Chapter 31

The first "long range" scouting expedition was so successful that a full set of routes were planned to determine just what our local part of the world was really like. Meanwhile, it was obvious that we needed more planes and pilots. Ed got busy supervising the production of more of the one- and two-person planes. He was giving some thought to carrying even more people than that, but was not sure that the ultralight configuration could work with too much size expansion.

That was when the subject of balloons came up. There was no obvious limit to the size of lighter-than-air craft (LTAC), and speed was not an essential factor at this stage. Bill came up with an adhesive mix that would let us laminate sail cloth and plastic film to make a reasonably gas-tight envelope. We could generate all of the hydrogen we needed for lift, so that was not a problem. Both trimarans had held some propane bottles, so they were emptied and used to store hydrogen under pressure. The LTAC could use hydrogen for lift and carry enough in the former propane bottles to make up for any that was lost by various kinds of leaks. We felt that the danger of fire was too small to be of concern.

We went for the zeppelin-style of construction which meant a rigid frame that was covered by a simple aerodynamic cover. The actual lift would be provided by separate spherical balloons inside the outer envelope. This looked more complicated at first, but was actually easier for us to construct.

The plan was to hang an open gondola below the lifting body on ropes. This gondola, which would run the length of the LTAC would hold the motors, the crew, and all necessary steering apparatus. The gondola should be large enough to carry passengers and/or freight. We were not troubled by high winds except during the monsoon season, so we just would not fly at that time.

The first LTAC was constructed at 120 feet long and 40 feet in diameter at the maximum. Yours truly was "volunteered" to be the captain of the ship, since the requirements for hunting had pretty well disappeared. Wilbur and John were also tapped for the job when new LTACs were built, since we had all had considerable experience at handling boats on the open water. The others of us that had the experience were too desperately needed for other jobs. One of our first duties would be to train our replacements.

We held off building more than the first prototype LTAC since we wanted some time and experience with it to determine what changes we wanted to make. There was a contest to come up with a name for the air ship, and one of the children suggested that the ship be named for the captain. This was so eminently logical that my air ship was immediately christened Jimmy W. I didn't say anything publicly, but I have to admit to being secretly pleased.

We finally were ready for the maiden trip of the Jimmy W, so we made a big event out of it. A hanger had been made up by stacking some shipping containers (those things are invaluable) and making a roof by stretching some of the canvas and plastic laminate over tree trunk rafters. It was a little tricky to stack six containers, but the crew, led by Amos, worked out the details.

Jimmy W was stored with just enough gas aboard to achieve neutral buoyancy. That way, it was not too difficult to control as it was moved around. The ship was pulled out of the hanger and tethered. Enough gas was added to make her flyable and we climbed aboard. The crew consisted of me, a navigator, Lily, and two mechanics, Abe and Dick. Either Lily or I did the steering. Abe and Dick looked after the motors and acted as general deck hands. We would tie duties down in more detail once we learned what we needed to do.

We didn't have much weight aboard for this first trial, just we four people and some necessary ballast. It was mid-morning when I finally ordered the tethers released and we rose slowly and majestically into the air. Static tests had already been done, so it was my plan to rise to an altitude of 250 feet and make a sojourn to LS2 and LS3 to test our steering capabilities and just for the fun of it. We were followed by two airplanes to fly cover for us if we ran into difficulties, but I was not really expecting trouble.

Lily did most of the steering, which was done by swiveling the motors into the direction we wanted to go. The motors pulled us around well enough, but we did not have what you would call a tight turning radius. Abe and Dick were along to fix things that might go wrong in the steering mechanism, if the truth be told.

My job was to gaze at the scenery and to operate the radio. We stayed in constant contact with LS1, but there was not much to report because the flight was proceeding so smoothly. We arrived at LS2 just in time to see a boat being deposited by the whirlwind. We were far enough away that we were in no danger, but it is always fascinating to see a new arrival.

I reported the event and ordered one of the planes to orbit for air cover while the other one landed to see if assistance was needed. The vessel was one of the medium sized pleasure boats that operated out of Florida. Naturally, it tipped on its side as soon as the whirlwind departed, so the occupants were all dumped to one side of the boat.

One person was actually thrown out of the boat when it tipped. Sandra, the pilot who landed, rushed to the aid of the woman who had been dumped. Fortunately, the woman was unconscious, because she had a compound fracture of her left forearm and possible other injuries. All of the pilots had received EMT training, so she was able to stop the bleeding. She called us on her personal radio and asked for help to be flown in from LS1. The woman was in serious condition.

While this was going on, three more people climbed out of the tipped boat and came over to get in Sandra's way. It turned out that these three people were the injured woman's husband and two daughters. Sandra chased them back with the statement that help was on the way.

JoAnn arrived in less than 20 minutes and saw that the woman needed surgical treatment. There was no other alternative: we scrapped our test flight and landed to get the woman aboard our Jimmy W to transport her back to LS1. The other three climbed aboard and we high-tailed it for LS1 and Alice's operating room. The two single-seaters went on to check out LS3, while the two-seater returned with us to LS1.

Our medivac was a success and the woman was treated for the compound fracture of her left arm and a broken pelvis. She was going to be laid up for quite a while. However, there was no question that we had proved the value of the LTAC. The injured woman might not have died from her injuries if we had to do something else, but she certainly would have been in worse shape by the time we got her back to LS1.

We decided that we had done enough preliminary testing of the LTAC. We were excited by the prospect of trying a longer trip, so we wanted to take one of the scouting trips away from LS1 for around 250 miles. We mounted a cannon fore and aft with the six artillerymen and took on a medic. This gave us 11 people with enough supplies for 10 days and ammunition for the two cannon. We also had our shotguns, so we were sure that we were in good shape. At this point, we strained the lifting capacity of the air ship, but not to the point of danger.

We decided to venture out in a southwesterly direction. There was no particular reason, other than that none of us had ever gone that way before. We left with much less fanfare than on our first trip, but there were still a number of people there to see us off. We hoped that this trip would tell us all we needed to know to work out any bugs in the LTAC so that we could proceed with production of more of the vessels.

The first day, we were not pressing hard to make a lot of distance, rather we were concentrating on exercising our equipment to look for bugs. We even fired the cannon, separately and at the same time, to make sure that there were no unexpected problems with that. Fortunately, the recoil was noticeable, but not ruinous, so we had no qualms about using the cannon freely as we needed it.

The cannon mounts were rigged so that we could depress as much as 62 degrees and elevate to 80 degrees without danger to the LTAC's structural integrity. We could traverse each gun 270 degrees, so there was some overlap in the fields of fire, if we needed it. Any other shooting would have to be done by the shotguns.