Abby smiled at her. ‘I know I for one will be asking her to help me realise Dragonfly’s full potential.’
‘Hear, hear!’
Abby nodded at Owen’s outburst and the eager nods of agreement it drew. It said a lot about the people standing before her that there were no hard feelings, hurt pride, or reluctance on their part to take advantage of the woman’s genius.
‘So, we’re going back to the drawing boards, at least with A and B flight. I don’t care if the aircraft are damaged or undamaged, this is our chance to make them better and we have to make them better; the Prussians aren’t going to stop improving their aircraft and we’ve certainly given the Barons an ideal excuse to improve on theirs by wrecking all their old ones for them.’
Abby waited for the jeers to die down before continuing, but this time seriously. ‘We have to stay ahead of the game if we want to win this war and I believe that together we can do that.’ She looked around the group of pilots one by one, meeting the eyes of each of them in turn before finally coming to rest on Gwen.
‘Gwen. I’m putting you in charge of the rebuilding efforts. I know this is a bit sudden, but, have you got any thoughts?’
Gwen grinned in delight at the prospect of having free rein over Misfit Squadron’s aircraft and began sorting through the multitude of plans and ideas that she’d come up with in the months she’d been with the squadron. ‘How long have you got?’
Abby laughed. ‘Can you just give us a brief overview of what you think we should be doing?’
‘Ah, you mean dumb it down for them?’ Gwen grinned and jerked her head in the direction of the rest of the pilots, who laughed.
‘Well, I wasn’t going to put it like that, but yes.’
‘Speed.’
Abby waited for Gwen to say more, but when she didn’t she chuckled again. ‘Perhaps dumb it down a little less. After all they’re not all Welsh.’
‘Hey!’
Abby stuck her tongue out at her second-in-command to more laughter before turning back to Gwen. ‘Elaborate please.’
‘Well, I spoke to Mr Rentley and Mr Joyce at the Palace and they told me about the springs they have in development. They have a new model, which they call the Phoenix. It’s a complete rebuild from the ground up, but they’re having teething troubles with it, so in the interim they have a new model Ozzy for the RAC. They say that the new mark of Ozzy provides more than ten percent more power than the one we’re using right now, but the Phoenix is projected to provide almost twice as much power.’
There were gasps from the pilots at that and she nodded as she continued. ‘The question for us designers and pilots, then, is what to do with that power. How to use it best.’
It was Abby’s turn to nod. ‘More speed.’
‘Indeed.’ Gwen nodded. ‘There are two things that can be done with increased power. One is to increase the weight of our machines, allowing us to add more armour and weapons while keeping performance the same. However, for our fighters, an increase in speed would be far more useful. That does mean that A flight are going to make a few fairly big changes.’
Abby frowned. ‘Like what?’
‘Well...’ She looked at Bruce and Monty and shrugged apologetically. ‘For a start, we can no longer fly biplanes.’
As she’d expected, there were protests from the two men, but she stuck to her guns, needing them to understand and accept what was patently obvious to her. ‘Sorry, gentlemen, but when the Prussians increase their speed, which they will, your slower aircraft will become obsolete; their tighter turning circles will mean nothing if the enemy can just stay out of your reach, climb above you and make runs that you can’t match.’
Gwen bit her lip as the two biplane pilots whispered together, wondering if they were going to challenge her. She glanced at the other Misfits, seeking some indication of whether they agreed with her, not sure if she could defend her point of view if some of the immensely experienced pilots, many of whom were designers themselves, decided to argue against her.
Her doubts were assuaged when Owen winked at her, then dispelled altogether when both Abby and Mac gave her an approving nod, but it was the proud smile from Kitty that really warmed her heart and stiffened her spine with resolve to fight for what she knew to be true if necessary.
It didn’t take long for the men to come to a decision and Bruce spoke for both of them. ‘We don’t really like it, but if you say that’s what we have to do, then that’s what we’ll do. We trust you.’
