Untimely Excursions

by Hall, Gerald

  “I understand completely. Our father faced exactly the same dilemma during most of the time after he traveled from the future. I remember talking with him about it also. In fact, the percentage of military versus civilian production while Father was alive was even higher than it is for us right now.

  For example, we are still dominating the mining industry here in Australia, plus we have several very profitable mining subsidiaries located around the globe. Our atomic power reactors are giving us a tremendous percentage of Australia’s overall power generation. That will only increase both domestically and as licensed production of our reactor designs begins internationally. This growth has improved the standard of living in our nation and has boosted the development of numerous other businesses, creating job for many thousands of Australians.

  Our leadership in both our domestic and international communications programs is as competitive as any country’s including that of the United States and their Bell network. But we have advantages that the other nations will not be able to reach for possibly as much as a decade. We have poured more than three billion dollars into both the fission power and telecommunications programs and have been rewarded with even more billions in profits.

  Then, there is our space rocket program. We are truly dominant in this field in spite of several nations, including America, pouring significant resources into trying to catch us. We don’t build large numbers of rockets to satisfy our requirements. In fact, our Sea Dragon rocket is largely reusable, which not only saves us a lot of money, but also means that we can launch it after refurbishment much more quickly than building a completely new rocket after each launch. Our orbiting telecommunications and imaging satellites have given us tremendous advantages over everyone else. Numerous other countries and businesses utilize our services as a result.

  Still, the reality is that our military weapons research, development and production programs are now only a tiny percentage of Cavill Industries’ overall business now. While a majority of Cavill Aerospace’s aircraft division’s activity is still military-oriented, the aerial transport and rotary-wing departments produce multiple aircraft designs that are sold for both commercial and military applications. But our indigenous aircraft sales are pretty much limited by our own production capacity now.

  We simply do not have the facilities here in Western Australia to build large numbers of aircraft or any other major end items except perhaps small arms. We can license production of those items, but only to nations that we feel comfortable possessing the technology. But our civilian market is our most important one now, whether we like it or not.” Judith said.

  “That’s true, big sister. But we don’t just manufacture our products here in the Derby area alone any longer. We have subsidiaries all over Australia. We also own substantial stakes in factories and shipyards in nearly a dozen different countries. Diversification of our assets has provided us with more security and helped with marketing of our products overseas.

  The headquarters for our telecommunications division was also deliberately located just north of London so that we could prevent the Australian Telecommunications from nationalizing our assets. We did not want a repeat of what the Australian government had done to the earlier domestic telephone network that our father had built.

  We own controlling interests in several British shipyards, electronics firms and even a couple of aviation companies like Miles Aircraft. This move has given us an edge in securing several important military contracts with the United Kingdom.

  Cavill Industries North American headquarters is located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. While we needed an American subsidiary to manage and market our telecommunications services in North America, we did not wish to locate in the usual places like Los Angeles, New York and Washington DC. This gives us more freedom from close scrutiny from American government officials and provides us with a central location to work from.

  We have also invested in Italy, France, central Africa, South America, India and French Indochina to gain access to potential customers and valuable resources that we do not have available here in Australia.” James explained at length.

  “Have we heard anything more about our facilities in China? We had invested significant capital there during the war to establish small arms and munitions factories there to arm the Chinese army against the Japanese.” Sarah asked.

  “No. I’m afraid not. I imagine that they are now producing weapons for the various combatants of their civil war. I have also heard that some weapons being used by the Marxist insurgents in French Indochina have been traced back to our old Chinese factories though.” Judith grimly responded.

  “That is unfortunate. Father had hoped that with the demise of the Bolsheviks in Russia and Mao in China, Marxism would have finally heard its death knell. But these monsters seem to keep crawling out of the woodwork, preaching to the disaffected and disenfranchised the deceitful sermons of hatred, envy and lust for power. They promise that everyone will finally be equal, never speaking of how some will still be much ‘more equal’ than all the rest. The Marxists also never explain that the masses will end up all being equally miserable, without even having a real voice in opposition afterwards.” Beatrice noted.

  “That is something that we don’t seem to be able to anything about. We certainly pay our employees more than enough to comfortably live. Even our aborigines have representation in the government now largely because of our father’s efforts. But there is always the lure of tempting people with the desire to seize something that someone else possesses, regardless of how the latter had come to possess it.” Judith replied with a sigh of frustration.

  “Righto. We just have to do the best that we can to take care everyone that we can and to oppose those who would oppress or destroy their fellow bloke. That’s what our father fought for ever since he escaped from a future when mankind had failed to save itself.

  But, getting on to another subject, do you remember about the new jet fighter-bomber based on the Kestrel design that our advanced jet projects division had been working on?” Beatrice asked her older sister.

  “Yes, I do. I just haven’t been keeping up with it very much because of all of the time that I have been devoting to our space program.”

