A Disruptive Invention

by Peter Shackle

  Chapter 38

  During the following months Fred Beller got a good team work relationship going with Reginald Tellman and his group. They used workshops both inside the Arsenal and outside to procure the components for Delia. For the engine an auxiliary power unit (APU) of the kind used on aircraft was chosen because it was readily available. Its exhaust was ducted out on all four sides of the vehicle, and sideways thrust was produced by throttling off the ducts as needed. For maximum forward thrust, just the rear facing jet was left open. After three months the airframe structure of two Delia prototypes was starting to be put together in the hangar. One innovation was to replace the heavy copper wire previously used for the coils with anodized aluminum Litz wire. This was shipped in from China.

  The Electrolev staff were slowly adjusting to life in Alabama. For those of them who had only lived in Southern California before, the environment in which the overnight temperatures were below freezing was startling. Also they found the bare deciduous forests which surrounded the Arsenal in winter to be depressing after the environment of evergreen palms, ficus trees and jacarandas which lined the streets in Long Beach.

  It was on a Sunday morning towards the end of March that John appeared at the door of Judy’s apartment with a bunch of flowers. He rang the door bell at 10 a.m., and when Judy appeared he announced: “I remembered that today was your birthday, and so I’ve brought you some flowers!”

  Judy was wearing a robe and fairly clearly had just got out of bed to answer the door. “That’s so kind of you”, she answered. “I didn’t know that anybody here knew my birthday.”

  “I was wondering if you would like to come out for dinner with me this evening to celebrate? I have found a terrific Chinese buffet which is nearly up to Long Beach standards,” continued John.

  “OK, it’s a deal.” rejoined Judy. “I’ve had to cook my own Chinese food the whole time that we have been in Huntsville and it will be a pleasure to have some one else cooking! I’ll see you at say, 6 p.m.?”

  That evening as they drove away from the Arsenal, their spirits were lifted as the setting sun illuminated the blossoming redbud trees which were dotting the landscape. Here and there forsythia bushes provided a brilliant splash of yellow color which made a vivid contrast. Even though they missed the ficus lined boulevards around Long Beach, they could not help admiring these dramatic colors which were the early signs of Alabama spring. Judy was wearing the tan pants suit which she originally bought eighteen months before for visiting venture capitalists. It was sturdy enough for a cool Huntsville spring evening. John was wearing a blue blazer and charcoal grey slacks, which for him was amazingly dressed up. Judy was feeling probably the most positive she had been since the loss of Tony six months before. However John was stressed out by his responsibilities as President of Electrolev and the strain of managing the Delia technology. His own specialty was power electronics, and he constantly had to make far reaching decisions about aeronautics matters for which he had no training at all. True, any expertise that he needed was available at the snap of a finger, but the strain was telling upon him.

  Over dinner they chatted about their work in the Electrolev hangar, which had almost become their whole world.

  Judy shared her experiences: “Would you believe that those Huntsville programmers started making control loops simply allowing the speed of the processor to determine when the next calculation was done? I had to practically hit them over the head with a 2X4 to insist that they set up a real time clock with interrupts so that updates happened when they were really needed!”

  John also had experiences to share: “Would you believe that the Russian power electronics manager was determined to make the systems so that you could shoot a bullet through them in any direction, and the thing would keep running. – I had to insist that since we were building double redundancy that this was not necessary!”

  “Well, if I was flying Delia I would not mind that it could be shot through and keep going,” rejoined Judy.

  “Yes, but that concept would have doubled the weight! – that auxiliary power turbine is already the heaviest thing on board, and the flush toilet is the next heaviest single line item in there! We just could not afford to double up the weight of the power electronics when there was already a redundant design,” continued John.

  Both of them were feeling the weight of the responsibility of steering a billion dollar operation. The truth was that basically everything was progressing beautifully by normal development standards. Problems were being fixed as fast as they were recognized, and the Electrolev core staff was a good six months ahead of the rest of the team in their thinking, which gave them a god-like status. In Huntsville the term “Rocket scientist” was hallowed. You never used the word lightheartedly in say, a theater or a restaurant, because there were sure to be ten of them within earshot. In the same way, amongst those who knew, the term “Electrolev engineer” had come to have equally as much cachet.

  As the meal progressed, with multiple trips back to the food tables, even Judy had to admit that the cuisine at the New China Buffet was genuinely Chinese and right up there with Long Beach in its authenticity.

  After the meal John started driving them back towards the Arsenal or “The Base” as many people locally called it. Judy was feeling warm and satisfied from an infusion of genuine Chinese food, and she said: “Why don’t we stop off at Publix and get a bottle of chardonnay, and you can come back to my place so that we can reminisce about old times?”

  John obligingly made a small detour and stopped off at Publix. He swiftly slipped into the supermarket only to return all grumpy a few minutes later. “It’s not legal to buy chardonnay in Alabama on a Sunday!” he reported.

  “Well let’s just have coffee at my place,” said Judy. “We can still spend a little while reminiscing and maybe catch up on the people we used to know at Lighting Enterprises.”

