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Untimely Excursions

Page 35

by Hall, Gerald


  “Of course, we should send people out to Mars too, Fraulein Cavill. It will take a lot of time and work before we can do that, I’m sure.”

  “I guess that it means that we need to get started right away, Doctor. I don’t know if my family can pay for it all though. We will need to get help from outside sources. But we have to be able to trust them first.”

  “Perhaps the Australian government will provide us with some additional support? Certainly, they owe your family a great debt of gratitude for all of the service that your companies have provided for this country.”

  “You would think so. But the politicians over to the east are not a terribly grateful bunch, unfortunately. But we are not about to pack it in anytime soon, Doctor. Even if our politicians are a bunch of pansies, there are lots of blokes elsewhere who know that they will be picking a winner by going into business with us. We are going to be the only game in town for quite a while. If someone wants to put something or someone into space, they will have to come to us. We just have to make sure that we can make money off of it so that we can pursue the rest of our dreams.” Judith explained.

  “Somehow, I think that you are expecting to receive some financial support from the Englanders soon, Fraulein Cavill. After that ugly business in Hong Kong, I expect that they are quite grateful for your assistance. They also want access to the information that our satellites are providing us, of course.”

  “Yes, Doctor. I not only expect to receive financial assistance from the British government, I know that I will receive it. Soon, we will be announcing their participation in a joint space venture. But there will be confidential elements to our agreement with Her Majesty’s government that the rest of the world will not be completely aware of. I cannot explain the full extent of this with you, unfortunately. I’m sure that you understand.” Judith explained.

  “Ja, Fraulein Cavill. I am still a German scientist who built rockets that destroyed large sections of English cities. Therefore, the Englanders still do not fully trust me. But you have given me the opportunities to realize so many of my dreams. So, I can live with the way things are.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, Doctor. We certainly appreciate all of the work that you have done for us. This situation will not change that.” Judith said with an appreciative smile.

  Chapter Forty-Nine:

  Cavill Aerospace Hangar Number Nine

  Derby Airfield

  Derby, Western Australia

  September 14, 1958

  James Cavill brought over a visiting aeronautical engineer named Julian Harper to show him some of the new aircraft that Cavill Aerospace had been working on. Julian was a recent graduation from the School of Engineering at North Carolina State University who had met James when the latter had been visiting the campus in Raleigh a couple of years earlier. The young engineer had impressed James so much that he had offered Julian an opportunity to come visit Derby after he had gotten his degree.

  The two men had just walked past a row of newly manufactured transport aircraft and Dragonfly-II jet fighter-bombers before arriving at the entrance to the aircraft hangar that had been built into the side of a hill. There was an armed security guard looking out through a window next to the personnel door. On the other side of that door was a massive steel hangar door that slid on rails to open.

  “This is incredible, Mister Cavill. I had seen newsreels of the original Dragonfly in the theatres during the war when I was a kid. But to see an even more advanced version for real is beyond my imagination. No one builds airplanes like these back home except for a few experimenters.

  “We like to say that we don’t build machines to the state of the art, we create the state of the art ourselves. We may not be able to build the numbers of aircraft that a Boeing or a Douglas does. But the aircraft that we design and build here are the best in the world.

  Incidentally, Julian. Please call me James. We are actually almost the same age, remember?”

  “I know. But you and your sisters have accomplished so much here. Those transports with the twin tail booms and the counter-rotating turboprop engines are so cool. Is it true that you can carry an entire tank inside one of them?”

  “A small one, yes. We can’t quite carry a Sherman in it though. Anyway, the real treats are inside. Now remember, you can’t tell anyone about what you see inside of here.”

  “No problem, James.” Julian said, almost calling his companion ‘Sir.’

  James then waved to the security guard. A loud buzzing sound was then heard as the guard pressed a button to unlock the door. James then walked inside, followed by Julian.

  James led Julian into the hangar, stopping for a moment to flip a series of switches that turned on a series of overhead lights. Some of the aircraft inside the hangar were identical to the others that Julian had seen earlier. But a few were quite different. James was walking directly towards one of those aircraft.

  “Julian. I want you to come take a gander of one of our new prototypes.” James said as he arrived at that most peculiar aircraft.

  To begin with, the aircraft had a slight resemblance to the original tandem-wing Dragonfly fighter-bomber with its pusher propeller and large foreplane. But this aircraft was significantly larger than the single-seat Dragonfly. Also the aircraft had what appeared to be two sets of four-bladed coaxial propellers in the aft part of the fuselage. The landing gear did not retract into the fuselage. The main gear now extended from pods that were incorporated into the low-mounted wings at about one third span. Instead of having the vertical stabilizers on the wingtips, they were now mounted on top of the landing gear pods. The wings outboard of those pods folded upward for storage inside of an aircraft carrier’s hangar.

  On top of the fuselage, there was an extended spine where Plexiglas canopies were located for three crew, including the pilot. The pilot sat well forward on the fuselage. The reason for this was fairly obvious. The pilot had to be able to see over a very large nose-mounted radome that extended in front and below him. There were several blade antennas located elsewhere on the airframe to supplement the front radar array.

