A Disruptive Invention

by Peter Shackle

  Terry Mettle was positively glowing during the presentation and it seemed as if he was walking at least an inch taller than normal.

  The tests proceeded amazingly smoothly, since it turned out that the flights around the hangar had been truly effective in their debugging. It was towards the end of the morning on that first day that Terry was taking Delia 1 around and around the Homey airport, simultaneously testing out forward speed and cornering. Two veteran controllers in the control tower, known as KXTA, were watching with unbridled amazement. They were soon joined by a curious crowd of Air Force officers, including Brigadier General James Harper, who nobody had known was going to be there. Delia 1 zoomed around and around the airfield, at a speed of what looked like about 300 miles an hour. The first controller commented: “Working here at KXTA I have seen speed, and I have seen power – but look at that baby go – it has no wings and it’s flying!”

  James commented wryly: “That is the least of what it can do – that vehicle can go up into near space. It can stay there as long as you want like a stationary satellite, and then come back down again! It brings a whole new dimension to the projection of air power which we are still exploring.”

  Leaning over one of the controllers he said: “Could I speak to the pilot for a few seconds please?” The controller obligingly handed James a microphone from his desk and flipped a switch to activate it. “Terry – this is James – I am in the control tower with some Air Force observers – could you bring Delia over here to the tower and just stop outside the window for a few moments please?”

  Terry’s reply must have come over the controller’s headset, since he said: “He’s coming over.”

  Outside Delia slowed down to a walking speed over the airport, and then slowly and cautiously slid across the airfield towards the control tower. Finally it stopped right opposite the observation window.

  “Maybe you can demonstrate the parking gear for our visitors?” said James into the microphone.

  Delia became stationary, locked at a fixed point in the air immediately opposite the tower.

  “I can patch him onto a room speaker for you.” said the controller, pressing buttons on his console.

  Terry’s voice came over the room speaker: “If you folks will excuse me I am scheduled to do an altitude test next.”

  Delia then started moving upwards like an express elevator, and after a minute was a tiny spec in the sky above them.

  Right behind Harper, a short man resplendent in gold braid and medals and wearing an Air Force peaked cap, spoke up. It was General Norbert Sorts the General of the United States Air Force. “Harper – this is outstanding work! You have handled this whole situation masterfully – in only sixteen months you have brought this technology from a laboratory curiosity to a vehicle that we can use! Congratulations Major General Harper!” The pair shook hands. “There is just one thing,” remarked Sorts “Wouldn’t a few guns or missiles be helpful?”

  “We are discussing all of that sir!” reassured Harper.

  Back at the test hangar, Terry brought Delia 1 down softly right outside the front of the hangar. Seconds later he jumped out of the bottom hatch. “Anybody know the way to the lunch room?” he asked, happily. The Electrolev team crowded around him, shaking his hand and patting him on the back.

  In the afternoon, Terry and John together took Delia 2 up to 50,000 feet, and then put the vehicle in park. They shut down the APU and the cabin became eerily quiet. Over the radio they spoke with Judy on the ground. “We are parked here now,” said John. “Isn’t this cool?”

  They tried out the surveillance camera and gleefully watched people walking around down below on the airfield.

  Next they started a regenerative descent. This had been tried out before in the Huntsville hangar from a height of 30 feet, but this time it was for real. They watched the diagnostics on the screen, not unlike those on a hybrid vehicle, which showed energy flowing back into the batteries. When they were about 20,000 feet from the ground, the batteries were close to full.

  “Can you see our energy dissipation lights?” said Terry over the radio.

  “Wow you are really bright!” came the reply back from Judy.

  The tests continued for the whole week. On the Saturday morning at around 8.30, Judy’s hotel room phone rang. It was John. “Hey Judy, since we are here in Vegas and there is all kinds of entertainment around, would you like to come out to see a show and have dinner this evening? Maybe we could carry on the reminiscing about old times that we never finished on your birthday? We have been working like slaves here all week and we might as well give ourselves some kind of reward.”

  “Do you have anything in mind?” asked Judy.

  “Well, how about some kind of variety show and then a dinner at an Asian restaurant?” responded John.

  “OK, let’s do it. But I doing a Hoover dam tour with the girls tomorrow so we had better not be too late.”

  “I’ll fix something up and let you know when to meet,” said John.

  Chapter 42

  John had chosen a classic Las Vegas variety show. It was supposed to include comedians, clowns, acrobats, a magician, a singer and of course since it was Las Vegas, some topless girls. John put on a tan suit, but with no tie, and Judy was wearing a neat black sleeveless zip front seamed satin cocktail dress. After spending nearly a year in Huntsville they were scared that they might have become unduly conservative and were anxious to appear modern and sophisticated.

  The show was really entertaining, and did a lot to take their minds off the tension of making a reality out of Delia.

  At the point where the topless girl dancers appeared on stage, John was thoroughly enjoying the spectacle and then looked at Judy and felt uncomfortable because she seemed to be blushing under her yellow Chinese skin. The moment quickly passed and they were soon roaring with laughter at the comedian who followed.