  Since everybody from Long Beach was housed in one big office block converted into apartments beside the Sparkman Center, the route to Judy’s apartment was also the way to John’s place. It was somewhat like being in a college dorm, which was a joke that got stale after the first month.

  “Come on in and make yourself at home,” said Judy. “I wanted to look modern and fashionable but these heels are killing me! Give me five minutes while I get changed into something more comfortable.”

  John sat there gazing blankly around. Even though the Electrolev gang had been there for three months now, he had never been in Judy’s place before. Judy had been distinctly prickly and hard to get through to the whole time. He had been imagining that Judy had been really close to her software managers Cynthia and Irena all this time, but now he was not so sure. Maybe I’ll get lucky tonight he mused as he sat there. He gazed around at the walls. They were not blank, as in his apartment; instead they were covered in picture after picture of Tony. There was Tony teaching physics classes, Tony at his desk in the old Electrolev building, Tony on the beach, Tony as a teenager, Tony punting in Cambridge. John had always respected Tony but never regarded him as a hunting partner. Where women were concerned Tony was too handsome while John was too nerdy. If John had been more advanced in his thinking he might have treasured Tony as a decoy, but instead he just saw him as competition. Worst still, recently disapeared competition about whom one can speak no ill.

  Judy came back into the room carrying a huge photo album. She had put on loose fitting blue jeans and an oversized sloppy sweater which was really quite appropriate for the chilly Huntsville spring evening. “I’ll go and put the kettle on for coffee,” she remarked. “How do you like your coffee – milk, sugar?”

  “Just a little creamer and no sugar,” replied John.

  Judy sat down on the sofa beside John, which caused his pulses to quicken several percent right away. It was longer than he cared to think about since he had been that close to a girl, let alone Judy who he had admired from a distance for a good two years now.

  Judy chattered on: “
Look, I’ve got a class photo taken at Cal State Long Beach. See – there is me and over here is you! Then here is a snap taken in the R&D lab at Lighting Enterprises – there are you over there and here is me. Do you remember old Miller?”

  “He was something I would always have rather forgotten,” responded John. “As far as I was concerned it was obvious that we should have been developing light emitting diode drives, but instead he was determined to make the world’s most perfect electronic ballast for fluorescent lamps. I used to say: “Fluorescent lamps are passé, we should be doing LEDs!” and he would just reply that they were way too expensive and would never become real lighting.”

  “I had problems with him too,” confided Judy. “It seemed that he had a daughter my exact age, and he seemed to think that this gave him a license to put his hands all over my shoulders. I couldn’t stand it.” Just then the kettle boiled. Hoping to change the thread of the conversation, John said: “I’ll do it!” and he went off and mixed up the coffee.

  When he came back bearing the two cups of coffee, he studiously sat down just close enough to Judy so that there was slight contact between their bodies for a moment. Judy leaned forward to sip her coffee, and as she sat up again she unconsciously shifted a few inches to one side, making a meaningful gap between them.

  Judy launched into her photo album again. “Here is a picture of Tony and I down on the beach a year ago,” she said. “Isn’t the sunset beautiful? We propped up the camera on Tony’s tripod and let the camera do it on automatic. Then here is a picture of us at the Los Angeles National Forest. Doesn’t he look handsome? Tony and I were so happy together. I had never loved anybody in that way before. You can never believe the void that it has left in my life when he was killed.”

  “I really thought he was a great physicist,” opined John. “Apparently just before he was shot he was working on an extension of relativistic electrodynamics that would have made the fifth force clear and obvious. Ian and Jim have copied down everything that was on his white board at the moment he was shot and taken, and even though it looks right to them they simply cannot work out where it goes next. It is like having a key to a door but not being able to find the lock to put the key in.”

  “He was so kind, so gentle,” said Judy. “Look, here is a picture of him with Steve’s little puppy last October. Animals would just relate to him so naturally.”

  “He had such a magnificent insight, too,” said John, not knowing where the conversation was leading and starting to wish for an exit strategy.

  “He knew about so many things!” said Judy, warming to her theme. “You could talk about art, music, whatever you liked, and Tony would always have something insightful to say.”

  John glanced hopefully at his watch. “You know, I’ve got an eight o’clock meeting with Steve Harmann and Tim Hetherington in the morning. Tim is already in town actually, and Steve is taking him to dinner this evening. But I have got to be there bright and early in the morning, so I really had better be getting off to my place.”

  “I’m sorry,” replied Judy. “I had so much more to go over. You and I have been through so much together. Perhaps we can carry on another night.”

  “Of course, I would love to,” said John. And with that he rose, and remembering that she was his V.P. of Engineering he respectfully shook her hand, and let himself out to walk through the building to his apartment.

  Once he had left, Judy put on her pajamas and slipped into bed still holding the photo album, which she surveyed as she slipped off to sleep.

  Back in his apartment, John too changed into his pajamas, set the alarm for the morning, and got into bed. He delved into his bedside table to find a copy of Popular Science which he mused over as he settled down to sleep.

  Chapter 39

  As the year wore on, Delia 1 and Delia 2 gradually started to take shape in the Electrolev hangar. By the time that June came around, the Alabama summer heat and humidity was starting to show their real strength. Fortunately the hangar had an enormous air conditioning system, and so by late morning most days the hangar doors were kept closed.