‘Thank you.’ Gwen nodded at the two men gratefully, relieved not to have to confront anyone, then turned back to Abby. ‘We’re going to have to adjust our tactics to suit this new emphasis on speed because our turning circles are going to get wider and we can’t be pure turn fighters anymore. That doesn’t mean that we should all be flying the same type of aircraft as B flight, though, it just means that the challenge, as both pilots and designers, will be to find the optimum balance between speed and manoeuvrability.’
Abby nodded. ‘That sounds logical.’ She looked around at the gathered pilots. ‘If you think about it, this is just the next step in the progression that pilots have already made in the transition from steam to springs. Imagine what would happen if a Dromedary or an LE5a went up against one of our aircraft.’
There were nods of agreement; they could picture the outcome easily enough and were smart enough to work out why.
‘Owen. Thoughts?’
When big decisions needed to be made, Abby always asked Owen to play Devil’s advocate. He could usually come up with a perspective on the discussion that nobody else had thought of, because of his training as a scientist. ‘That all sounds good and everything, but shouldn’t we wait until we actually get some of these new springs before we go about completely redesigning our aircraft and buggering around with our tactics? It might be weeks, or months, before we actually get issued any of the damn things.’
Gwen grinned at him. ‘Actually, I was promised the very first batch and as long as Rentley-Joyce know where to send them, they should be arriving in the next few days.’
There was stunned silence for a good few seconds before guffaws broke out.
Abby smiled as the pilots surrounded Gwen, thumping her on the back and congratulating her; it was good to see the smiles return to the faces of the people that she had come to love so much.
Work on designing the new aircraft that were needed by the squadron began immediately. However, while the design of Devil had been very much a solo effort by Gwen, this time she was aided in the task by the other Misfit designers - Abby, Kitty and Mac. The plan was for Mac and Kitty to concentrate mostly on the B flight aircraft that were their speciality, while Abby worked on the turn fighters, with Gwen working on both projects, moving freely between the two teams to discuss their ideas with them before incorporating them into the completed designs.
Gwen was looking forward to all of the design work and the engineering work that it entailed, but it was the prospect of making adjustments to Wasp, more than anything else, that excited her and she already knew exactly what needed to be done to bring out the best in her.
She also had a very good idea of how to improve Dragonfly as well. Unfortunately, though, in order to make true improvements, Abby’s aircraft was going to have to lose its most distinctive feature - the wings that so gracefully tapered outwards so that they were wider at the tips than the roots. Those wings gave the aircraft the aspect of the creature it was named for and were an innovation that had been far ahead of their time, making Dragonfly’s rate of turn almost as good as that of biplanes and rarer triplanes. However, the days where that was a primary consideration were fast disappearing and the wings would need to be sacrificed, like Monty and Bruce’s biplanes, and replaced by something more streamline. Something more modern.
The designs of the new aircraft had to come first, though, so Gwen stored her plans for Wasp and Dragonfly out of the way at the back of her mind and turned her full attention to filling the b
lank page on her desk.
They were less than an hour into their work when Bruce and Monty came to see them, looking somewhat sheepish, caps in hand quite literally.
Abby straightened up from her drawing board and frowned at them. ‘Gentlemen? Is something wrong?’
Monty glanced nervously at Bruce and received an encouraging nod. ‘We have a request to make.’
‘Alright. What is it?’
‘Well, we were thinking that we’d like to have identical aircraft, please. If you don’t mind.’
‘Really?’ Gwen was surprised; the Misfits prided themselves on being individuals and their aircraft were as much an expression of their personalities as they were functional war machines. For the two men to ask for identical aircraft seemed almost sacrilege.
Bruce chimed in. ‘Ever since you switched the squadron round and put Monty on my wing things have been clicking.’ He grinned shamefacedly. ‘More than it ever seemed to when I was on your wing. Sorry, boss.’
‘I concur.’ Monty sprang to the defence of his section leader. ‘We have a similar style of flying and we’ve been very effective with similar aircraft, but we believe that we’ll be even better with machines that have identical performance.’
‘Understood.’ Abby nodded, then glanced at Gwen, who just shrugged, before smiling at her pilots. ‘I think we can accommodate you. It’ll certainly make things easier for us and the fitters having one less design to deal with.’
