Chapter 18

Will and Frenchy arrived back at the plant the following Monday. They were met by Lina, who walked up as they finished tying down the Piper. Frenchy hugged her, then asked, “What happened to Chuck?”

“He was doing the first hover test with the King, but something went wrong and it almost flipped over. He had a high current reading on one of the bow impellers, but said he thought it was okay. It was, for the first few minutes, but then suddenly it pitched up and the rear section hit the floor. The King is a wreck; the frame is bent, one of the batteries caught on fire and the other one is too bent to be used without a factory rebuilt, and Chuck hit the control panel. He has two cracked ribs and the King is going to need rebuilding, probably from scratch. One of the batteries is ruined and maybe the other one is too; we sent it off to the factory to see if they can salvage the cells, and they’ll let us know. We need the replacements and they claim there aren’t any available, so maybe they can do something with the wrecked ones.

“Mel has added a roll bar to the Bedstead and when the King is rebuilt, it will have one too. Roll bars are required on small tractors, I think, so anyway, Mel bought the Bedstead’s bar from a tractor supply company and we mounted it behind the pilot’s seat. It extends above his head and it’s wide enough to provide at least some protection to his arms. Chuck didn’t roll the King, it was too close to the floor, but it could happen when they’re out on the test course so it’s better to have the protection before it’s needed.”

Will nodded thoughtfully. “Good idea. I’m glad that I’ll have wings and controls if I have to shut down the impellers in flight. How much will the ribs affect Chuck’s schedule?”

“He says he can keep going. He can’t do heavy lifting, but he can do drilling and riveting. Mel and I can lift things and help do what has to be done, so it won’t be all that bad. We’ve also got the overhead crane for lifting heavy things like the batteries.”

“Don’t let him overdo it, Lina.”

“He’s pretty stubborn, Dad. Reminds me a lot of you!” She grinned as Frenchy winced. “So how did the cruise go? You were out all day, weren’t you?”

“Right, we came into port after dusk, tied back up to the same mooring buoy after Sven lowered the anchor. Almost everything worked as expected, but we had to shut down the anti-roll system. I sent Morty a message suggesting that we might install four of the smaller impeller units and use them as a dedicated anti-roll anti-pitch system. In a pinch, they could also help with maneuvering, but we didn’t have a problem during the cruise. Everything else worked as expected! I was a bit disappointed that Morty passed up the chance to be part of the voyage.”

“He has some sort of bug, or maybe it’s allergies, that’s probably why he didn’t want to go. They’ve been rough this year.”

“Welcome to New Mexico! Even the plants fight back out here, but he’s a tough old coot.”

“Remember that he is old, dad. I didn’t like the way he looked, so Chuck and I talked him into taking a few days off and resting. He wanted to help with installing the impellers on the Twin Otter’s wings, but Chuck nixed that and he finally left. Grumbling all the way, as you might expect.”

“I’d like to see how that’s going, Lina, and then I’d like to take a look at the King. Was anything else damaged?”

“Just Chuck’s pride. He said the computer wasn’t able to control one of the impellers and he was lucky. I’ll tell you this, I was scared stiff for a moment!” Frenchy looked at her questioningly. She nodded back. “Yes, dad. I was really scared.” He got the unspoken message. Whatever was developing between the two of them, Lina thought it was serious “Anything I should know about, honey?”

“Not yet, Dad. We’ll let you know if there is.”

“We?”

“We.”

Will’s new airplane, the De Havilland Twin Otter, had finally arrived.

He met the pilot in Clovis and underwent a day-long transition course, then flew the Twin to the plant. The engineers took out the passenger seats, then began modifying the plane. Morty insisted that he was feeling better and was now watching the installation of the second impeller under the port wing. This one, unlike the models now being used on the Bedstead and the King, bore a much closer resemblance to the cylindrical housing used on the original Flying Bedstead.

Frenchy and Will walked over, Will to see how the installation was going and Frenchy to have a close look at the old man. He did indeed look ill. His skin had a grayish cast and he was wearing a clip across his nose to hold his nostrils open. Only his eyes showed the same enthusiasm Frenchy was accustomed to seeing.

“Allergies that bad, Morty?” Frenchy asked.

“Worse than usual. You’re supposed to use these when you sleep, but I figured they’d work just as well during the day.”

