by Nevil Shute
A British aeronautical exhibition was held in 1920, and was such a fiasco financially that it was unlikely that another one would be held for several years. Each year, the French taxpayer, by means of the subsidy, paid for a wonderful display of imitative French machines in the Paris Salon; a display made the more impressive by the rigid exclusion of certain foreign machines. Little use for the British to advertise themselves in their own technical papers; little more use for those papers patriotically to issue special catalogues of British progress printed in three languages at the time of the Paris Salon. The machines themselves were the only really cogent argument to support the alleged superiority of British design – and there was not the money to send the machines abroad to be exhibited.
This was the position at the time of the Brussels Exhibition in the autumn of 1921. The affair was said to be the idea of the most noble pilot in the history of aviation, and was to be a great thing for aviation all over the world. It was to be primarily a representative display of the world’s commercial aeroplanes in a great hall in the centre of the city; coupled with this there was to be a race similar in nature to the famous Gordon Bennett Cup, recently won outright by France. This was a speed contest pure and simple, to be held on Brussels aerodrome in the presence of the Royalty of two nations. As prizes in the contest there were a large gold cup, a considerable sum of money, and the probability of certain foreign army contracts.
It seemed as if this exhibition would be well supported by the manufacturers of the world. The statistics were briefly as follows. Seventeen French machines would be present, six German, five Dutch, five Belgian, three Swiss, two Italian, and two British. For the race the entries were not numerous; they consisted of four French, two Dutch, one Belgian and one Italian. There was no British entry.
Indeed, there was no British machine capable of competing in such a race with any chance of success, where speeds of two hundred miles an hour were expected to be realised. It was out of the question to build a suitable machine and send it across; there was no firm which, in its then condition, could regard such a procedure as anything but a rash and unjustifiable speculation. True, it seemed a pity that Britain should not be represented. It simply could not be done.
That was the view of the manufacturers. There were, however, people in England who held a different opinion. There was, in fact, a machine in the country which, if it could not fly at two hundred miles an hour, could show a clean pair of heels to any aeroplane hitherto built in England. This was the Jenkinson Laverock, fitted with one of the earliest editions of that phenomenally light and powerful engine, the Blundell Stoat. The Laverock had been the last effort of the Jenkinson Aviation and Manufacturing Company Limited before the crash came, and the machine, with all others built or building, had fallen into the hands of the Official Receiver. This gentleman, pressed to allow the machine to compete in the annual Aerial Derby for which it had been built, flatly refused to allow it to be flown. As it stood it was worth a thousand pounds or so from some visionary purchaser; in a crashed condition it would not be worth that number of pence. The Laverock had been flown once or twice in considerable secrecy; nobody seemed to know of what speed it was capable. It had been intended as the basis for a fighting scout, and had been transformed into a racing machine by the simple expedient of removing all exterior projections and cutting down the wing surface drastically. It was known to be very fast.
It is hard to say what it was that brought home so deeply the necessity of entering a machine for this race to the little band of gentlemen who clubbed together to buy the Laverock. Only one, apparently, had been intimately connected with aviation in the war. Of the others, one had made a fortune out of munitions, one or two had had sons in the Flying Corps, and one or two were nobody in particular, business men, Government officials, members of the same club as Baynes, their enthusiastic leader. In some remote, inarticulate way all were convinced that if they bought this machine and entered it for the Brussels race, they would have done something worth doing, something that they would look back to in after years with a queer glow of sentimental pleasure. It was a good thing to do; it would help things on a bit. Baynes, even, seemed to have persuaded himself that the reputation of the country was in their hands. Certainly, if they didn’t do it, nobody else would.
They harboured no illusions. None of them expected the machine to win, unless by accident. The real reason for sending it over was to display the neatness of its design, the great beauty of its lines. In its detail design and general finish and appearance, it was, perhaps, the prettiest little machine ever built in England. It might not be very fast but … they’d show these people we could still build an aeroplane.