‘Bonzer!’ Bruce clapped his hands together. ‘Well, we’ll let you get to it, then! Come on Monty, chin up! If our new birds are half as good as Devil, you’re in for a treat!’
As soon as the door closed behind them, the wing commander turned to Gwen. ‘Sorry, looks like your fun has been cut down a bit.’
Gwen chuckled and shook her head. ‘I don’t mind one bit; I have enough fun for now and this way I’ll get to Wasp and Dragonfly quicker.’
‘That’s the spirit! Back to work then.’
Gwen tapped her forehead with a grin. ‘I never stopped.’
Abby rolled her eyes. ‘Good for you... But your designs are no good to me in there, are they? Put them on the damn paper!’
While the designers were busy drawing up plans, the rest of the pilots were far from idle. They volunteered to help with the repairs to the three repairable aircraft - Dragonfly, Swift and Dreadnought, which had arrived by road shortly after the pilot’s tour of the facilities. Dragonfly was only lightly damaged and it would only be a day or so before she was back to her former glory, but Swift would take at least three days; she was in a similar state to the way Gwen had found Wasp when she had joined the squadron. Dreadnought was a whole other matter, though; the extensive damage to her engines, fuselage, wings and weapons would take far longer to repair. Even with every able hand working on her, they were looking at several weeks of hard work to get her back in the air.
However, the pilots dropped everything the very next morning, when two large delivery vans with Rentley-Joyce’s swan logo painted on the sides arrived, loaded down with Ozymandias Mark 45 springs. Abby immediately ordered them put into the available spring-powered aircraft, Wasp, Hawk and Hummingbird, for testing and three pilots of the aircraft, Gwen, Scarlet and Kitty, gleefully ran off to get changed into their flightsuits.
The new springs went into place without a hitch; their cases exactly the same size as the old ones, but then the pilots had to wait around impatiently while they were wound - they were never transported or stored fully wound; not only was it too dangerous, but also being under full tension for too long wasn’t good for them.
Finally, though, the three wildly different aircraft were ready to fly and final checks were made before fitters guided them out of the hangar and onto the airfield.
Gwen and Kitty had to taxi to the downwind end of the grass field, but Scarlet just waved away her fitters, saluted Abby ironically, then put on full power, making Hummingbird leap directly up into the air. She transferred power smoothly from her overhead rotors to her forward airscrew and the gyrodyne leaned forwards and accelerated away. She skimmed the perimeter fence of the airfield, then flew above the wide lawn towards the mansion more than a mile away. The pilots laughed as she dipped to pass through the spray of the ornamental fountain before rising once more and buzzing the house, making the flag flutter briskly as she went past. She banked behind the trees beyond and quickly disappeared from sight.
The watching Misfits transferred their full attention to the two aircraft that were only now reaching the edge of the airfield and turning into place.
‘Mac.’ Abby spoke the man’s name without taking her eyes from the machines.
‘Aye. Ready.’
The aircraft stopped and the sound of their airscrews built as the pilots pushed their springs to full unwind while keeping their brakes on, but it was only for a second before they released them and the machines surged forwards eagerly.
‘Now!’
Abby’s cry had Mac looking at his chronograph.
‘Wasp. Hawk.’ As the wheels of each aircraft lifted from the grass, Abby said their name.
‘Five seconds Wasp. Seven Hawk.’
Both times were marked improvements over how long the aircraft usually took to get off the ground and the gathered pilots made noises of approval. Hummingbird reappeared, zooming along at top speed only a few feet from the top of the trees on the far side of the airfield before disappearing again, but they barely gave it a glance and just kept following the fighters as they went higher and higher into the bright September sky.
Wasp came unstuck from the ground with a satisfying swoop, giving Gwen that familiar, and very welcome, feeling of weight that told her she was back in the air where she was free. Where she belonged. More than anything she was a creature of the sky; on the ground she felt awkward, ungainly, and not just physically, but mentally and emotionally as well - her inability to sort out her feelings about Kitty was a perfect example of that. In the air, though, her mind sharpened and everything seemed clear and simple. Everything was in its place and everything worked as it should.