  After the show they took a cab back to the Paris Hotel where John had made a reservation at the Ah Sin Asian style restaurant, out of deference to Judy’s cultural heritage. Over dinner the subject of Delia’s software naturally enough came up. Judy started out with one of her famous: “I am worried about something” themes, which by now could cause John to have a reflexive gagging because so far every one of them had turned out to have a reality. “I am worried about the software revision that Terry has asked for to incorporate tilted cornering,” she started out, causing John to momentarily choke over the chardonnay that he was sipping.

  “Right now we are on generation 6 of the Delia software, and that is such a far reaching change that I am planning to start all over again with new generation 7 software. My hang-up is, that if we want to bank the vehicle over when going round a corner, that we have taken away some of the lift from the main anti-coil and the vehicle will start to sink down. The moment you start tilting it then all hell breaks loose – the very basis of all the calculations and control loops is undermined.”

  At that moment the waiter delivered their Pu-Pu platter, and trying to get the conversation back to more personal matters, John lifted his glass and said: “Here’s to Chinese culture!”

  “To Chinese culture!” rejoined Judy supportively.

  Not wanting to rebuff Judy’s concerns totally, John suggested: “Maybe we could help by modifying the hardware instead – we could mount the vertical inertial sensor on a gyroscope so that it always stayed flat when the vehicle was tilted – that way you would not have to mess with the vertical stabilization loop at all.”

  Judy’s worried face unclouded. “Now you are talking – maybe hardware engineers are quite useful after all!”

  Then she raised her glass and said: “Here is to hardware engineers!”

  The meal proceeded on cheerfully enough, although John’s face dropped for a moment when he saw the bill. “I sure hope that Steve is having a good meal out tonight,” he said. “I have got this deal going in which he signs my expense reports as President and I sign his as the Chief Operating Officer - I
would feel really awkward if it turned out that he was eating at McDonalds tonight.”

  They were feeling distinctly merry and under the influence of the wine when they left the restaurant. John said: “I have got a bottle of wine up in my room – would you like to join me and we can reminisce about old times for a bit?”

  “Sure – I’d love too,” replied Judy. “It feels like it is too early to stop the evening already.”

  Back in John’s room John uncorked the wine, which was actually champagne, and then he proposed a toast to technology.

  “To technology!” said Judy, raising her glass.

  Together they sipped their drinks and stood before the window, contemplating the myriad flashing lights of Las Vegas below them. John was feeling distinctly heady, and his body was pulsing with the excitement of being so close to Judy. Her black cocktail dress clung to her figure emphasizing the curves of her hips and her breast. Judy too was feeling emotional after the glamour of the show and the evening in the romantic restaurant. Finally, with the satisfaction of having seen Delia fly, the memory of Tony had slowly fallen away from her consciousness like the disappearing shadows at the moment of dawn. She undid a tie at the back of her head so that her black Asian hair fell down over her shoulders. She felt as if her life had a new beginning. “Aren’t you going to kiss me?” she said, looking close into John’s face, smiling gently and slightly tilting her head.

  Without putting down his drink, John put his other arm around her waist and they kissed passionately.

  “Let me put some music on,” said John. He walked over to the entertainment system and fiddled for a few moments to find some soft music. He sat down on the edge of the bed with his drink and Judy stood in front of him, grinning mischievously like a teenager. “What did you make of those topless dancers in the show tonight?” she asked, smiling broadly.

  “Well, frankly I have never seen such huge breasts before,” replied John. “It’s incredible how those girls could have so much breast and it would stay protruding out like that without any bra!”

  “I can beat that easily!” said Judy, with a musical lilt to her voice. Saying that she slowly unzipped the front of her cocktail dress, and pulling apart the top she revealed her own ample bosom. She leaned over John, still sitting on the bed. “You can touch me if you like,” she murmured before she planted her lips on his again.

  After that kiss Judy straightened up and with a slight sigh zipped up the front of her dress. “You know, I have just remembered that I am supposed to be going on trip to see the Hoover dam in the morning with Cynthia, Irena and Tanya. I have got to get up in morning! But I have really, really enjoyed this evening with you. Let’s plan on doing it again next time we come to Vegas for test flights!”

  John stood up, looking and feeling distinctly rumpled, not to mention let down. He respected Judy, having worked around her for two years at this point. Suddenly her words came back to him from a moment two years before in the laboratories of Lighting Enterprises, when they were talking about organizing the software to ignite fluorescent tubes: “For the software to Ignite one of these fluorescent lamps is like girl making out with a boy who gets excited too easily – If the lamp ignites before the filaments are ready then the inverter has already given everything it has got to give and there is nothing but frustration! What you must do is slow down the initial advance and then things will keep going!” He felt that he had gained an understanding of her over the years, and he knew now that she was likely to be a part of his life in the future. Apart from her personal attractions, she was his V.P. of engineering at Electrolev and he needed her professional contributions to keep the show running. If they had a falling out it could be the end of Electrolev as they had known it. Together they had sometimes mused on the value of their Electrolev stock options, and the answer was in the hundred million dollar range if ever the company went public. “Of course,” he replied. He walked to the door with her, and they exchanged a lingering kiss before the doorway.