  To say that the aircraft looked very ungainly to Julian was putting it very mildly. On the other hand, James was obviously very proud of what he began to tell his guest about.

  “This is one of our latest designs. It is loosely based on our Dragonfly with its tandem wing. Officially, it is called the Cavill Aerial Radar Transport, Number One or CART-1. But most everyone refers to it as the ‘Platypus’ for fairly obvious reasons.”

  “I hate to say this James, but that is one ugly airplane.” Julian admitted.

  “You are definitely not the first person to describe this aircraft that way, Julian. But she wasn’t designed to win a beauty contest. She’s designed to win a contract for a new carrier-borne early warning radar aircraft. Believe me, Julian. This aircraft is better than anything else of its kind in any navy.

  “I trust you on that. Still, I wouldn’t want to be the guy stuck in that cockpit for hours at a time.” Julian commented as he looked at the radar plane a bit more closely.

  “Mate, that is why we have put a very good autopilot on this plane.” James said with a laugh.

  Julian spotted another unusual looking aircraft parked about thirty meters away. The craft sat on a pair of very tall landing gear forward and a single tail wheel. The fuselage and wing appeared to be merged into a large oblong wing that was tipped with a large propeller on either side. Horizontal stabilizers and a pair of vertical stabilizers appeared to spring out at unusual angles towards the rear of the large, low-aspect ratio wing.

  “What is that, James?”

  “That is the prototype for a new ground attack aircraft that we are developing with the assistance of an American aeronautical engineer named Charles Zimmerman. As you can tell, it is a very unusual aircraft.”

  “I can certainly see that. I thought that everyone was going to jets now for propelling combat aircraft though.”

  “For many airc
raft, that is very true. But there are some situations where there is a need for both high speed flight and very low speed flight from the same aircraft. We believe that we have just that kind of aerial vehicle right here, courtesy of Mister Zimmerman.”

  “That is one hell of a strange looking aircraft, mate.” Julian commented as he looked up at the huge flat surface that served as both fuselage and wing.

  “I don’t disagree about that, mate. But after I saw Charles Zimmerman test-fly his V-173 prototype, I knew that we could certainly find an application for the technology, especially with the number of smaller aircraft carriers that many navies have been acquiring. He licensed the technology from the V-173 and applied it to a significantly larger aircraft. But instead of using a piston engine, we are using one of our dual turboshaft powerplants to drive the aerial vehicle. We also actively solicited Mister Zimmerman’s aid in the further development of this aircraft.

  I believe that this aircraft here will make an excellent strike aircraft. It has an extraordinarily wide speed range from around fifty knots to over five hundred knots. She can practically hover in place with just a little headwind due to her articulated rotors too. It would be a premier ground support aircraft that can easily operate from an aircraft carrier or from an austere airfield near the front lines.” James continued.

  “If you ever schedule a test flight for it, I would definitely like to see it.” Julian said before asking a question.

  “What about the Cavalier’s? They are the aircraft that really put Cavill Aviation on the map. Are you still going to continue to produce them?”

  “Yes, in a manner of speaking. We are ending the production of the conventional passenger versions. But we are continuing production of a limited number of the cargo transport version. These aircraft will be updated in a variety of ways. The most important changes will be an increase in the fuselage length, wing span and the replacement of the original Cavalier’s radial engines with our new turboprop motors.

  These changes will give the new Cavalier’s a significant improvement in the amount of payload, both in terms of mass and volume. We believe that there is a considerable demand for such an aircraft in both the civilian and military markets.”

  “That is very impressive. But why aren’t you going to continue building Cavaliers to fly passengers?” Julian asked.

  “That’s pretty simple. The Americans, British, French and even the Germans are all building long-range jet airliners for the commercial passenger transport market. They are literally building hundreds of jet airliners. While we probably could build a better design, we simply do not have the facilities or manpower to compete with the others in the international market. It would also require a significant investment to design and build a jet airliner.

  So we are not going to even try to compete with the others at all. Besides, we will make more money developing aircraft for niche markets such as for cargo or military use anyway. We can do it economically by leveraging the aircraft designs that we already have and modifying them to perform other missions or to incorporate newer technologies.”

  “Fair Dinkum. I am looking forward to seeing whatever it is that your company puts into production.”

  “”Me too. Well, I have to get going now. We have to leave now. I hope that you enjoyed the little peek into what we have been working on.”

  “Thank you, mate.” Julian replied as he and James walked out of the hangar.

  Shortly after bidding Julian goodbye, James went back to the main office where Judith was waiting on him.

  “Did you have a good time showing your friend some of our lesser known prototypes, James?” she asked.

  “Yes, Julian was fascinated with the more unusual designs that we had inside of the hangar.” James explained.

  “It is a shame that most of them are probably never going to go into production though.”

  “Not even the ‘Platypus’?”