  One day in early June Tim Hetherington came to Huntsville to see the progress of the JCB investment. John and Steve were showing him around. With the billion dollar air force contract on the books, the accounts were of quite minor interest, and the main topic of conversation were the Delia prototypes taking shape in the hangar where they were standing.

  “What you are looking at is the outer skin, which keeps the pressurized air on the inside,” explained John. “At the very beginning we already put in the big tanks for water, jet fuel, hydrazine and large items like the auxiliary power unit and the crew toilet.”

  “Those wheels look pretty spindly,” remarked Tim.

  “Well, that’s because this vehicle does not have to land at hundreds of miles an hour like an aircraft,” explained John. “It comes straight down gently like a falling leaf, and the undercarriage only has to take quite minor straight line forces. All the same you would never believe how much discussion there was about what principle to use. You can see what we finally settled on – the two back wheels are non directional, while the front wheel is just a caster which lets you push the vehicle wherever you want to. It really only gets used when the ground crew are pushing it around. It was Fred who finally made the casting vote to have it that way. Come up on this scaffolding and I can point out the main features to you.”

  When they had climbed twenty feet up on a scaffold adjacent to the Delias, Tim said: “I can see a whole lot of structure on the top side – what on earth is it all?”

  “Any unused space on the top side is covered in solar cells to generate electricity,” answered John. “That explains the fine structure which you are seeing. In the center is the air intake for the auxiliary power unit, and a little in front of that you can see the four square windows for the crew to see out of. There are windshield wipers on the middle two since Delia is going to encounter weather just like any other flying vehicle. The whole thing is about 25 feet in diameter. Just behind the windows you can see all the radio antennas. That stubby little fin at the back is a great help for maneuvering in the atmosphere.”

  “How does the crew get into it?” asked Tim.

  “Even I know the answer to that –it’s underneath!” exclaimed Steve.

  “Let’s go back down to the floor,” suggested John.

  Once they were down there, John continued: “You can get in through this little ladder here underneath the cabin.”

  “Why are there so many lights all over the underside?” asked Tim in bewilderment.

  “They are to get rid of energy in the form of light and heat when it comes down a long way fast,” explained John. “Think about how the thermal tiles on the space shuttle get red hot when it comes down. Well, Delia has an analogous problem except that the energy appears in the battery pack inside as the energy from coming down is converted into electric charge. We get rid of it by burning all those lights and radiating the energy away.”

  “Can I see inside?” asked Tim.

  “Sure”, replied John. But they are a bit empty right now – we are still building the inside. The group gingerly climbed the aluminum ladder into the cabin.

  “Here you can see the seats for the pilot and co-pilot,” continued John. “There are two passenger seats behind. In the center is the APU, mounted vertically, and at the back you can already see the toilet and the galley. In this lowered region of ceiling around the APU there is a huge parachute for the whole vehicle in case of a total failure of the power system. You can see storage lockers all around the periphery near the edge – for example, there is going to be an emergency kit with screwdrivers and power tools so that the crew is not helpless in case of emergency.”

  “Where do you put the ladder when you take off?” asked Tim.

  “It goes in those clips on the ceiling,” responded John. “In case the craft has to be ditched in water, there is another hatch on top, and the same
ladder will allow the crew to get up to that top hatch to get out.”

  “This is really thrilling!” exclaimed Tim.

  “You are not the only one who thinks so,” said Steve. “You may have noticed all the passes we had to show to get in here. So many people who work on the project all want to make a tour like we are doing that they have had to seal off the area and post armed guards around it.”

  “One last thing,” said John. “Underneath these floor panels is all the electronics that makes it work.” He lifted up a floor panel and revealed a seemingly endless expanse of electronic circuits under their feet.

  As they climbed down the ladder onto the hangar floor, Tim had another question. “What are these four big lumps on the underside?”

  “Those are the stabilization anti-coils,” explained John. “Remember that the main lift is coming from that great big coil all around the outside. But that is inherently unstable, and the whole thing can only remain level because of continuous nudges which it gets from these four smaller coils underneath, orchestrated by the main computer.”

  Tim went away satisfied. Very few of the JCB investments were able to show such dramatic progress.

  During the spring Terry Mettle once caused a sensation on base when he took Charlotte out for a flight around the Arsenal. Since the grounds encompassed 38,000 acres this could have potentially been quite a lengthy journey. He had hoped that by keeping under 100 feet he would have not been noticed, however a number of base security personnel reported this strange flying object hovering over the Arsenal. They were smart enough to guess immediately that this was some hush hush new flying vehicle, and so there was no panic.

  Sergeant Coldman of the Redstone security force had a strange interview with his commanding officer, Colonel Smith. “Concerning this report which you submitted today describing a flying vehicle hovering over the base: first of all this was excellent reporting, and you will receive a commendation for vigilance in the course of duty. Secondly, you will now believe that you never saw anything today. I think that you have been in the security forces around secret advanced development activities for long enough in your career that you will understand this situation!” Smith paused, awaiting a response.