It was Rawdon whom they first consulted on the subject, before incurring any expenditure. Baynes, who had been a major in the Flying Corps during the war, had come into contact with Rawdon once or twice; it seemed natural for them to turn to him for advice upon their project. He heard them to the end in his little office on the aerodrome, sitting on a table, swinging his legs. Their story finished, he considered for a little.
‘You really think of buying it?’ he inquired. ‘Well, I should think you’d get it for a lot under a thousand if you went about it the right way. It’s no earthly good to anybody else.’
‘I dare say we should,’ said Baynes. ‘What we want to do now is to arrive at some estimate of what the whole lot is going to cost us. As far as I can see, the machine would be about the least part.’
They discussed the details for a little.
‘Anyway,’ said Rawdon at last, ‘you needn’t consider the cost of getting the machine in order, or garaging it. It’s in fair condition, I suppose; we can manage the erecting of it up here. I’d like to look after that part of the business, if you’ll let me in on it.’
The deputation was properly embarrassed. ‘That’s extremely good of you,’ said Baynes.
‘Only too glad to have the work in the shops,’ said Rawdon. ‘Now, what about getting it there? That’s going to cost some money, you know.’
Baynes explained to his colleagues. ‘It would have to be dismantled and crated, shipped to the aerodrome, and re-erected over there. It means we shall have to take over a staff of mechanics with us.’
‘Unless, of course, you flew it over from here,’ said Rawdon.
Baynes glanced at him doubtfully. ‘It’s a very fast machine,’ he said. ‘There’d be a lot of risk in that, surely?’
Rawdon rubbed his chin. ‘I don’t know what it really does, what speed it lands at. Oh yes, it wouldn’t be a very nice job. It’s been done before with fast machines, you know.’ He paused a little. ‘It rather depends on what sort of a pilot you get for it.’
‘It seems to me,’ said one of the deputation, ‘that if we’re going to do this at all, we’d better do it properly and stand the extra expense of sending it by land.’
‘I think so, too,’ said Baynes.
‘It’s safest, certainly,’ agreed Rawdon. ‘You’ll have to look sharp about it though. How long is it before the race?’
‘Seventeen days,’ said Baynes. ‘There’s no time to waste, but we can do it all right. About the pilot – Graham flew it before, I believe. We’d better get him again.’
‘He’s in Japan,’ said Rawdon.
The other mentioned one or two pilots.
‘The man I should choose, I think,’ said the designer reflectively, ‘would be a chap called Riley – Malcolm Riley. You remember him? Test pilot for Pilling-Henries at the end of the war. He did very well on their fast scouts – very well indeed. He’s at Croydon now, I think.’
‘You think he’d take it on?’
‘I don’t see why not. Anyway, I’d rather offer it to him than any of those other chaps, with Graham out of the way.’
Baynes got up. ‘I’ll see this chap Riley,’ he said, ‘and see if he can take it on. There’s nobody better, you think?’
‘I don’t think so.’
So Riley was summoned
to Baynes’s club, and listened attentively while the scheme was expounded to him. When it was finished, he considered for a little.
‘Well, I should be very glad to take it on,’ he said at last. ‘As you know, I’ve never flown in a race before, but I don’t think I should let you down that way. By the way, how are you getting it there? Are you proposing to fly it out?’
The other shook his head. ‘We discussed that with Captain Rawdon, and decided that the risk of damaging the machine was too great. No, it’s going by sea.’
Riley nodded. ‘That’s the best way, of course. I saw it in the air once – lands at about eighty-five.’
‘I believe so,’ said Baynes. ‘Well, we’ll get the purchase through as soon as we can and get it up to Rawdon’s place. I’ll let you know when it gets there. And now, Captain Riley, we’d better put things on a business footing at once. Can you let me know – in a day or two – what your fee will be? For the test flights and the race combined.’
Riley glanced at him quickly. Then, ‘This is an entirely private venture, as I understand it? It’s financed by yourself and some other gentlemen?’