“Lina said she and Chuck had talked you into taking some time off, Morty.”

“Aw, I just couldn’t stay in bed with Chuck gimping around like he is. I’m just watching anyway and doing a little supervising now and then. It’s not as if I was working on anything.”

“Don’t overdo it, Morty, and anyway, these aren’t the same impellers we’re using on the other craft.”

“They are,” Morty corrected him, “it’s just that the housing is different. I mounted the first ones vertically on the Bedstead, but later on I mounted them in gimbals so they could point in any direction. That’s why the casing for the later models is ball-shaped, so the impellers can be shifted around, but the plane has flight controls so it’s easier just to hang the impellers on a fixed mount that’s always pointing forward. We can still get limited controllability by varying power settings, and I added trim tabs that can change the impeller heading up or down by five degrees. I doubt we’ll need more than that.

“We’ll do ground testing first, taxiing on the runway, and I reckon we can refine the orientation of the impellers a bit before the plane takes off. I was thinking that we might just hang the plane from that crane in the assembly plant. We could feed in just enough impulse to see what effect the impeller angle will have. I talked to the engineers already. Prin Sikkit’s the head of electrical engineering, he’ll work on the trim controls and Slip’s the guy in charge of mounting the impellers. Come on over, I’ll show you what he’s doing. Will, you’ll want to take a look at this too.”

The three walked over and looked up at the wing mount. The impeller hung close to the fuselage, almost touching it, but far enough back to clear the propellers.

“We installed the mounts so the impellers would be as far back and as far inboard as possible. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to interfere with airflow around the wing root or cause turbulence in the prop wash.”

“Good thinking, Morty,” Will agreed. “At any rate, it’s balanced. I’ll have some idea of whether it will fly as I go through the ground tests. I would prefer wind tunnel testing, but I don’t suppose that’s possible.”

“No, but Slip has a program for his computer that lets him model what’s likely to happen. He ran virtual tests using different mounting locations, and putting the impellers outboard of the engine changed the wing loading characteristics too much. Slip also mailed off a question to the manufacturer, asking about moving the turboprops outboard. He just told them we were considering mounting a cargo pod inboard on the wing and wanted to know what they thought of the idea. Haven’t heard back from them yet.”

“I’ll want to take a look at the airflow pattern too,” said Will. “I’ll taxi the bird, keeping the speed down at first, then run up the engines. But I’ll keep it down to less than takeoff speed until I’m sure it’s safe. Maybe we can use ribbons on the leading edges of the wings to see what’s going on with the airflow. But I know what to expect from an unmodified Twin, and if this doesn’t affect flight characteristics too much it should be okay. The Twin Otters were designed to take off and land on short airstrips, so there’s quite a bit of safety built in when you’re flying from an airstrip as long as ours is.”

“You’re not afraid to fly it, Will?”

“No, I’m just being cautious. But I’ll fly it, because this is the first step in making me a few billion dollars. That’s worth taking a few chances!”

“Keep your calendar open, then. We’ll be ready for ground tests next week and you’ll want to be here for those.”

“I’ll do more than just be here, I’ll be at the controls or at least watching closely!” As they talked, Will noticed a group of men following a fork lift carrying a large pallet. Another followed immediately behind. Each pallet carried two of the globular impeller containers. “What’s going on, Morty?” He pointed to the forklifts and the gaggle of engineers following behind.

“I had the impellers pulled from the King. We’re doing a complete teardown, to find out whether Chuck’s problem was with the impeller or whether it was something in the software. The Bedstead and the King are flying test beds, but they aren’t like the Tesla in a sense; we can’t totally isolate any of the systems while we’re airborne, and they’ve all got to respond to a single control input the way they’re designed now. We may find later on that it’s better to have two systems for safety, each controlling four of the eight impellers. I looked over possible redesigns after the accident; we’re mounting each of the Bedstead’s impellers at the corner right now, but on the long sides. It wouldn’t take much to add two to the front and two at each rear corner. That was what I had in mind all along, but up to now we haven’t had the impellers available. Anyway, that would mean that each corner has two impellers, one at the front or rear, one to each side. We could then arrange dual controls so that one computer manages the front and rear impellers, while a different computer controls the four side-mounted ones.