  “I’m afraid not. We just finished making a deal with the Royal Navy and the Royal Australian Navy. Both Navies are going to adopt the new Fairey Gannet AEW.7 airborne early warning radar aircraft for carrier use. At the same time, the Royal Navy is going to follow the RAN in adopting the new Dragonfly III fighter-bomber for use. We believe that it is going to be a fair trade since the AEW.7 is a fairly expensive aircraft as a result of the electronics inside of it. With the adoption of it by the RAN, the cost of producing each aircraft will be reduced due to the larger production run. The same thing goes for the Dragonfly III’s that the Royal Navy will be co-producing for their use.” Judith announced.

  “So we are not going to produce the CART-1 after all? That is a shame. That aircraft was so ugly that it was cute.” James asked.

  Judith chuckled for a moment at James’ description of the aircraft before responding.

  “We are going to utilize the three existing prototypes of the CART-1 as flying testbeds instead. Their large nose-mounted radomes will serve us well for testing future equipment in the future.”

  “At least we will be able to put the airframes to some good use.” James grimaced.

  “As a consolation, our electronics division is going to work with Fairey and the Royal Navy on the radar system being installed into the AEW.7’s radome however. We believe that we can make the radar system even more effective and possibly also reduce the radome’s size so that it won’t impact the aerodynamics of the aircraft quite so much.”

  “Is it true that the two navies are also going to purchase some more of those peculiar tilting-wing aircraft of ours also?”

  Judith quickly smiled before answering.

  “Yes, it is true. In fact, our tilt-wing transports are going to be purchased in fairly substantial numbers as a result of our latest co-production agreement with Miles Aviation. But these vertical takeoff and landing aircraft won’t merely be produced for the Royal Navy and our own naval forces. We will also be building versions for Canada, the RAF and New Zealand’s military. Our Hummingbirds will be an aerial transport for our two primary military customers’ amphibious forces along with our CH-3A helicopters. The Hummingbirds will also be providing aerial resupply and long-range anti-submarine patrol for our current and new customers. The aircraft from the first small production runs certainly proved their value during the recent incident in Hong Kong, of course.”

  “That finally explains why you were so insistent on putting small flight decks on so many of our larger auxiliary vessels. I didn’t think that they were just to carry helicopters on.”

  “Naturally. The Hummingbird has far greater speed and range than even our big tandem rotor helicopters. This capability greatly magnifies the ability of our naval units for force projection, even without a fleet aircraft carrier in attendance. Of course, all of these military applications does not even consider the commercial potential for the platform. That is potentially even more substantial in the long run.”

  Chapter Fifty:

  Cavill Aerospace Hangar Number Nine

  Derby Airfield

  Derby, Western Australia

  September 17, 1958

  The latest jet fighter-bomber to come out of the Cavill Aerospace manufacturing building looked like it was at least a generation ahead of anything else flying, as James, Sarah and Beatrice Cavill looked over the latest arrival to the hangar where all of the prototype aircraft were stored.

  “She looks a mite like the earlier Dragonflies, but you can tell that she is a bloody speedster even while she is sitting still on the ground, Beatrice.” Sarah said as she looked up at the jet.

  “She should, Sarah. We borrowed as much as we could from the computer data base concerning advanced jet fighters without totally throwing the timeline completely out the window. The fact that the Dragonfly used a tandem-wing configuration made it a lot easier to modify this aircraft to employ a canard foreplane instead. That way, we can simply claim that it is just an outgrowth of our earlier aircrafts’ aerodynamic technology.”

  The fact was that the Dragonfly I
II would have looked right at home on an early 21st Century airbase was something that no one but James, Beatrice and the rest of Harold’s children would have known. It had twin jet engines mounted in the rear fuselage and feeding from a pair of side air inlets mounted on either side of the warplane’s cockpit. A shoulder-mounted canard jutted out from the upper edges of the inlets while a low-mounted delta wing extended aft of the canard. The fuselage was slightly wasp-waisted at the point where the delta wing merged into it.

  A major difference from the earlier Dragonfly designs was that the vertical stabilizers no longer were mounted on the tips of the main wings. Instead, a sharply angled ‘V’ or butterfly tail was mounted on the rear fuselage. This gave the aircraft significantly increased maneuverability when working in coordination with the all-flying canard and the main wing’s control surfaces.

  A less obvious design feature for the Dragonfly III was its use of the latest Cavill Propulsion Systems jet engines. These engines incorporated an additional fan stage that allowed a small amount of air to bypass the main combustor section, significantly increasing fuel economy, though not as much as the high-bypass engines that were under development for use with large transport aircraft. The new engines also incorporated one additional element that the latest British and German jet engines were now introducing. The Dragonfly III’s engines could inject additional fuel into the exhaust to be ignited for brief bursts of additional thrust at the cost of significantly higher fuel consumption. These devices were being called afterburners or augmentors.

  With the use of afterburners, the test pilots flying the Dragonfly III had already demonstrated that it could easily exceed the speed of sound in level flight. The Cavills had all forcefully made their point to the test pilots of the latest Dragonfly that they were not to attempt to see just how fast the aircraft was. The Cavills did not want outsiders to be looking too closely at the design’s capabilities just yet.

 

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