by John McPhee
Linkenhoker used tools from his workbench at home. He cut metal with a wood saw. “It’s pretty hard for people to believe—this back-yard project,” he said at one point. “When you try to describe the shop that you’ve been working from and the tools that you’ve been using, people smile with a gentle little smile and turn away to keep from hurting your feelings. I’ve had my doubts. I’ve felt somewhat insecure. It doesn’t worry me any. This is the type of work I like to do. It’s in the airship field, which is the only thing that I really know. This is a stepping stone to future airships. Just how big a part it will play I haven’t the slightest idea. I wouldn’t even try to prophesy.” He had been in naval aviation for twenty years, almost always in airships, sometimes flying as a crewman, doing structure and envelope rigging, on patrol from Maine to Brazil. He had gone into the Navy straight from high school in Covington, Virginia, where his father was supervisor of a machine room in a paper mill. The young sailor developed expansive feelings about the future possibilities of lighter-than-air, and with the others—the other helium headshe gradually became disillusioned and, ultimately, bitter in the feeling that the Navy had sold them out. “Any form of aviation must be experimented with,” he would say afterward. “L.T.A. experimentation was absolutely nothing. All through the Second World War they should have been experimenting, but they were flying the same type of airship up till the very last. This is a touchy subject. It was strictly a one-sided affair. We were down to twenty ships by 1953. Nothing new was cranked into the picture; it just had to reach its end.” When the Navy gave up airships, Linkenhoker gave up the Navy. He had nowhere to go where he might have faintly cared to go except to the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., which kept a few blimps alive, like the whooping cranes in the New Orleans zoo. The Goodyear blimps carried fields of light bulbs through which rippled advertising messages to America in the night. Linkenhoker was ready to settle for that—to travel from city to city, away from his family, as airborne maintenance man in a hovering billboard—rather than lose touch forever with airships. He was virtually packed for Akron when Admiral Rosendahl called him and suggested he go to Aereon. It had taken him six years to build the triple hull, and three more to build the 26.
Charlie Mills pulled his head out of the hatch, and Linkenhoker went on with his inspection, experiencing a refreshed sensation of relief that Mills was no longer the test program’s test pilot, as Mills had been once, at Red Lion. When the 26 had made its first taxi runs, two years earlier, it had no skin. Rolled out into the open, it was a jungle gym even beyond the imagination of children, and it moved up and down the Red Lion runway at forty-two miles per hour through fresh snow, with Mills, dressed in an astronaut’s puffy flying suit, perched in the front, like a bird on a naked branch, his feet sticking forward into a cold wind. The ship without skin could not possibly leave the ground. What worried Linkenhoker and everyone else was what might happen when the aerobody was covered with cloth. It had become apparent that, given half a chance, Mills might shrug off the plotted prudence of the test program, eschew the developing counsel of engineers and computers, turn up the engine, take the stick in his hand, and—wings or no wings—bolt for the sky. “There are two ways to test,” Mills had said. “One is slow, gingerly, step by step. That way consumes time and money. The other approach is short-time, high-risk. With the 26, the best procedure is to fly it. That’s what pilots are for—to take risks.” Linkenhoker covered the ship with airplane cloth, and Miller told him to paint it Princeton orange. Linkenhoker went to Shick Auto Supplies in Trenton, and said he wanted Princeton orange. “Mack Truck orange is what we’ve got here,” the man said, and Linkenhoker said that would do. To save weight, he applied only one coat. He used no primer and only five coats of dope instead of the normal nine or ten. When Charlie Mills was about to enter the cockpit to perform another taxi test, Miller, visibly nervous, took him aside and said to him, “Charlie, you are not to fly the 26.” Hundreds of items had to be proved out, in many taxi tests, before a first flight could even be contemplated. The replacement cost of the 26-time and materials only—was about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
“Wilco,” said Charlie, and down the runway he went and took a little jump into the air. The wheels rose only an inch or two off the ground, but Miller aged ten years and Linkenhoker bit his toothpick in half.
