It was all metal construction and that much aluminum simply wasn't available. But it—or as close to it as they could get—was what TEA wanted.

  The biplane that was staring back at him from the numbers on his computer screen would have over one and a half times the wing area of the DC3. It would need it, because it would have barely a third of the horsepower. It would need the extra lift just to get off the ground, as under-powered as it was. Its cruising speed would be less than half that of the Dakota's, but then its landing speed would be a lot less, too. With a full cargo load, it would have about five hours flight time. Right at three hundred miles.

  It would carry a ton and a half of cargo, perhaps a bit more. The body would be a semi-monocoque construction—part of the structural support coming from internal bracing, part from the shape of the structure—made of a composite of fiberglass, and viscose that they had been testing, making for a light strong airframe. It would be a lot like the Dakota, except it would be made of fiberglass rather than aluminum. It would be well-streamlined, even the supports between the wings. But in power and speed it would be closer to something out of World War One or earlier.

  "We really can do it." Georg pulled out a paper and pen and started to draw.

  * * *

  Hal Smith snorted. "I can see what the kid's gone and done, Farrell. He didn't know it, but he's reinvented the wheel. If he'd ever seen a picture of the Ilya Muromets built by Igor Sikorsky near the dawn of aviation, he'd have recognized it right off. This is as close a cousin to it as I ever saw."

  "So it will fly?" Farrell asked. "I thought it would, but couldn't be sure."

  His dad gave him the look that said "I always was disappointed in you." Then he nodded. "It'll fly . . . assuming you can build it."

  * * *

  "Hand me the scraper." Georg didn't look up. He had heard a sound and assumed it was someone who belonged there. An instrument was put in his hand. He glanced at it. "Not that one. The corrugated one." He stuck his head out from under the section of fuselage enough to see a pair of legs in the split skirts that all the ladies seemed to be wearing these days. He didn't recognize the legs. "The wiggly one."

  Having received the right scraper, he went back to his work. "Sorry. I have to get this done before the viscose dries. It's like cardboard, you see. The strength comes from the shape and where the bits connect." Having gotten the fabric pressed into the grooves, Georg climbed out from under the section he was working on and looked at his unknown helper.

  He saw a woman of medium height and quite a nice figure, but it was her eyes that really caught his attention. Intelligent eyes that were examining what he had been doing. "Ah . . . Are you looking for work? We don't have anything right now, but check back in a couple of weeks. We're expecting a big contract."

  "I've seen cardboard. This doesn't look like it. Isn't cardboard supposed to have flat sheets on either side of the curvy bits? And aren't the curvy bits straight?"

  Georg grinned. He couldn't help it. "I'm constantly trying to figure a way of putting it that makes sense myself. Corrugated cardboard's inside sheet is given a curvy fold in one direction because it's easier to do it that way in a cardboard making machine and because cardboard is mostly used for making boxes. The corrugations add strength, but primarily in one direction. We need the added strength to go in different directions at different places in the structure. So we adjusted the corrugations to curve around the structure to give added strength where we need it in the direction we need it."

  Georg waved his hand at Joseph Kepler. "Joseph is the carver. I just told him where the stresses were going to be. We'll add a smooth top coat later for added strength and streamlining."

  * * *

  Farrell finally got off the phone and headed for the shop. He had to get Georg out of there before he blew the deal. When he entered the shop he found Georg and the crew talking with a young woman about engraving, and how it was sort of like the way they made the forms. "I hate to break this up but Herr de Passe is on the way from TEA and we need to get Georg out of here before he opens mouth and inserts foot." Farrell looked around the shop. "And get this place cleaned up. Let's try to look like a real company that might actually be able to build the airplanes they want."

  "Too late," Magdalena said.

  * * *

  "You're not ready for this thing yet, Georg," Magdalena said after they had shown her the designs for what Georg called the Jupiter. "I've seen what you're trying and
like most of it, but you don't even have a single engine plane in the air yet. Do you have any idea how much the fiberglass costs? It's too much to invest on a first plane. Finish the Mercury. You have a buyer for that one. Learn from it and refine your designs."

  It clearly wasn't what Georg or Farrell wanted to hear. Well, it wasn't what Magdalena wanted to say. But facts were facts. After they had built a smaller plane that would fly, she would talk to them again.

