1633

'Well, we've found good engines to power the 'X-2.'

Jesse interrupted, 'X-2?'

Hal looked up. 'Oh, Yes, sorry. I've gotten tired of referring to it as 'it.' I assume at some point you'll want to give it a suitably warlike name.'

Jesse smiled. ' 'X-2' is for test-pilot types, Hal. When you get it ready, we'll come up with something else. I'd go with Hellcat except we already get accused of witchcraft often enough as it is, without fueling the flames.'

'Thunderbolt,' Jesse mused to himself. Or 'Liberator.' Hell, maybe the 'Gustav.' It kinda looks like an ME-109 from the side and our Swedish ally might think it's named after him.

He mentally shook himself.

'But you were saying about engines?'

Hal beamed. 'Yes, a fine pair of Mazda 13B power plants. Thank God for young men and their sports cars. Imagine, two RX-7s in a town like this. Wonderful engines. They should produce over a hundred sixty horsepower, easily. Very sturdy with a superb crankshaft. Good cooling system, though we're going to remove the electric oil cooling bypass valve. That just wastes space, you see, and…'

'Hal. Hal, please,' Jesse interrupted. 'Not now.'

'What? Oh, sorry,' Hal said sheepishly. 'Where was I? Oh, yes, engines.

'There are four Saturns in town with 2.2-liter engines that will work. Two Honda Preludes. Perhaps ten or so Chevy S-10s, since they're already methanol compatible. We're even looking at a number of V-6, twenty-four-valve engines, with horsepower in the one eighty to one ninety range. Plenty of makes and models to choose from, there; but, of course, it will depend on the reduction drive. When modified, they should all have power-to-weight ratios above.35 and some considerably higher. Here's the list. I should think we'll want to take out options on the whole lot.'

'Thanks. What's next?'

'Wood, or, rather, wood storage. Rudi says he can get as much as we need from Weimar, but he can't keep it dry here. That barn needs a new roof.'

Having already run afoul of the irascible German carpenter several times, Jesse grimaced. 'Well, whatever Rudi wants, Rudi gets, I suppose. Jim, there's another job for your list.'

'Yes, sir.'

'And speaking of wood,' Hal continued, 'I'm not having much luck with that three-bladed prop design. The balance is much more difficult than with two blades. I'm afraid we'll have to settle for a two-bladed prop on the new model, at least initially. That will mean we can't obtain peak performance, of course. Perhaps one twenty knots at cruise and a top speed of no more than one fifty knots.'

'That will be fine, Hal,' Jesse said. 'Remember, we're looking for reliability, first and foremost.'

Hal nodded. 'Well, if that's the case, we'd also better take the props off the Belles and cap the ends with something. I've noticed some wear and splitting along the leading edges, too. Hmm, thin brass, I think. Drill small holes and put long brass rivets right through. That should work. No dissimilar metal problems.'

'You're the engineer, Hal.' Jesse smiled.

Hal snorted. 'More like a shade-tree mechanic, these days. Look at the trouble I'm having coming up with a reasonable attitude indicator. If I could just find some small, reliable gyros…'

'Don't beat yourself up too much,' Jesse said. 'Besides, if we had good attitude indicators, we'd just be tempted to fly in bad weather. And without any navaids, someone would come to grief, sooner or later. So, where do we stand with modifications and construction?'

'Well, now that the 'Belle II' is fully operational, we're concentrating on production of the X-2. Naturally, we've learned some things about construction techniques from building the 'Belles.' Provided the power-plant design proves out, we should be ready to test by midwinter, weather permitting. As you realize, this is a much more advanced aircraft. Trim tabs, windscreen anti-icing, tandem seating and controls-that means duplicate instruments, such as they are-semi-wooden wings with cloth only from mid-chord rearward, landing lights in the wingroots. It'll even have brakes. Not to mention it's a low-wing, strutless planform with much more power than the 'Belles.' Much heavier too, of course. Fully aerobatic and capable of something like five gees. And I've decided the fuel tank must be placed somewhere under the rear seat to maintain proper weight and balance. You don't know the difficulties we've already overcome-'

Jesse held up a hand. 'Wait a second, Hal. Slow down. First things, first. Is there anyone we don't have whose particular skill you need?'

Hal thought a moment. 'Well, I could use a glazier.'

Jesse stared. 'A what?'

'You know, someone who can fit glass.'

'I know what a glazier is, Hal. Um, why do you need him?'

'Well, you've insisted that the X-2 have a closed cockpit…'

'You're damned right, I did,' Jesse groused. 'Do you know how cold it gets up there?'

'Certainly, I do. That's why I agreed on this design. But as you know, the cockpit will have two hinged segments, a way to get into each seat. That means using at least thirteen cut pieces of auto safety glass, frames, supports, bracing. Remember how many leaks you found on the Las Vegas Belle, once it rained? Who did the work on the windscreen? I should think you'd want an expert to do it this time.'

'Uh, point taken,' Jesse conceded readily, since he had installed the Belle's windscreen. 'We'll get someone from the auto glass place.'

He changed the subject.