Hawk had a slightly longer takeoff run than Wasp, but the faster machine soon caught up and slipped into place on her wing. The two aircraft turned in a wide circle as they climbed so as to remain within sight of the watching pilots; the flight was not just for them, but for the Misfits as a whole.
Gwen glanced across at her friend and saw a wide grin on her face which she was sure was mirrored on her own.
‘How does it feel, Kitty?’
‘Bloody marvellous!’
Gwen laughed at the American’s very English turn of phrase. ‘It does, doesn’t it?’
‘I didn’t think ten percent would be so noticeable.’
‘Neither did I, to be honest, but I’m not going to complain. The Fleas are certainly in for a surprise when our pilots get a hold of these.’
They flew on in silence, both pilots getting a feel for their new machines but, after something less than a minute, Gwen glanced at her altimeter and realised with a start that they had been climbing a lot faster than she’d realised. They were already high enough for any manoeuvres to be safe, but not so high as to be out of sight of the pilots, who had grabbed their flight helmets and goggles while the women had been changing so that they could watch more closely - it was time to start.
‘Is there anything you want me to do in particular, Gwen? You know, to help you make decisions with the designs?’
Gwen smiled. ‘Well, if you don’t mind, it would be really helpful to know exactly how much faster the new springs will make B flight.’
‘You want me to see how fast I can go? Well, that’s not exactly not my idea of fun, but I’ll do it anyway. Just for you.’
Kitty’s deadpan voice made Gwen chuckle. ‘Just bugger off already so I can get on with doing something a bit more serious.’
‘Roger, Leader. Your wish is my command!’ Kitty laughed as she peeled off and went diving away.
The pi
lots watched the two aircraft split up. The twin-airscrew Hawk dived and accelerated, but Gwen threw Wasp into a breathtaking series of aerobatics, spinning about the sky. For the turn fighters of A flight, the biggest gain brought about by having more power would not only be in sheer speed, but also in acceleration, which would dictate the ease with which they could transition from one manoeuvre to another.
They briefly tore their eyes away from Wasp when Hawk dived towards them under full power, pulling up to scream past them at only twenty yards distance and less than five yards above the airfield. It tilted its nose to the sky just before it got to the trees surrounding the base and went into a steep climb that seemed to go on forever before standing on its wing to do a tight turn and coming straight back, repeating the exercise. It was a manoeuvre that approximated the runs B flight made on enemy bombers and there were appreciative noises from Mac and Derek, both remarking at how little speed it seemed Hawk was losing on successive runs when compared to the old springs.
After only fifteen minutes, both fighters came in to land, their testing done. They could have been up for far longer, but neither of them wanted to keep their fellow pilots waiting unnecessarily before giving their verdict. Scarlet, of course, had decided to take advantage of her freedom and there was no sign of her whatsoever.
Kitty’s report was simple, but delivered with much enthusiasm and a wide grin that had even the more jaded pilots smiling with her. ‘Twenty miles per hour increase on the flat and I got a hell of a lot more than that out of her in a dive! She could have gone much faster, but I could feel the airframe starting to protest and didn’t want to risk it. I’ll have to at least strengthen the wing roots before seeing what she can really do, but boy does she feel good!’
Gwen laughed with the others before giving her own report, but rather more seriously. ‘I think the ten percent increase in power the Rentley-Joyce boys told me about is a conservative estimate, because at three-quarter unwind it felt something like full throttle with the old springs. Pushing past three-quarters doesn’t give as much gain as I would expect, though, because Wasp can’t use the extra power she’s being given. So ...’ She paused, considering, her mind racing and providing solutions as fast as it found problems. ‘It’s not just our airframes and aerodynamic properties that we need to change, but also the way the power is being handled and delivered. Like Kitty said, we’re going to need stronger airframes to handle increased speed, especially for B flight, but we also need different airscrews to convert the extra power to more thrust. They can’t just be bigger, because we’d need longer undercarriages to keep them from ploughing the field on landing and taking off, so maybe five bladed airscrews, or a slightly different shape blade, or a rougher pitch... I don’t know, we’ll have to work something out, but when we do, we should have a handy increase in both speed and acceleration, which is already noticeable, by the way. Oh, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw an increase in range, either.’
The Russian Resistance Page 4