  “I really enjoyed this too,” said John. “I can’t wait for the next time!”

  Chapter 43

  When Monday morning came round, everybody on the Janet commuter jet was comparing notes on their weekend in Las Vegas. Harold had won $420 on a slot machine, and had managed the strength of mind to stop gambling right there. Fred had lost a lot of money gambling and was looking very straight faced; however he would not tell anybody the details. First thing when they arrived they all gathered in the conference room to plan out the week ahead. Their flight back was on Friday evening, and the Dreamlifter was booked for Saturday morning to return the Delias to Huntsville.

  Anthony and Reginald were both anxious to do some serious testing at 100,000 feet, in other words, in near space. “This is the real payoff for LeviStar technology,” said Anthony. “To be able to remain stationary over a place in near space, out of range of aircraft and cheap missiles is the holy grail of surveillance technology. This is the point at which we will have pretty much made the whole satellite industry obsolete. Can you imagine that if we made the vehicle using stealth technology, that you could not only see everything below but also be invisible to ground radar? Nothing in view on the ground would be secret anymore. With continual surveillance, you could wind back a film and see where terrorist bomb makers came from, for example. So I think that we ought to verify Delia’s capability at 100,000 feet – we’ll be making history basically.”

  And so it was that around midday Monday Delia was fuelled up with full tanks of hydrazine for the first time, in addition to the jet fuel for the APU. Terry and Judy were chosen for the mission. They were to wear pressure suits in case of emergency loss of pressurization, but they were not intending to put on the helmets unless some threat was apparent. Instead of rolling out Delia, for the first time Terry lifted her up about a foot and then retracted the undercarriage right there in the hangar. Then he slowly taxied her out onto the tarmac outside. John was monitoring the radio communication channel in the ground control room. Being a dutiful test pilot, Terry got clearance from the control tower and then pulled back on the collective control to send Delia moving vertically upwards. Inside it felt rather like starting out in an elevator, but then once a steady speed was achieved there was no sense of motion. Delia rose at about one mile every two minutes, so it took about half an hour to rise up to the seventy thousand foot level at which the APU could no longer be run. At this point they paused and checked over all the instruments, especially the battery charge. With a fully charged battery, they then carefully powered down the APU. The vehicle became almost silent except for a few ventilation fans for the air conditioning and cooling for the computers. Even though Fred’s sound proofing had been pretty effective, it was actually a relief not to hear the drone of the APU anymore. Of special interest was the amount of energy that they were picking up from the solar cell array on the roof. As planned, it was more than twice the power needed to hold Delia stationary at a fixed altitude, which meant that she could in reality remain there night and day, charging during the day and running off the batteries during the night.

  “Ready?” asked Terry.

  “Go for it,” said Judy. She pressed the microphone button for John down below: “We are going on up to 100,000 feet.” Terry once again pulled back on the collective control causing Delia to start rising again. She had been equipped with a radar altimeter as part of her avionics package, and so Terry and Judy were able to read out the height as she progressed upwards.

  Judy pressed her microphone button: “This is a fantastic view up here. The sky is all black now, and we can see the curvature of the earth. The atmosphere looks like a blue haze over the planet. I wish you could see it. I am going to take pictures.” She had been equipped with a superb camera system for the purpose, and made good use of it as they ascended, in between keeping an eye on the instruments. “By the way, the main anti-coils are running at 55C, which is just what we had planned. We are at 90,000 feet now and we are down to 25% on th
e batteries.”

  After a few moments more the radar altimeter read 100,000 feet and with a sigh of relief Terry put the collective control into park.

  “That’s funny,” remarked Judy. “What’s that spec over there to our right?” Both she and Terry craned over to the right and peered into the blackness of near space. A tiny spec, charcoal grey and only visible because it was outlined against the bright glow of the atmosphere below them, could be seen.

  “Is it a satellite?” said John over the radio. “No way,” answered Terry, “a satellite would be going at 18,000 miles and hour while we are literally stationary. It would be gone by in a blink and in any case would be burning up because there is still a little air up here – the pressure is roughly one hundredth of an atmosphere.”

  “Let’s go and take a look!” said Judy. Talking into the microphone, she said: “We are going to move over a couple of miles to investigate whatever it is we are seeing. My guess it that it is some kind of weather balloon. Can you ask the radar people if they can see it please?”

  “Roger that,” replied John. “Be careful.”

  Terry energized the hydrazine thrusters for the first time in near space. They had been well tested on the ground in Huntsville, but inside the atmosphere they were nowhere near as effective as here in near space. He gingerly operated the collective to start a regenerative descent, swung the vehicle around with the foot pedals, and nudged the cyclic control to start Delia moving in the direction of the spec. Judy put the camera in full telephoto mode and started clicking away every few moments. After no more than a minute they were within about a hundred yards from the “spec”.