Chapter 22

“So where’s the power plant? All I see is what’s on the wings, and you just told me they weren’t jets.” The inspector sounded testy. It appeared that he’d come a long way for nothing and wasted time in the doing.

“The plane uses a proprietary device,” Mel said calmly. “For now, how it operates is a company secret but I’m prepared to demonstrate that it works. I can also tell you that we use two of the devices in this plane as a safety measure. I’d like to start by taxiing, if you’re ready.”

“Wait a minute, okay? So if the turbogenerators aren’t somehow providing thrust, what do they do?”

“Short answer, they keep the batteries charged. There are battery packs in the aft compartment, plus the thrust units. Turbos charge the batteries, the batteries power the—well, we call them Sneyd-Tesla Impellers. The full name involves the inventor and the man who inspired him. so I guess it won’t hurt to tell you that the original concept was first proposed by Nikola Tesla. Even so, I’d rather you kept that to yourself, at least for now, but the proof is in the flying. What say we give it a try?”

“Are those batteries you mentioned fully charged?”

“Sure, we always start out with them charged, and the turbogenerators recharge them in flight. Why?”

“Suppose we don’t turn on the turbochargers; will the batteries provide enough power to taxi?”

“Well, yes,” Will said, puzzled. “We’ve done extensive testing on battery power alone, but I won’t take off unless the turbos are operating.”

“But you did mention ground testing, taxiing,” the inspector said, “so let’s just get in and see how that goes.”

“No problem. Strap yourself into the copilot’s seat and I’ll let you familiarize yourself with the controls before we take off, but you shouldn’t try to fly this plane or any other until you’ve had a familiarization course using impellers. They’re not magic, and if you don’t know what you’re doing the system can be dangerous.”

“Everything is dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing! Show me what you’ve got, Hoss.” The inspector had spent a lot of time in Texas, and it showed.

Will pointed out that the flight controls worked, just as they had when the plane flew using the turboprops. “One thing, the turboprops are computer controlled. They throttle up under max load, throttle down during cruise.”

“Another uncertified system?” The inspector sounded belligerent.

“I suppose you could call it that, but don’t worry,” said Will. “We’ve got at least an hour’s reduced-power flight time on battery alone. That’s plenty to get us back to the airstrip.”

“But we’re going to do taxi tests, so that will deplete the batteries, won’t it?”

“I’ll run the turbos long enough to top off the batteries before we take off.”

“Any problem with me doing the taxi tests?” the inspector asked, still not convinced.

“Nope, knock yourself out. The stick by your seat controls the impellers; just push straight ahead to accelerate, pull back to slow down, and power control is that wheel on the side. Pay attention to that gauge at the top of the ‘T’, it shows remaining battery charge. It’s based on percentage of full charge, so don’t let it drop below the halfway mark. The red strip on the left is less than ten percent, and if it gets into that area while we’re airborne expect me to start looking for a place to set down.

“Otherwise, the airstrip is yours and you can taxi to your heart’s content. Just don’t exceed takeoff speed, and for that matter you should probably stay at least ten miles per hour below that.”

The inspector nodded, then cycled the ailerons, watching through the cabin windows. He wasn’t able to see the elevators work, but could feel the vibration as they moved from stop to stop. Cycling the rudder produced the same sensation. “You need to put mirrors up where a pilot can see the tail assembly, Hoss.”

“I’ll make a note of that, inspector.”

“About those impeller things, how many hours have you operated them?”

“Total, all units, we’ve got several thousand hours and we’ve never had a failure that was attributed to the impellers. There were problems early on, mostly in the instrumentation and control systems, but not the impellers.”

“You’ve got a logbook, logbooks? You mentioned ‘all units’. I take it that means you’ve got more than one of the impellers?”

“We’ve got several. Two of them are in the back.”

“Takeoff speed?”

“She gets light on the wheels at 65 knots, higher than you might expect. Part of it has to do with the altitude, but the batteries are heavy. So are the impellers, for that matter. Even so, we’re 3250 pounds under max gross, but keep the taxi speed under 65, okay?”

“Understood. Alright, the turbos are off, we’re on battery alone. Just push forward?”

“Right, take it slow until you have a feel for the controls.”

“Roger. Do I need permission to taxi?”

“You’ve got it. This is our only airplane, so you won’t run into traffic.”

The inspector gingerly pushed forward on the control stick, but nothing happened. “What am I doing wrong? That throttle thing you mentioned?”

“Right, push the thumbwheel forward, watch the gauge until it indicates 25%. As soon as that stabilizes, you can use the stick. Bring your power up first, then push forward on the stick controller.”

“Got it.” The thumbwheel was answered by a low rumble that climbed to a low whirring noise. “That noise, is that your impellers?”

“Right, we haven’t managed to engineer that out. Eventually, as we improve the system, we think it can be made to operate silently. Anyway, the turbos will hide the noise after they’re powered up.”

The Twin trundled down the runway, responding to the rudder after it picked up speed. “Seems like it steers just like any other plane. No torque effect at takeoff?”

“None. It flies like any other plane, but instead of jets or propellers the impeller provides the thrust. As for torque, that’s why we use two impellers. They’re designed to eliminate that, but since we’re still experimental we don’t intend to take unnecessary chances. Takeoff power is 86% impulse—we consider 100% to be emergency power—and that’s plenty, even loaded to max gross. Oh, and you won’t need brakes to stop; just pull the stick back past neutral to reverse. The impellers work either way.”

“Okay, I’ll take it back to where we started. Start your turbos now. As soon as you’re satisfied with the battery charge, take her up.”

Chuck glanced at the new paint on the front cowling. The bold EXPERIMENTAL stood out against the white background. He performed a walkaround inspection, glanced at the windsock, then climbed in. Thumbing the impeller power wheel, he set it for 50% and listened to the whining noise build as he buckled in. A switch on the control panel was labeled START, and as soon as he pressed it the computer started the port engine, and as it began to rev, the starboard engine too.

Satisfied, Chuck cycled the flight controls, watching through the newly-installed external rear-view mirrors, then moved the thumbwheel forward until impeller power registered 86%. Pressing gently forward on the control stick, he felt the plane accelerate. Leaving the stick full forward in its detent, he took off.

Climbing rapidly, he throttled back to 50% power as soon as he reached cruise speed. Trimming up the controls, he settled in for what he hoped would be another boring flight.

Mel finished stripping the computers and the battery compartments from the King’s frame. The first test flight had revealed a problem; the four batteries blocked the airflow between the upper and lower decks, allowing heat to build up inside the frame. The engineers were working on a solution, but whatever they came up with would require stripping the interior components down to modify it.