burst of black coal dust sul-lied the side of the leviathan of the air and the first engineer’s comments entertained an even more colorful content. But as soon as all the pipes were away and the valves sealed, hoses were brought into play and within moments the hull was pristine again.
Alec pulled himself back inside with a victorious gleam in his eye—then sprang forward to the engine room telegraph as its bell rang twice and the brass indicator arm moved all around the face then returned to warm engines.
“Port, one,” Alec called out. “Bu-tane inlet valves.”
“Aye, aye,” the rating answered and the two men were instantly involved in the complex task.
Gus knew the theory of course, but he had never seen one of these giant engines in operation before. He was aware that each of the hulking turboprop engines, only a fraction of which protruded up through the bottom of the wing that was the floor here, produced 5,700 horsepower.
First butane was admit-ted as an electric motor started the great shaft spinning with a muffled roar. Now the burning gas spun the turbine blades, faster and faster, un-til the desired temperature and pressures had been reached.
Alec tapped a dial and seemed sat-isfied, so he cut off the butane flow while at the same instant turned on the pump that blew the tiny particles of pulverized coal into the engine, where it burnt instantly and hotly. The great machine trembled and rumbled with restrained power as he adjusted the controls so it idled smoothly.
“I’ll be down here until well after we’re airborne, still have to fire up the starboard lot. Why don’t you go back to the bridge, I’ll phone through and tell them you are on the way up.”
“Surely that would be an inter-ference?”
“Not a bit of it. For every question you ask about this airborne Moby Dick they’ll have a dozen about your transatlantic pipe. Get along now.”
The engineer was not far wrong for the captain himself, Wing Commander Mason, met Gus and in-sisted he remain. The bridge was quiet, commands were issued in a restrained manner and obeyed with alacrity, so it appeared that all the excitement was outside. The dockside crowd was waving and cheering, boat whistles blowing, until just on the stroke of midday the lines were cast off and the tugs nosed the pon-derous airship away from the shore and out into the channel. Mason, who was young for a Cunard captain but who had grown a full beard to fit the accepted image, was proud of his charge.
“Waterline weight 198,000 pounds, Mr. Washington, 240 feet from stem to stern, 72 feet from the bottom of the step to the lookout’s position top of the central tail fin. An exercise in superlatives, and all of them truthful I must admit. We have a 2,000 horsepower turbine in the tail that does nothing more than pump air for the boundary layer control and deflected, slipstream, in-creases our lift to triple that of an or-dinary wing.
Why we’ll be airborne at 50 miles an hour and inside 400 feet.
Spray-suppressor grooves on both sides of the hull keep down the flying scud and smooth the sea for us. Now, if you will excuse me.”
The tugs cast off, the helmsman spun the wheel to line the ship up for the takeoff, then disengaged his con-trols so the captain had command.
Hooting police boats had cleared the harbor of small craft. Steadying the airborne tiller with his left hand the captain rang for full ahead with his right. A faint vibration in the deck could be felt as the turbines howled up to top speed and the Queen Eliza-beth slipped forward over the water, faster and faster. The transition was so smooth that there was no dis-tinction between being waterborne and airborne. In fact the very pres-ence of this juggernaut of the air-ways was so solid and reassuring that it appeared as though instead of the ship rising the city outside had dropped away from them, shrinking at the same time to the size of a model, then tipping on its side as the ship began a slow
Alec pulled himself back inside with a victorious gleam in his eye—then sprang forward to the engine room telegraph as its bell rang twice and the brass indicator arm moved all around the face then returned to warm engines.
“Port, one,” Alec called out. “Bu-tane inlet valves.”
“Aye, aye,” the rating answered and the two men were instantly involved in the complex task.
Gus knew the theory of course, but he had never seen one of these giant engines in operation before. He was aware that each of the hulking turboprop engines, only a fraction of which protruded up through the bottom of the wing that was the floor here, produced 5,700 horsepower.
First butane was admit-ted as an electric motor started the great shaft spinning with a muffled roar. Now the burning gas spun the turbine blades, faster and faster, un-til the desired temperature and pressures had been reached.
Alec tapped a dial and seemed sat-isfied, so he cut off the butane flow while at the same instant turned on the pump that blew the tiny particles of pulverized coal into the engine, where it burnt instantly and hotly. The great machine trembled and rumbled with restrained power as he adjusted the controls so it idled smoothly.
“I’ll be down here until well after we’re airborne, still have to fire up the starboard lot. Why don’t you go back to the bridge, I’ll phone through and tell them you are on the way up.”
“Surely that would be an inter-ference?”
“Not a bit of it. For every question you ask about this airborne Moby Dick they’ll have a dozen about your transatlantic pipe. Get along now.”
The engineer was not far wrong for the captain himself, Wing Commander Mason, met Gus and in-sisted he remain. The bridge was quiet, commands were issued in a restrained manner and obeyed with alacrity, so it appeared that all the excitement was outside. The dockside crowd was waving and cheering, boat whistles blowing, until just on the stroke of midday the lines were cast off and the tugs nosed the pon-derous airship away from the shore and out into the channel. Mason, who was young for a Cunard captain but who had grown a full beard to fit the accepted image, was proud of his charge.
“Waterline weight 198,000 pounds, Mr. Washington, 240 feet from stem to stern, 72 feet from the bottom of the step to the lookout’s position top of the central tail fin. An exercise in superlatives, and all of them truthful I must admit. We have a 2,000 horsepower turbine in the tail that does nothing more than pump air for the boundary layer control and deflected, slipstream, in-creases our lift to triple that of an or-dinary wing.
Why we’ll be airborne at 50 miles an hour and inside 400 feet.
Spray-suppressor grooves on both sides of the hull keep down the flying scud and smooth the sea for us. Now, if you will excuse me.”
The tugs cast off, the helmsman spun the wheel to line the ship up for the takeoff, then disengaged his con-trols so the captain had command.
Hooting police boats had cleared the harbor of small craft. Steadying the airborne tiller with his left hand the captain rang for full ahead with his right. A faint vibration in the deck could be felt as the turbines howled up to top speed and the Queen Eliza-beth slipped forward over the water, faster and faster. The transition was so smooth that there was no dis-tinction between being waterborne and airborne. In fact the very pres-ence of this juggernaut of the air-ways was so solid and reassuring that it appeared as though instead of the ship rising the city outside had dropped away from them, shrinking at the same time to the size of a model, then tipping on its side as the ship began a slow
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