Now, at NAFEC, standing among the expectants around the 26, Mills said, “Had I been running the railroad, it would probably be a wrecked aircraft by now.” There were appreciative grins. No one spoke up to disagree. Linkenhoker, out of sight inside the ship, thought of the catastrophe that might have occurred because “Charlie wanted just to jump it into the air and try a go-round.” Linkenhoker liked Mills well enough, and unreservedly admired his skill in airships, but he sensed the complexities within Mills—fast assessments, speed-drying interests—and, although he could never feel it was his place to say so, he preferred seeing other characteristics in the cockpit of the 26. Olcott was modern, circumspect—more mathematics, no flair. Olcott had already taxied the 26 more than a hundred miles. “I like the cut of his—his attitude,” Linkenhoker would say. “His matter-of-fact reasoning. There never seems to be a need for words between Olcott and me. There’s an understanding there that doesn’t need words. I know what I have to do, and he knows what he has to do.”
Olcott had changed his clothes. His jump suit was green. His flying boots, actually construction worker’s boots, were new ones from Sears, Roebuck. He put on a white plastic helmet marked “U.S. Air Force.” Briefing, he said to everyone present, “We’re going to try a lift-off in ground effect, a short hop; and, if that works out, we’ll try a lift-off and a prolonged straight and level flight, still in ground effect.” The memory that the 7, repeatedly trying to do just that, had porpoised, oscillated, jackrabbited, and finished its days in smithereens had clearly been screwed into a remote corner of Olcott’s mind. His computer—at his firm, Aeronautical Research Associates of Princeton—had helped him do this. The computer, full of equations of motion that mathematically detailed the performance characteristics of the 26, had been refreshed with the data gathered on the final flight of the 7. Olcott had then spent four days flying the computer, moving an actual control stick that changed the variables of the equations. Voltmeters plugged into the computer could be read as airspeed indicator, pitch-attitude indicator, rate-of-climb indicator, turn-and-bank indicator, altimeter, and so forth. Moving the stick, Olcott had tried one variable at a time—roll damping, roll rate, pitch damping, vertical acceleration, horizontal acceleration, control sensitivity. Basic truths of the deltoid Aereons were uncovered or confirmed. The initial response from up elevator would be a pitch change and not an altitude change, for example. While an ordinary airplane turns principally with ailerons, the primary control in the aerobody was apparently the rudder. If power was reduced, the nose would go up—also the reverse of what happens with a conventional plane. One way to get the 26 into a takeoff attitude might be to reduce power. In any case, the stick was not to be used to force the aircraft into the air.
Linkenhoker emerged from the 26 and said he thought everything was ready. Olcott said, finally, “I hope no one will be disappointed in what they see today. Nothing sensational will happen—I trust.”
Holding a handle that was attached to the nosewheel gear, Linkenhoker began to tow the 26 like a huge wagon toward the hangar doors. A loud buzzer sounded as power came on and the doors began to part. Boeing 707s had often rolled through those doors with no clearance problem whatever. The 26, whose trailing-edge control surfaces had extended backward beyond original intentions, was twenty-seven feet seven inches long (Pitot boom excluded). Behind its pinpoint nose, it widened to a breadth of twenty-four feet across the tail. So the big doors opened scarcely a crack, and the 26 went out into the night.
