CHAPTER XIV

DOWN THROUGH THE AIR

With wire braces screaming, a plane shot downward a thousand feet and the pilot struggled to bring his ship out of the left spin.

The pilot was Hal Dane. He had been with the Wiljohn Works nearly a year now. In that time he had participated in some marvelous experiments, tried out in the hope of furthering the safety of aviation.

A room painted black, strung with wires, some bats turned loose in it, and doors and windows closed to darken it totally--this might seem childish dabbling when thought of in connection with the modern science of aviation. Yet it was a test tried out with a very real purpose. Outside of that room men waited at ear-phones connected electrically with those wires so that the least flutter of a bat's wing against a wire would be indicated. The bats flew madly round and round the room, but never so much as touched one of the many wires. From this experiment scientists contended that bats flying in the air put out some sound and get an echo from that sound when it vibrates near an object. Not so far and foolish a leap from bats to aviation after all! For if a human flyer of the air could devise a ship that put out a sound and got an echo when it approached an object, it would help solve the problem of landing in the dark and of flying in fogs.

Fog, the heavy, silent, dreaded enemy of every aviator! At the Wiljohn Works continuous experimentation went on to help solve the dangers of fog flying. An electrical instrument to measure distance from the ground in tens of feet would help an aviator trying to land in the dark. A mechanical eye to see through the fog was a crying need. Work was being pushed along both of these lines.

Another and very different type of experimentation was the testing of the wings and shapes of aircraft in connection with their air resistance.

The tests for great altitude, however, thrilled Hal Dane more than anything else. Through all this present labor and study, the call of the river of the winds still lured him. And to ride the currents of the air rivers at their swiftest, one must be able to withstand the velocities and the pressure of the air heights. The fearful cold of high altitudes unbalanced ships with heavy coatings of ice, clogged instruments and air indicator tubes with snow. Wiljohn men were pushing experiments for such flying. Already a spread of emulsions on the wings had been found to reduce the ice danger. But for real success, aviators must learn to wholly master the air heights.

Still another type of work was the testing of completed planes. No Wiljohn ship was permitted to leave the factory until it had been thoroughly tried out.

Hal Dane was up in one of these new planes now--and was coming down in a wrong spin.

It was a new type training ship that the navy had ordered. In the work it was built for, the plane might never be put to any particular stress and strain. Yet no flyer can predict what risk may suddenly be thrust upon any ship up in the air. So, like all planes constructed at the Wiljohn Works, it had to be subjected to the worst conditions that might ever overtake any aviator.

All in the course of his usual everyday work, Hal Dane had been ordered to take her up and put her through her paces. First he was to shoot for altitude, next dive vertically, full engine, for eight thousand feet, then straighten out to volplane safely to ground in circling glides.

At twelve thousand feet he had gone into the dive, but instead of falling straight, some faulty mechanism of the ship had hurled it into the dread left spin. Many an aviator would have crawled out then and sought safety in a parachute jump. Young Dane had gone up to test this ship, and test it he would, fighting it down to a last margin for a safety leap.

Three times he exerted every ounce of strength that was in him towards a right pull so that the torque or twisting force of the motor would bring him out of the spin. But the machine would not respond. Another thousand feet--a wrench! And, ah, he had done it, she was coming straight! Mentally, Hal began cataloging the spiraling, the drop, the wrench he had just been through, trying to visualize the engine faults that had brought these on. Too much weight here, not enough strength there. Bad faults, but there were remedies.

She was diving pretty now, straight on, like something shot out of a cannon mouth.

Then at seven thousand feet down things began to happen. Before Hal Dane could realize it, the ship literally shattered to pieces under him. A crash, a rending, a tearing!

He jack-knifed forward across the safety belt and force hurled him head-on against the board, knocking him unconscious. A fuselage gone crazy, wings torn off, tail torn off, shot in sickening whirls towards the ground. Strapped to it, rode Hal Dane, stunned into the unconsciousness of "little death," while real death rose up with the ground to meet him.

As he fell, rushing air partly cleared his brain. But a flying-man's instinct, not conscious thought, set his hands to fumbling the safety belt, to feeling for the ring of his parachute cord. Instinct freed him, sent him climbing to the edge to step off into space.

Things happen swiftly in the air. The ship had already fallen a thousand feet while her pilot rode her down in his dazed condition. But even now it was still some three thousand feet up--more than half a mile above earth. As Hal leaped out, he looked back over his shoulder to see in what direction the stripped fuselage was heading.

A moment more and he was hurtling down through space! Now the wreckage of the ship was even with him, now it had passed him, its greater weight carrying it fast and faster.

Hal's fumbling fingers tugged at his rip cord. He was falling head on--ages swept past--would she never open? Then the parachute blossomed into a great blessed silken flower above him. The silk went taut, yanked him back into an upright position. Beneath the inverted chalice he floated. The earth had ceased to rush up to meet him. It stayed where it belonged--no, it was floating gently up to meet him now. He was going out of his head again, losing his grip on himself. Quick, before blackness went over him again, he must choose a place to land!

He looked down, heard a crash as the ship hit the ground. An airpath seemed sucking him down, hurtling him on to land in the very midst of the wreckage. Bad landing--flames might burst out in that twisted mass below him!

Before his brain went blank again, he must side slip, veer his parachute in a different direction. With instinctive, mechanical motion, his fingers reached up, caught a cluster of shrouds in his hand and drew them down little by little, spilling air from the 'chute. His speed increased as the drop veered off at a sharp gliding angle.

All over. That must be ground below.

But instead of solid contact, there came a splash.

One moment Hal Dane's feet struck water, the next moment he went down, engulfed!