  * * *

  They finished the Mercury and sold it to Cristoforo Racciato. They did learn from it. The Mercury was a bit of a mishmash of concepts and Cristoforo was quite good about telling them where he was having problems with it as well as what he liked. Cristoforo was introduced to Magdalena and took her flying. Georg wasn't sure how he felt about that. He wanted very much for TEA to buy his Jupiter four-engine biplane. But Cristoforo was charming and Georg wasn't. So he found himself glad that Magdalena was flying in his airplane but wishing that Cristoforo was rather less charming.

  * * *

  Cristoforo munched contentedly on a sandwich. He loved eating in the air. In fact, he loved doing just about anything in the air. He checked the gauges on the Mercury, then glanced at the horizon. A storm front was building, but he figured he could beat it to Leipzig. Or at least find a field closer to Leipzig to set down in. A little later, looking back, he saw lighting and begin to look for a good place to set down.

  * * *

  Five minutes later, he was still looking and the storm was getting close. He pushed the stick a little forward as the world turned into gray mist. Slowly losing altitude, he tried to get below the clouds where he could see to land. He was going to be late and Gus had said that the parts were needed in a hurry. He'd offered Cristoforo enough money for a dozen tanks of gas. While Cristoforo was trying to figure out how to explain to Gus that it wasn't his fault, the engine died. He tried to restart. He was losing altitude too fast, so he pulled back just a little on the stick and tried the engine again.

  Between the added weight of the rain and the added drag of flying through raindrops, the plane was handling a bit differently than Cristoforo was used to. It went into a stall and he wasn't ready for it. The delay in his response cost vital seconds and Cristoforo's lack of experience cost more. Still, he almost made it.

  He had managed to pull out of the stall, induced spin and had the plane level again but he had used up all his altitude doing it. He was going to land—like it or not—and he was coming in hot, fast and heavy. The field had been plowed and was in the process of being turned into mud by the rain. The Mercury bounced once on the top of a furrow but then a wheel hit in a furrow. The wheel stopped, but the plane didn't. It nosed into the mud, bounced again and landed upside down. The cockpit roof collapsed and his skull was crushed by the impact.

  * * *

  Heinrich Bauer heard the noise and went out in the rain to check it out. What he found was what was left of a plane in his field. Well, partly in his field, partly in Johan's. He wasn't the only one. Several of the villagers had come out to determine what the noise had been. After checking on the pilot and confirming that he was in fact dead, they retreated back indoors to try to figure out what to do.

  The next day they sent a rider to Leipzig and started cleaning up the mess. They were later told that they should have left everything just where it was till the investigators got there, but by then it was much too late. They did collect up the bits of wrecked plane and scattered cargo and put it in a barn in case it might be worth something, but they had work to do.

  It wasn't that they weren't sorry about the boy. He had never done anything to them but crash in their fields, and it was clear enough that it hadn't been on purpose. But he was already dead. There wasn't anything they could do for him. And they had no reason to believe that anyone could tell anything from the crash site that they hadn't been able to tell.

  * * *

  "Damned shame." Georg shook his head and continued to pick through the rubble of the Mercury. It had been sent to them by the Racciato family in the hopes they could determine what had gone wrong.

  Cristoforo had been a good kid.

  "It seems to me that he waited a little long before he tried to set her down," Farrell said. "Or maybe it was just bad luck. The clouds were pretty low that day from the reports."

  Georg nodded. But he was busy going over the report. "Look at this. The villagers didn't hear anything until the crash. The engine must have died. Water in the carburetor, you think?"

  "Hard to tell. We'll know more after we go over the engine." Farrell pointed to a piece of the wreckage. "It could be that the weight of the rain on top of the weight of the cargo pulled some screws loose."

  On the strength of Cristoforo's praise they had gotten two new orders for Mercury-style aircraft. With his death, those orders had been canceled. Georg was convinced that they would have kept them, at least kept one of them, if the designer had been an up-timer. And they still didn't have a contract with TEA.

  The Contract

  December 1634

  Whap!

  Georg jumped. Magdalena could be fairly temperamental, but she didn't usually try to beat the table to pieces as she was doing now. "Ah, Magdalena? What is the matter?"

  Whap! The file folders hit the table again while Magdalena worked out her frustrations. "They won't sell. 'We're going to build them, and fly them,' they said. So TEA can't buy their plane."