Lights of the airfield, blue and red, spaced out through the dark to the horizon. Airplanes parked on the apron formed high silhouettes behind the 26, black on deep gr
ay —a giant Globemaster, its engines hanging like teats; a Boeing 720, slick as the night; a couple of Convairs; a DC-7; an Aero Commander; a DC-3. A bar of light from the aperture in the hangar fell across the 26. Olcott climbed through the hatch and into the seat, his white helmet appearing to be almost phosphorescent within the plastic bubble. He strapped himself in. He strapped his note pad to his right thigh. Now that he was aboard, cast-iron weights were removed from the nose, and a Detecto bathroom scale was slipped under the nosewheel, read, and removed. Dawn began, pushing pink streaks upward, painting out the eastern stars. Venus stayed. Gray lightened and turned into high pale blue, with white bits of cirrus in it. The pinks flared. The dark airplanes on the apron turned silver and cold. White stucco buildings now stood out across the airfield flatness. One of these was a firehouse. Its doors opened and fire trucks began to move toward stations on the runway. Red as blood, they had enormous gold numerals on their sides, the figure 6, the figure 8. A red fire car, sedan of the chief, sprinted cross-country toward the 26, stopped nearby, and waited, its roof light revolving and flashing. Station wagons drew up carrying flagstaffs and large, flapping orange-and-red checked flags. One station wagon was Linkenhoker’s Dodge, which he would drive. The other was the airport operations car of NAFEC—roof light turning, flashing, now red, now yellow. All vehicles were equipped to radio the NAFEC tower. Olcott lowered over his eyes the glare shield of his crash helmet. Putman leaned in through the hatch. Bits of conversation drifted out.
“Fifty-six knots calibrated is the best rate-of-climb speed,” Olcott said.
“I concur.”
“Alpha R is seven point six. Delta E flight is eight point four.”
“I read it nearer ten point zero.”
“O.K.”
“You could have a three-point lift-off. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes.”
Putman, aerodynamicist, who had never flown or cared to fly, was trim and handsome, with rich dark hair that was now tumbling across his forehead. He was wearing a blue shirt and a gray sweater that had a hole in one elbow. His trousers were vertical candy stripes—blue, white, and gold. A comb protruded from a hip pocket. Putman had built models all through his youth—Fort Smith, Arkansas (he was an undertaker’s son), Phillips Andover Academy, Princeton University. He never tried to fly the models he built. What mainly attracted him about airplanes was their incredibly beautiful appearance, airplanes as pinnacles in the aesthetics of function. He was thirty-six now, advanced-degreed and academic: Princeton Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Sciences. His wife had once filled in a coupon that brought an Encyclopaedia Britannica salesman to their door. The salesman was Paul Shein, Aereon’s treasurer. Putman bought the encyclopedia, and Shein drew Putman into Aereon as a consultant.
“I’m basing fifty-two indicated as fifty-six calibrated,” Olcott said. “Fifty-two indicated gives me a reasonable takeoff solution.”
Putman said, “Very well.”
“The first run will be without rotation. The second run will include a rotation at a forty-seven-knot takeoff solution. The third run will be a go.”
“Jack, you’re wise to select to do the rotation at a lower speed,” said Putman.
Olcott said, “The only thing I’m concerned about is staying on the front side of the power curve.”
“O.K., then?”
“O.K. I’m all set.”
Linkenhoker, at the rear, stood on a two-step steel ladder and put his hands on the propeller, which had a forty-eight-inch diameter. A self-starter would be dead weight in the air, an impossible luxury at this level of the aerobody’s development. Linkenhoker shouted, “Contact!”
From the nose, Olcott shouted, “Contact!”
Linkenhoker pulled down hard on the propeller. It turned a quarter turn and nothing happened. He tried again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. He shouted, “Full throttle!”
“Full throttle!”
Four more tries. Nothing. Linkenhoker paused, and rubbed his head against his shoulder. He primed the carburetor. He tried six more times. The engine did not so much as cough. Miller displayed signs of nervousness. Mills, who had a stopwatch in his hand, looked impatient. Putman folded his arms and waited. Linkenhoker seemed annoyed—nothing more. There was very little he did not know about motors.
“Do you think it will start, Link?”
“Of course it will start. It’s a gasoline engine, isn’t it?” Reaching high, he jerked the prop down with all his weight and muscle. Nothing. In quick succession, he heaved at it five more times. Once, it eructed slightly; but that was all. Linkenhoker’s hair was becoming damp with sweat. “Switch off!” he shouted.
“Switch off!”
“You want more priming gas, Link?”
“No, I want some more breath.” Linkenhoker suddenly looked vulnerable, as if he, not Olcott, were the man in danger. He was near fifty and not, by appearance, in condition for this much of a workout. “Switch on!”
