'Then how come you know so much? I mean, everything you've just said—'
He smiled at her. 'Not being able to fly doesn't mean I don't know how to listen. I've spent many an hour with engineers and pilots. The guys who really know how to take a rugged lady like the Ford and turn her into a ballet stepper. There's a lot more they're doing, but I'd rather you heard that from the others.'
They heard a vehicle pull up outside the hangar doors, and soon the rest of their crew came in. Their coveralls were smeared with grease. 'They won't need us for a while,' Cromwell explained. 'They're changing the tires and doing the engines and props. Those are the greatest superchargers I've ever seen. They could take us right to the top of Mt.
Everest, the way they suck in air. It's like three tornados working for us.'
He fell heavily into a seat. 'Frenchy and I were talking about a change in the brake system. It will go especially well with those new tires. You know how the brakes work, right?'
Indy nodded. 'That big handle right behind the pilot seats.'
Foulois made a sour face. 'The Ford is a wonderful machine but that kind of braking system is from the dark ages. Maneuvering on the ground is terrible. And since we have all those people and the right equipment, and it shouldn't take more than one day of extra work, I'd like to change the hydraulics from that handle to foot pedal brakes for both pilot seats.'
Indy glanced at Cromwell, who said, 'It pains me when a Frenchman is so smart, but he's right. It's a bloody good idea, Indy.'
'All right. Do it.' Indy looked up. Colonel Henshaw and another man were standing behind the others.
Henshaw gestured to his companion. 'Master Sergeant David Korwalski. He's the chief maintenance and modification man in our experimental section.'
'Don't let him get away from us,' Cromwell added. 'The man has magic in his hands, the way he works on aeroplanes.'
'This time it is the British gentleman who is correct,' Foulois said, winking at Indy.
'If you have a moment, Professor Jones,' Henshaw came into the exchange,
'we'd like to go over the rest of the work you and your people want done. That way we won't waste any time, and my crews can work right around the clock.
Twelvehour shifts.'
'Colonel, I appreciate that, but I don't want to overdo your help to us.'
'No problem, sir. The men all volunteered.'
Indy nodded to Cromwell and Foulois. 'You have the rest of the list?'
Cromwell drew a sheaf of folded papers and specifications from his leg pocket. 'Right here.' He spread them across the table. Tarkiz squeezed in between the other two men. 'You do not mind, Indy? I am learning much.'
'You're one of us, Tarkiz. Of course.'
'Good! I have ideas, too. But I will wait until these two are done.'
'Will, let's do it. Colonel, why don't you and Korwalski sit down here with us.'
It went on through two hours of planning and no small number of arguments, two pilots each putting forward his own best ideas. Generally, however, they were in agreement to modify the 'gentleman's airplane' into a machine with greatly increased performance parameters and capabilities never planned by the Ford Company.
'Will, put aside that remark you made about climbing as high as Everest.
Now, the book numbers show eighteen thousand or so as absolute ceiling,' Indy said.
'That is correct, Indy. Service ceiling of seventeen thousand,' Foulois replied.
'What's the difference?' asked Gale.
'When the airplane is still climbing at one hundred feet a minute,' Rene explained, 'that's the service ceiling.' He tapped the drawings of the engines. 'With those superchargers and new propellers, this machine will fly to thirty thousand or higher. We won't really know until we start getting up there.'
'And we'll freeze,' Indy commented. 'Colonel Henshaw, that series of highaltitude flights that were made from here some years ago. I think McCook Field was the actual base. Didn't they break forty thousand then?'
'That was Lieutenant John McCready, sir. And it was some time ago.
September of 1921, in fact. McCready took a LePere up to over fortyone thousand feet. It was a rough flight. His flight gear was still experimental, so he suffered from the cold.'
'How cold?' asked Gale.
'About sixty below, Fahrenheit. The thermometer busted then,' Korwalski answered.
'Great,' Gale murmured.
'We'll have highaltitude gear for your airplane. Besides, we can boost the heat output from the engines, and your ship is already set up for direct heat flow into the cockpit, besides the heat registers already in the cabin floor.'
Henshaw showed his surprise. 'You really intend to go that high?'
Indy toyed with a pencil. 'Hopefully, no. But I want the altitude capability.
Just in case.'
'If you do,' Henshaw said doubtfully, 'you'll be awfully lonely up there.'
Down the list they continued. All available types of engine instruments and flight instruments, including the latest gyroscopic devices for navigational headings and the artificial horizon, that would permit them to fly not only safely but with great accuracy even when they were enveloped in clouds or storms. The military had been developing an advanced ADF, an Air Direction Finder that could home in on radio broadcast stations and weather