'Let's go back to the 'Belles' for a moment. Now that I've flown the Belle II, I'm anxious to get the improvements retrofitted on the original Belle. For example, that stall warning device you came up with. That could save a pilot, one of these days. Good going.'

Hal beamed. 'Nothing, really. Just a short piece of angle iron attached to the underside of the left wingroot. At a sufficiently high angle of attack and low enough airspeed, the propwash gives you a little shake. Ten minutes work. I should have thought of it earlier. I can show you the equations, if you like.'

'Never mind, I'm just a simple airplane driver. It works and that's good enough for me. I also want that dual throttle control lashup copied on the Belle I. Can do?'

Hal nodded.

Jesse checked off that item on his list. 'Okay, how about the rocket wiring and the flashguards?'

Hal sucked on his pipe for a moment. 'Should be no problem. Perhaps half a day's work, once we find the tin sheets and insulation. We'll have some loss of airspeed due to increased drag, though. You can tell the government 'weapons board' we'll be ready to test next week. You'll be able to carry eight rockets solo, perhaps four with a second person on board. Each rocket will have an individual switch, all in a row in front of the left seat. But I warn you, if one of those things explodes under the wing, you'll have to walk home.'

Jesse grimaced. 'Yeah, right. Well, the President says he expects we'll soon be at war and our pilots will have to take a warrior's chance. How about the bomb racks and releases?'

Hal waved dismissively. 'Couldn't be simpler. Four racks under the fuselage ahead of the airscoop. Shouldn't disrupt the airflow overmuch. The releases will be mechanical-just pull the handles back. We'll have to drill through the floor, of course. And, with the 'Belles' it should be one thing or the other, rockets or bombs.'

Jesse nodded again. 'That gives us operational flexibility. Chances are, we won't have any time to practice dive bombing before we see action, but, hell, six months ago, nobody believed we'd ever get anything flying. Next week, we'll have an Air Force.'

He reached for the Mason jar with an air of satisfaction. How's that for military efficiency, Admiral Simpson?

After pouring, the Air Force Chief of Staff lifted his glass. 'Gentlemen, I give you a toast. 'To the First Air Squadron, the best damned flying unit this side of the Ring of Fire!' '

Chapter 28

The Luebeck sun was bright in a sky of washed-out September blue as Larry Wild hurried toward the shipyard. It was a trip he'd made often enough since arriving at the Swedish Army's encampment outside the city with his small party of Navy personnel, but that didn't prevent heads from turning as he jogged by. Partly, perhaps, it was because of his obvious haste, but there were other people moving through the narrow streets almost as rapidly as he was, and no one turned to gawk at them. Then again, none of them wore the unofficial 'uniform' of a transplanted American: blue jeans, denim shirt, and sneakers.

Despite the urgency of the message in his shirt pocket, Larry was tempted to smile at the thought. Admiral Simpson badly wanted to put his entire Navy into proper uniform, but it was going to be quite some time before he managed it.

The problem wasn't manufacture, as such. The textile industry of 17 th -century Europe was perfectly up to the task, technically speaking. But since European armies of the time rarely used standard uniforms, and even those uniforms varied wildly from unit to unit, there was no real uniform manufacturer as such in existence. Thus- given the exacting standards that Simpson insisted on-producing a significant lot of genuinely identical clothing was something that any regular manufacturer was going to charge a premium for, since making sure the dyes remained standard was not business-as-usual.

That meant increasing the naval budget, simply to provide 'proper' uniforms instead of workable clothing. When Simpson had tried get Mike Stearns to agree to that, the answer had been short and none too sweet. The U.S. government's budget was stretched like a drum to begin with. Larry had heard from his 'inside sources' that Simpson had had the bad luck to submit his budget request the day after Mike had, with great reluctance, struck an item from the budget which would have provided money to help Willie Ray Hudson's granges spread the techniques of modern silage to Thuringia's farmers.

'I can't fucking help feed people and this asshole wants me to pay for shiny buttons?!' had been, according to reports, Mike's explosive outburst when he read the request. The written response had not contained the profanity. It had contained the sentiment.

Simpson, stubborn as always, would eventually figure out a way to wrangle his uniforms. Of that, Larry had no doubt at all. In the meantime, the clothing which had made the trip back from the century of Larry's birth was enough to provide a uniform of a different sort, though scarcely the kind Simpson had had in mind. So Larry enjoyed his blue jeans while he still had the chance.

But the admiral had at least managed to get an official table of ranks and insignia worked out. Worrying about something like that might be typical of his taste for empire building; but Larry was by now willing to agree that whatever his other faults, John Simpson was an excellent organizer. He'd gotten his military table of organization worked out in detail and presented it to the President while Frank Jackson was still busy trying to avoid the entire question.

Simpson's suggestions had been adopted for the Navy. Personally, Larry suspected that the smoothness with which they'd gone through had resulted at least in part from Mike Stearns' decision that he could afford to indulge Simpson in that regard. No doubt he thought of it as more of the typical Simpson Mickey Mouse bullshit. Something he could accede to as a way to stroke the man's ego harmlessly.

Larry had been inclined to see it the same way, until he and Eddie Cantrell had wound up as the United States Navy's very first pair of lieutenants. Simpson had