  “Well, big sister. We have run into a snag in the program.”

  “What happened?”

  “We started to present the concept to several potential customers. We had even shown them a full scale prototype of the aircraft. But none of them were interested including the English.”

  “Why not? That aircraft would have given a lot of nations the chance to have a new fighter that could operate from virtually anywhere.”

  “I know. But there were a few problems. First, the adaptation of the Kestrel turned out to not be quite as fast as we thought. It seems that the potential customers are all much more enthralled with the idea of having supersonic fighters than in having short-legged subsonic jets that can take off and land vertically.”

  “So our Kestrel clone project is dead now?” James asked.

  “Yes, and no. Sara and I went to our data center and asked IDA to do a search of supersonic variants of the aircraft based on the original Kestrel. We found a couple of different promising ideas including an incredible aircraft with twin tail booms called the P-1216. But in order to build this aircraft, we would need to push engine and materials technology at least twenty years ahead of what it is now.” Beatrice explained.

  “That is just too advanced for this timeframe.” A concerned Judith responded.

  “That’s what we thought as well. So we went back to the data center and made another data search request. This time, we asked for other concepts that also had the desired capabilities, even ones that did not make it past the drawing board. IDA didn’t find a particular aircraft that would fit our criteria. But she did find something else that was very interesting that we could apply to the airframe that our engineers had designed.

  The concept involved a turboje
t engine that had additional fan and turbine stage. An extra turbine stage was connected via a long driveshaft to an extra drive fan that was coaxial to the main engine but significantly closer to the front of the aircraft. During vertical flight and lower speed operations, the flow from that fan would be diverted by a large valve into a pair of vectoring exhaust nozzles just behind the main air inlets. The engine core would receive air from an auxiliary air inlet on top of the fuselage during those operations. The engine concept was referred to as a tandem fan.

  In high speed flight, the diverter valve would be opened up allowing most of the fan flow to go through the engine core much like an additional compressor stage. The hot flow from the engine core would be directed downward by a vectoring nozzle to give the aircraft a three poster flow for vertical flight. An afterburner could easily be installed between the engine core and its vectoring nozzle to permit flights significantly over the speed of sound.”

  “Can it be done within the current state of the art for jet engine design?” Judith quickly asked.

  “Yes, we certainly think so. We can utilize a modified version of an existing engine core to base this design on. An additional benefit to the arrangement is that the engine acts as a relatively efficient turbofan engine at lower speeds, while retaining supersonic capability at the same time. We will still be able to utilize many components from the Dragonfly-III, enhancing our economy of scale efficiencies for manufacturing purposes and lowering the overall cost of the aircraft.

  It won’t be quite as fast or advanced as the P-1216, but it will still be far superior to anything that we could do with the Kestrel within our technology restraints.”

  “Then I want you to go ahead and process with development of this aircraft. Please keep me posted on the progress that you make with it. But please keep the Kestrel work just in case this tandem fan idea of yours doesn’t work out.”

  “I certainly will, Judith. But from what I have seen from the data, this ‘tandem fan’ concept is real beauty. I was so impressed that I authorized our jet turbine division to work on it. As a result, our engine division has already built and tested a prototype tandem fan engine. It was a relatively basic design. But, all of our tests with it have been very promising though.” Beatrice said with a huge smile of satisfaction.

  “Excellent. Please go ahead and accelerate development and testing of this engine and a modified Dragonfly III airframe to employ it. Our Kestel-based design was very closely based on the original Hawker design with the four-poster vectoring nozzle configuration, wasn’t it?” Judith asked.

  “Yes. We wanted to minimize risk with that design since we knew from historical records that it worked.”

  “I would like to continue a fallback design that uses a three poster lift configuration like the P-1216, but without the plenum-chamber burning on the front nozzles. It might also be a little less expensive while being possibly also transonic. It should continue being the more public design until we prove that the tandem fan design is completely viable.”

  “That will cost us extra funding to continue two separate R&D programs.” Beatrice warned.

  “I know. But we need to continue to build designs that will fit unique niches rather than trying to complete head to head with the big aircraft manufacturers like Boeing, Douglas, Messerschmitt and Avro on more mainline aircraft contracts.”

  “We will need to find a partner to produce whatever design that we are able to settle on.” Sarah interjected.

  “Miles Aviation can help us with some production, especially if the British military decides to purchase any of our aircraft. If we need to build more than what we and Miles can handle, then we will have to find other partners too, preferably here in Australia, if we can.” Judith insisted.

  “I guess that we will cross that bridge when we get to it. Hopefully, we are that successful though with this vertical takeoff and landing fighter. It would truly be embarrassing for us to have someone else like the Germans to develop and deploy an aircraft like this. ” James noted with his usual optimism.