“Switch on!”
Five more tries. Nothing.
“Half throttle!”
“Half throttle!”
One more try. Nothing. A gill of primer. Another heave. The engine started. It sounded exactly like a chain saw. It sprayed noise off the high walls of the hangar, killing talk. Olcott closed the hatch and called the NAFEC tower. There was no response. His radio was inadequate. He opened the hatch. Could someone else please call the tower for him? Soon, in the NAFEC operations car, a thumb went up. Olcott raised a thumb in acknowledgment, and the 26 began to move out past the big silent jets. Linkenhoker drove Miller and Mills to the main runway, and they got out on the turf at the edge, midway between the ends—Mills, the consultant, with his stopwatch; Miller, the president, maintaining the corporate records with his Nikon Super 8. The station wagon sped away. Hundreds of seagulls were holding some sort of meeting on Taxiway Bravo, parallel to the big runway, and Linkenhoker’s Dodge scattered them as he hurried to join the 26 and the other vehicles in time for the first run.
The dawn air was cold. Mills wore a suède jacket, old khaki trousers, old flying boots. Miller wore his Navy flight jacket, which had been issued to him twenty-five years before. His past seemed somewhat at odds with his theological present—the Master of Theology whose time-and-a-half labors for Aereon were virtually equalled by his continuing church work, as, for example, a leader of the Children’s Sand and Surf Mission, in Ship Bottom, New Jersey. Large block lettering on his flight jacket said “ATTACK 35,” on an emblem in which a fire-breathing flying red dragon was riding a torpedo. Miller, however, had long since reconciled the divergences in his cosmography; witness a psalm he had once contributed, as a Naval Reserve fighter pilot, to the Bulletin of the Officers’ Christian Union of the United States of America:
Savior, you have launched me, and you will bring me aboard, I shall never land short.
I can never land short of your flight-deck;
short of your elevators are the deep waters of death.
The black waves you have stilled;
you have overcome them that I may land in heaven.
I shall never land short, for you, my Savior, have launched me, and you will surely bring me in.
The sun, now a deep-red full circle lifting from the horizon, was halved by a wafer of cloud that appeared black against the red and against the pinks and blues of the sky. The stars were gone. The air was sharply clear. A sixknot breeze had been predicted for this hour, but even that had failed to develop. “We must thank the Lord,” said Miller. “This day is providential. He has given us perfect conditions. Clear. Dry. Dead calm.” Fearing observation, Miller scanned the peripheries of NAFEC—the chain-link fencing, the automobiles moving on exterior roads. The ones that moved slowly made him nervous.
The 26 crescendoed, wheels rolling firm on the ground, in a high-speed taxi run. In single file, the station wagons, the car of the fire chief, and a fire engine raced down the taxiway—flags flying, lights flashing and wh
irling—keeping pace with the 26. These five vehicles were the only moving things in the huge level acreage of NAFEC. At the far end, Olcott turned the 26 around. Having neither seen nor felt anything that he did not expect, he decided that that was enough taxiing and he was ready to fly. He went over his checklist. Both boost pumps on. Twenty-one minutes of fuel consumed. Controls O.K. Very simple. Forget nothing. Next, he reviewed his plan for rotation—the moment when an aircraft, on the ground and rolling, lifts its nosewheel and assumes an angle of attack from which, with added acceleration, it will rise into the air. He would rotate at fifty-two knots with an elevator deflection of thirty degrees. This should produce an angle of attack of eight degrees for initial lift-off. In flight, the angle of attack would increase to ten degrees. He would hold that attitude, flying the aircraft. He looked out through the clear-plastic canopy at the other vehicles all around him like sheepdogs, protection itself, watching, waiting for his move, within his philosophy of small increments, of small and careful steps one at a time, toward a new level. He looked at the NAFEC operations car and raised his right thumb. The tower was told. A thumb went up in the car. Olcott accelerated to full throttle.