‘That is so.’
‘I should like my expenses,’ said Riley, ‘– hotel bills and that sort of thing. And fifteen per cent of any prize money.’
There was a moment’s pause. ‘There won’t be any prize money,’ said Baynes quietly. ‘The Laverock hasn’t got a chance – unless by accident. You know that as well as I do. We’re only putting it in for propaganda.’
‘I guessed as much,’ said Riley.
‘I don’t think we can let you do that, really,’ said the other uneasily.
‘It’s a damn good advertisement for me as a pilot,’ said Riley simply. ‘I’d much rather have it that way. If it were a firm employing me it would be different.’
‘Right you are then,’ said Baynes. They stood up. ‘I’ll get the machine up to Rawdon’s as soon as I can and let you know when it gets there. And I say, one thing more. I went round to one or two firms this morning to see if it was possible to insure it. They’d none of them touch it.’
Riley smiled. ‘I don’t suppose they would,’ he said.
Morris had finished his paper on the three-ply fuselages working on an adaptation of the Principle of Least Work. It was not a bad paper at all; he had gone into the subject rather deeply mathematically and had arrived at certain definite results. He realised it was quite useless to leave his results in the form of differential equations, and had managed to evolve a set of relatively simple formulae which could be adapted to give the stresses accurately in most of the cases arising in aircraft work. When it was finished, he showed it to Rawdon.
The designer examined it in private; he was no mathematician, and hated to display the fact. Moreover, he knew well enough why Morris had shown it to him; he wanted more pay, and he’d only been in the firm a little over six months. It was absurd. But the paper undoubtedly was a sound one; he fingered it pensively. Most of it he did not fully understand; he knew the method and saw that the general lines upon which Morris had worked were likely to lead to a correct solution. He drew a little blunt stump of pencil from his waistcoat pocket, and pulled a writing-pad towards him. Taking the first bay of the rear fuselage of the F.S.I., their empirical calculations had given … he pulled a loose-leaf ledger down from the shelf in front of him. That was it.
Now taking one of these odd-looking formulae of Morris’s at the end of his paper – this would be the one. dz – what was dz? Oh yes, the thickness of the ply. That gave …
He worked a little on the slide-rule. That gave a longeron of .27 sq. inch less sectional area. That would, if the same ratio were carried on throughout the structure, give a fuselage – slide-rule again – something like forty pounds, thirty-eight pounds lighter. That might very well be the case.
He always had had an idea that that fuselage had come out too heavy. It hadn’t looked right in the shops. He’d wondered about that before.
He turned to the paper again. He had always thought that this chap would be worth hanging on to. He wasn’t getting enough now for his technical work, though he was drawing a very fair income out of the firm all told, with his piloting. His technical work was certainly worth another two pounds a week; he must have that, he supposed.
This paper ought to be published; it was good work. And when it was published other people would get to know of this man, and he would have to pay him still more if he was going to keep him. The designer sighed a little. He simply couldn’t afford to go spending more money on his technical staff – the money wasn’t coming into the firm nearly fast enough. They’d have to skip this next dividend – that was already decided. Lucky it was private money. The orders weren’t coming in as they should. He had hoped for some sign of a production order for the two-seater – it had been up months ago and was a long way ahead of anything the Air Force had. And then there was the torpedo carrier coming on – no sign of a contract for either. This reconditioning of machines for foreign governments was coming to an end, and the firm couldn’t keep going on the negligible profits from experimental machines.
Anyway, Morris must have his two pounds a week more now. He would see him at once. He pressed the bell; the door was opened by the little girl, who stood expectant. She was a good child and made his tea very well, exactly as he liked it.
‘Tell Mr Morris to come and see me,’ he said, ‘and then go and wash your face. You’ve got jam on your cheek. I’ll have my tea at a quarter past four today.’