  “Don’t worry, James. We will not let the Germans get ahead of us on this. There are far too many navies who own small aircraft carriers like in South America and India who need a modern fighter-bomber that they can operate from even those small flight decks. Those warships were originally designed to operate only propeller-driven aircraft. If we don’t build a new fighter using this technology, these navies will be relegated to operating only rotary-wing aircraft before very long.”

  “Of course, you are right. But on another subject, you know that there was that one area that Father’s computer database has absolutely no information at all about.” Beatrice noted.

  “What was that?” Sarah asked.

  “The answer is very simple. Father left out any information about the time portal that brought him back in time from the year 2040 and any of the technologies that enabled the portal to be created.”

  “Why did he do that?” Beatrice asked?

  “Father told me just before he died that he deliberately omitted that information because he didn’t want anyone else to be able to travel back in time for any reason. The technology was simply just too dangerous for anyone to have.

  That is also why we haven’t seen any sign of other time travelers from Father’s timeline. Father told me that he set up a computer program that not only wiped out all of the computer code necessary to open the portal, but he also designed that program to sabotage the hardware itself. While he had told his people not to use the time portal after he left, he just couldn’t afford to take the chance that his instructions would be ignored.

  Father almost didn’t go anyway. He was terrified that he might just make things worse. But as he heard the messages of the people who were dying throughout the world, voices that were rapidly going silent all too quickly, he finally made the decision to try to go back in time and change the course of history somehow.”

  “What about us?” Sarah asked.

  “Father told me that we were the pride of his life. He loved and trusted us very much. That is why he did not go ahead and destroy the computer database at the end of the Pacific war. He had avoided the development of nuclear weapons, or so he had hoped that he done so for a long enough period to allow for mankind to become a spacefaring species.

  But he also realized that he was far too old to be around to ensure that mankind could create outposts beyond Earth to ensure its survival. So he took a chance on us. So far, I think that he would have been very proud of what we have accomplished. But we still have a long way to go. If we make a mistake, we can’t travel back in time to attempt a ‘do-over’ either. So it is very important that we are careful about what we are doing with our treasure trove of technology from the future.

  We will have to also be able to react properly to whatever this world throws at us. I pray to God every night for guidance as to what to do the next day. I hope that the rest of you are doing the same.

  I am also documenting everything that we and our father have done in our attempts to change history and the effects that we are aware of to date. Someday, our children and grandchildren will need to know these things if they are going to continue our work. They will certainly need all of the help and guidance that they can get in this endeavor, especially if we are truly going to be able to save humanity for generations beyond the year 2040.”

  “That sounds like it is going to be quite a project, Judith.”

  “That is why I have enlisted IDA’s help in compiling and understanding the data. She’s got a lot of tasks already, but as we continue to upgrade our data processing center, IDA will gain additional capacity in addition to ensuring that we have sufficient redundancy for Father’s original computer data base.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four:

  Junkers Aircraft and Motorworks

  Dessau, Germany

  November 22, 1958

  “I just learned from our foreign intelligence sources that the vertical takeoff and landing jet th
at we at Junkers have designed already has a competitor being built.” Johann Michel grumbled as he walked into the office of his engineering manager at Junkers, Wilhelm Rupp.

  “I have a feeling that I already know who is building it. It has to be those irritating Australians, isn’t it, Herr Michel?” Wilhelm asked.

  “Jawohr, Herr Rupp. It is Cavill Industries once again. We have a couple of sources among the German emigres that moved to Australia to work for the Cavills.”

  “What do we know about this new aircraft of theirs?”

  “They actually have designed two different vertical takeoff jet aircraft. The first one uses a large turbofan engine with vectoring nozzles. There have been conflicting reports about the details of the thrust vectoring system. At least one prototype of this aircraft has already been built and tested. The other aircraft uses a completely different engine that we have few details on. But the rumors are that the aircraft and engine are far more advanced though.”

  “If we are going to be able to sell any of our own vertical takeoff jets, we will need to act quickly to get our prototypes flying so that we can demonstrate them to potential clients before the Australians can get their designs ready for market.”

  “That will require taking more risks during the design and testing process.” Johann replied with a note of concern.

  “If that is required to press on ahead of the Australians, the Amerikaners, the Englanders or anyone else, then we must do it. Fortunately, our Junkers Jumo jet engines still power most German jets in spite of the competition from BMW’s jet production line.”

  “The Bavarians have still been working very hard to improve their jet engine designs. You heard about the contract that they recently signed to provide engines for the new Dassault jet fighter-bomber design.”

  “Ja. I suppose that the French are continuing to have problems with their turbojet designs. I have to admit that BMW has continued to produce a very good engine, so much so as to compete with some of our latest Jumo designs. But our turboshaft and bypass-fan jet designs continue to be superior. The Americans are building some excellent turbojets also. But no one apparently is able to truly compete with the engines being produced by the damned engineers at Cavill Propulsion Systems.”