  Georg cast a glance at Farrell, who hid a grin of relief. "We have the plans for the Jupiter ready, Magdalena. Well, almost ready."

  Georg and Farrell had both been worried that one of the other aviation companies would beat them to the punch. Now, with the refusal to sell to TEA, they still had a chance. Georg, for more than one reason, wanted the sale to TEA. Not only did he want his own plane in the air, he was very interested in Magdalena, who appeared to return that interest.

  Magdalena glared around the room. "I have a sneaking suspicion that you're not quite as sympathetic to TEA's plight as you pretend to be." Then just a touch of grin showed through the storm. "Never mind. Show me the progress reports. Where are you with the Jupiter?"

  * * *

  Magdalena was learning to be a pilot and had seen sea planes on TV since coming to Grantville but she wasn't an aircraft designer. An airport, while not that difficult to build, was needed for a large aircraft. At least she assumed it was. She didn't want a repeat of what happened to Cristoforo. Not with a plane full of passengers.

  She asked Georg to replace the wheels with pontoons or make the fuselage into a hull.

  Georg promised to look into it. It was only a couple of days later that he delivered the bad news.

  "It won't work. Pontoons don't sit on the water, they sit in the water. They displace as much water as the weight of the plane on top of them, all the cargo and fuel it's carrying, plus the weight of the pontoons themselves. When the plane tries to take off they push that much water out of the way. All the way from the start of the taxi to lift off, and drag more water with them."

  "But there are sea planes all over the movies from up-time."

  "Yes." Georg snorted. "And thousand horsepower engines to pull them out of the water." Georg's face was a picture of desperation. "The long wings that let us take off at thirty miles per hour are just that much more weight when you put the plane on pontoons. I talked to Herr Smith about it. The flying boats of the thirties used ten percent of their fuel loads on takeoff and landing. They ran those thousand horsepower monsters full out—they had to just to get into the air—then they cut the power way down for level flight. I'm sorry, Magdalena, but with the engines we have, it would never get into the air."

  "I'll hire Maria," Magdalena said. Maria was a friend from before she had come here. She had a knack for finding things in the National Library.

  "Won't do any good." Georg glared at her. He was not, she knew, that fond of Maria. "I've already studied everything they have on aircraft."

  Nor did he lack for ego.
Sometimes Magdalena wondered what she saw in him. A lot of the time, actually. Yes, he was the smartest person she had ever met, but sometimes he was a real jerk. Of course, sometimes he was anything but.

  "TEA needs a certain amount of flexibility if we can possibly get it." She gave Georg one of her best looks. "It's worth a try."

  * * *

  "Eureka," Maria whispered. What she really wanted to do was shout. MSP Aeronautics was her first major client. They had hired her after their investors had insisted that the plane must be capable of water landing and take off. But who would have thought that she would find it in a Time magazine article? She read the first part of the article again.

  "Aug. 25, 1967

  Everything seemed normal when Test Pilot David W. Howe eased the LA4 "Lake" amphibian toward Niagara Falls International Airport earlier this month. He radioed a highly abnormal report to the tower: "Bag down and inflated." Seconds later he landed—without wheels—on a cushion of air."

  The article went on to describe—with a maddening lack of technical detail—the principles and basic structure of ACLG, Air Cushion Landing Gear, conceived by Bell's T. Desmond Earl and Wilfred J. Eggington. It was simple enough in principle—put an airplane on top of a hovercraft. At least that's the way the article made it seem. Maria spent the rest of the day getting a start on learning about hovercraft to try and fill in some of the technical details that the Time article left out.

  * * *

  "This doesn't make sense," Georg complained. "If this is so good why didn't they use it up-time? This article says it happened over thirty years before the Ring of Fire."

  "I have no idea." Maria smiled. "I do know that a lot of stuff they had, they didn't use. Mostly it was because they had something better, but not always. Sometimes—" She shrugged. "—they just didn't."

  "I think I might know," Farrell said. "Look at the date. By sixty-seven little private airports were all over the place. I used to love to look at the planes as we went by one on the highway. Most planes had no need for amphibious take off and landing. So ninety percent of the potential market is gone before they start. As for the planes that did need to be amphibious, well, pontoons were a known tech. The FAA already had all the guidelines in place. The manufacturers knew how to build them, the FAA knew now to test them, the pilot knew how to check them before flight. By the time the air cushion came along in the sixties, it was competing with established tested products.