The girl disappeared; the designer got up ponderously and stretched his immense form. He moved to his window and looked out over the aerodrome. He would ring up Bateman and go and talk to him this evening. Something must be done to raise the wind, to get a decent production order into the shops.
Morris came in.
‘This seems to be very sound, from the rough check I’ve made on it, Mr Morris,’ he said. ‘You’ve been working on it for some time?’
‘About three months,’ said Morris. ‘I think it’s all right – I had it checked over by a more experienced mathematician than I.’
They discussed it for a little.
‘Of course,’ said the designer, ‘if it comes out satisfactory in practice, we’d better adopt it. We’d better see about getting one or two models made up for test. If it doesn’t cost too much. I’ll see Mr Adamson about it. After we’ve verified it, you’d better see about getting it published.’
He turned to his seat. ‘Let me have a copy some time, will you?’
Morris moved towards the door.
‘One thing more, Mr Morris. You’ll be drawing another two pounds a week for the technical work.’
Morris closed the door softly behind him. One or two more steps like that …
He crossed the open space in front of the offices. Suddenly Rawdon’s window opened and the head of the designer appeared at it.
‘Mr Morris! Come back a moment, if you please.’
As he re-entered the room, Rawdon turned to him. ‘There’s a job coming on that I think you’d better take charge of. Sit down. You remember the Laverock?’
‘The Jenkinson Laverock?’
‘Yes. Well, that’s been bought privately and entered for the Brussels race. It’s going to be reconditioned here, and we expect it very soon. Your friend, Captain Riley, is to fly it. I’m going to get on to whoever there is at the Jenkinson place on the phone and try and fix up to get hold of any performance figures that there may be on the machine. You’d better take that on.’
He gazed out of the window at a hawk, hovering above the aerodrome. ‘They say he’s got a big negative angle of incidence on his tail-plane when he’s doing that,’ he said at last.
He roused himself. ‘It’ll probably mean that you’ll have to go down to the Jenkinson place and search through their files.’
‘Will they let us have that stuff?’
‘It’s been arranged in the purchase that we should have any aerodynamic data
about the machine there is. I don’t suppose they’ve got very much; what one particularly wants to discover is the landing speed.’
Two days later, Morris travelled to the Jenkinson works. He explained his business, and was conducted through streets of desolate, empty buildings to the drawing-offices. Here he was introduced to one solitary clerk, who knew nothing about the Laverock and cared rather less.
‘There’s all the stuff we’ve got,’ he said. ‘You’d better have a look yourself.’
Half an hour later, Morris came upon what he was looking for. He found a wind-tunnel test of the model in its original form, before the wings had been cut down, and one or two sheets referring to the alterations. He searched through the mass again to verify that he had overlooked nothing, and made his way back to Southall.
Here he spent half an hour in calculation and took the results of it to Rawdon.
‘I can’t find out exactly what the wing section is,’ he said. ‘That makes the adjustment of this wind-channel test rather difficult.’
‘R.A.F. 15 modified, I think,’ said the designer.
‘I took it as that,’ said Morris. ‘That makes her stall at eighty-one – eighty-one and a half. I got the engine curve out of our own stuff, but it’s for the Mark II Stoat – I think she’s probably got the Mark I. That gives her a top speed of a hundred and eighty-five.’
‘She won’t win the Brussels race on that,’ muttered Rawdon. Morris was silent.
‘And she lands at eighty-one, you say … ’
Two or three days later the Laverock arrived on a lorry and was deposited in the erecting-shop. She created a mild sensation on arrival; every draughtsman in the works seemed to have business in the erecting-shop that afternoon. Certainly she was a very pretty little piece of work. The months of neglect in storage had passed lightly over her and she still retained the appearance of newness under her dirt, the show finish that the Jenkinson people had been famous for. The engine came in for a certain amount of inspection, too; apparently it only differed in slight detail from the Mark II, and was supposed to give approximately the same power. Only James, the engine draughtsman, shook his head over it.