BearClaw in America.
“Come around beside me,” Luddy said, shooing away the cat in order to spread wide the manila folder on the desk. “I want to
show you the plans for a new airliner, one that will shrink the globe, and in the process render every other commercial airliner
obsolete—including your commendable Monarch GC series.”
Gold scanned the blueprints and then turned his attention to an artist’s rendering of a large, streamlined airliner with four
engine pods—
jet
engine pods—built right into the wings for maximum aerodynamic efficiency.
“My God, she’s lovely,” Gold breathed.
“Aye, lad, that she is,” Luddy chuckled appreciatively. “You’re looking at the SB-100 Starstreak, the big bird that will carry
Stoat-Black to preeminence in the world of aviation. She’ll carry thirty-two passengers and a crew of six at a cruising speed
of five hundred miles an hour, with a range of seventeen hundred miles, and she’ll do it all as quietly as I’m whispering
to you now, lad.”
Gold nodded. “Because she’s jet propelled there’ll be less engine noise, and no numbing vibration the way there is with piston-engine
liners. But I don’t see how you can expect that kind of range from those jet engines. How could she every carry enough fuel
to feed four thirsty engines for that amount of time?”
Luddy chuckled. “The secret’s in getting the engines to operate at high altitudes. Every sort of engine operates the same
way: by burning a mixture of air and fuel. Up high—let’s say thirty thousand feet or better—the air is thin. Thin air means
the engines burn less fuel—”
“And while the engines might be producing less power at high altitudes, it won’t matter,” Gold noted quickly. “Because it
takes less power to move an airplane through thin air!”
“There you have it, lad,” Luddy said.
“It’s a swell solution to the fuel consumption problem, all right,” Gold said, “but it brings with it a whole new slew of
problems. For example, no pressurized cabin has ever had to withstand the stresses of cruising at those altitudes.”
“Every problem has a solution.”
“You’re ready to build this?” Gold demanded. “
Now?
”
“No, not now,” Luddy said. “But we have the basic technology, thanks to what we’ve learned putting together the Sky Terrier.”
“Who would build your engines?”
“Layten-Reese,” Luddy replied. “The same firm that built the Terrier’s engines.”
“What’s your projected schedule?”
“Right now all our resources are tied up in the Sky Terrier. As we begin to see profits, we’ll siphon the money into the Starstreak.
From start-up we figure two years of research and development.”
“Two years alone spent on R&D!” Gold laughed.
“Maybe longer,” Luddy shrugged. He took a bent-stemmed briar pipe and a brown leather tobacco pouch out of the patch pocket
of his tweed suit coat. “We don’t want to rush this, Herman. We don’t want any mistakes. This is to be a commercial airliner—a
passenger
plane—utilizing new, not completely understood technology. We want to make very sure that all the bugs are ironed out of
our prototypes before the actual plane is put into service. We don’t want any doubts on the part of the public concerning
safety and reliability.”
“Of course,” Gold said, thinking back to 1925 and the crash of his German-built, Spatz F-5a airliner. That crash killed ten
people and the attendant bad publicity almost killed his fledgling air transport company. And then there was the 1931 Fokker
Trimotor crash that killed Knute Rockne, among others, and caused the grounding of all Fokkers, and a tremendous, thankfully
temporary, public backlash against air travel.
“We intend to overbuild the Starstreak,” Luddy said, tamping his pipe. “We want to promote her as the most vigorously tested
aircraft in history. Obviously that’s going to require tremendous
“Come around beside me,” Luddy said, shooing away the cat in order to spread wide the manila folder on the desk. “I want to
show you the plans for a new airliner, one that will shrink the globe, and in the process render every other commercial airliner
obsolete—including your commendable Monarch GC series.”
Gold scanned the blueprints and then turned his attention to an artist’s rendering of a large, streamlined airliner with four
engine pods—
jet
engine pods—built right into the wings for maximum aerodynamic efficiency.
“My God, she’s lovely,” Gold breathed.
“Aye, lad, that she is,” Luddy chuckled appreciatively. “You’re looking at the SB-100 Starstreak, the big bird that will carry
Stoat-Black to preeminence in the world of aviation. She’ll carry thirty-two passengers and a crew of six at a cruising speed
of five hundred miles an hour, with a range of seventeen hundred miles, and she’ll do it all as quietly as I’m whispering
to you now, lad.”
Gold nodded. “Because she’s jet propelled there’ll be less engine noise, and no numbing vibration the way there is with piston-engine
liners. But I don’t see how you can expect that kind of range from those jet engines. How could she every carry enough fuel
to feed four thirsty engines for that amount of time?”
Luddy chuckled. “The secret’s in getting the engines to operate at high altitudes. Every sort of engine operates the same
way: by burning a mixture of air and fuel. Up high—let’s say thirty thousand feet or better—the air is thin. Thin air means
the engines burn less fuel—”
“And while the engines might be producing less power at high altitudes, it won’t matter,” Gold noted quickly. “Because it
takes less power to move an airplane through thin air!”
“There you have it, lad,” Luddy said.
“It’s a swell solution to the fuel consumption problem, all right,” Gold said, “but it brings with it a whole new slew of
problems. For example, no pressurized cabin has ever had to withstand the stresses of cruising at those altitudes.”
“Every problem has a solution.”
“You’re ready to build this?” Gold demanded. “
Now?
”
“No, not now,” Luddy said. “But we have the basic technology, thanks to what we’ve learned putting together the Sky Terrier.”
“Who would build your engines?”
“Layten-Reese,” Luddy replied. “The same firm that built the Terrier’s engines.”
“What’s your projected schedule?”
“Right now all our resources are tied up in the Sky Terrier. As we begin to see profits, we’ll siphon the money into the Starstreak.
From start-up we figure two years of research and development.”
“Two years alone spent on R&D!” Gold laughed.
“Maybe longer,” Luddy shrugged. He took a bent-stemmed briar pipe and a brown leather tobacco pouch out of the patch pocket
of his tweed suit coat. “We don’t want to rush this, Herman. We don’t want any mistakes. This is to be a commercial airliner—a
passenger
plane—utilizing new, not completely understood technology. We want to make very sure that all the bugs are ironed out of
our prototypes before the actual plane is put into service. We don’t want any doubts on the part of the public concerning
safety and reliability.”
“Of course,” Gold said, thinking back to 1925 and the crash of his German-built, Spatz F-5a airliner. That crash killed ten
people and the attendant bad publicity almost killed his fledgling air transport company. And then there was the 1931 Fokker
Trimotor crash that killed Knute Rockne, among others, and caused the grounding of all Fokkers, and a tremendous, thankfully
temporary, public backlash against air travel.
“We intend to overbuild the Starstreak,” Luddy said, tamping his pipe. “We want to promote her as the most vigorously tested
aircraft in history. Obviously that’s going to require tremendous
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