Van Powell

“ Curt explained. “After you learn the parts of the airplane, the way each one works, what it is for, and so on, and how they are put together, you have to study about airplane engines—the principle of the internal combustion engine and what all the parts are for and how they work. There has to be study of—let’s see—oh, yes!—aerodynamics—how a ship flies, and why, and what different air currents do, and how to know their effects. ”

“ Climbing steadily until he was over five hundred feet above the earth, Bob felt none of his brother’s uneasiness or excitement. He was confident that he could control the airplane as far as straight flying was concerned; his only difficulty would be the landing, not the easiest thing for a skilful pilot unless a signal could be given that would make the plant watchman illuminate the small field. ”

“ Under Lang’s tuition, in several airplanes, during tests, Bob had been permitted to handle the stick, rudder and throttle. He knew the elementary movements of straight flying and had some of “the feel of the air” which comes to any person who has the flying sense: that “feel of the air” is akin to knowing what the ship is going to do and, of course, sensing how to meet its various tendencies. ”

“ Cold! But Bob, feeling that for all the precious seconds it must waste, he ought to be safe before he might be sorry, allowed it to warm up, checked his instruments as he had observed Lang and Griff do, and then, as the watchman, obeying his signal, kicked away the chocks so the wheels could move forward, the amateur pilot, steady and cool all at once, glanced at the windsock, saw that he could take off straight down the short field, pulled open the throttle, tipped the “flippers” so the tail ceased to drag, as the propeller blast caught the elevators, and began to race down the field. ”

“ Never glancing around, opening his throttle, he pelted down the road after the car.
Bob, without hesitation, rushed his bicycle into the highway and pedaled after the motorcycle for all he was worth. Griff was too intent on his purpose to notice, he felt sure.
It would be a losing race, Bob feared, unless Griff overtook that rapidly receding car very soon. Muscles could not endure against a machine! Nevertheless Bob rode as fast as his pedals would turn. ”

“ Lang, twenty-one and an expert flyer, grinned at his sixteen-year-old cousin, dipped ailerons, kicked rudder and with a good “bank” as the craft swung its nose around, he deftly counteracted a tendency of the ship to go into a sideslip, jotted down some information on his data board and then looked out of his window.
“There’s the field,” he said. “I don’t see a crate there!”
7
“That’s why I told Al and Curt it’s a mystery,” Bob replied. “The ship has been hidden! Its tail is in between trees, and the wings are under trees with high branches. ”

“ Curt corrected, smiling in the darkness. “That’s a slang way of speaking of an airplane, and it means either a term of fondness, or of disgust, according to how the user feels about his ‘ship.’”
“I see. Gee! Wisht I could be one of them aviator flyers.”
“You can, if you are willing to study enough,” Curt said. “It means hard work. There’s a lot to learn. But a fellow who has ambition can get to be anything he likes.” ”

“ When Al and Curt, riding easily, reached the region of the Rocky Lake Park, they hid their wheels in the well remembered field, preferring to advance on foot, to spy out conditions before arriving at the roadhouse to which they were going.
“There’s something going on, over there,” said Curt, as they walked, facing traffic, along the familiar highway.
“The new dance floor—The Hangar—is opening tonight.”
“That will make it easy for us to get in.”
“They may not allow juniors on the floor.”
“But they won’t chase people away! It would be bad for the business!” chuckled Curt. ”

“ THE SKY SQUAD DISOBEYS
Both Curt and Al listened eagerly while Bob related the details of the Sunday conference with the detective.
He gave them the information imparted by Barney.
“Not a thing wrong with the Silver Flash?” repeated Al. “Then that brown crate must have driven it down—but why?”
“Maybe some revengeful pilot Mr. Tredway had discharged,” suggested Curt. “At any rate there must have been some motive to make a man do anything as terrible as that. But how are we going to locate the brown ship?” ”

“ Proof of guilt that will stand in court against a clever lawyer is something quite different.”
“In other words,” Mr. Wright explained, “we feel, with absolute conviction, that Barney is our man. We haven’t any actual proof. We must wait until he makes some open move. Bob, cleverly discovering Barney’s supposed guilt because he saw Barney make that excuse to get out to the airplane when he said he wanted to dismiss his taxi, did all he could to keep the man close to his Sky Squad; but Barney was clever.” ”

“ Cheerfully Al greeted the rigger for whom he worked.
“Barney—Mr. Horton—” he corrected his own familiar allusion to the manager of the aircraft plant, “—says please hurry the work on this sport biplane. The man who’s buying it is in a big hurry. He wants to get into some race with it.”
“Oh, sure!” the rigger grumbled a little. “They’re all in a hurry. But I don’t rush my part of it for anybody. There’s been enough complaint about this plant, already, without me doing anything to cut down the performance of a crate by skimping my share of the high standards Mr. Tredway always kept up.” ”

“ A windsock, Bob knew, was the cornucopia of doped cloth, closed at one end and held open at the other by a metal ring, which was fastened in a prominent, high position at every flying field and airport, to be filled by the draft of a breeze and thus, by its position, to indicate to flying craft which direction to “head in” or to “take off.” Since an airplane is much easier to get off the ground, and back to earth, headed into the wind, the “windsock” was a most important adjunct to every field ”

“ Barney was earnest.
“Not personally. That is, I shan’t be able to investigate in person,” the detective replied. “That is where our three assistants will figure——”
“And be Airboys and Master Sleuths, both at the one time,” Barney interrupted.
“Hooray!” Al clapped his hand to his knee, unable to restrain his enthusiasm. Mr. Wright, although with a tolerant, if brief smile, shook his head at his younger son.
“This will be a serious affair,” he stated, forcefully.
Al immediately became sobered.
“How can we combine aviation and detective work?” asked Curt, the most practical of the chums. ”

“ To try to make a landing, Lang evidently concluded, was not wise. He felt that he could take over the controls before that need arose, Bob guessed.
A new complication came, however.
If the cabin ship had the disadvantage of being slower, she had gained an offsetting advantage before they saw her. She was much higher in the air than their craft; she could dive, if her pilot chose, and thus close the distance between them—maybe come down “on their tail,” or ride them to earth, if her pilot proved to be determined to force them to land. ”

“ Bob knew that flying is taught carefully by any self-respecting school, that a thorough ground-school training and many hours of instructed flight will be followed by many solo flights, with intermittent check flights under the instructor’s eyes, before a pilot is considered more than a student. Griff over-flattered.
Bob, as he went home, where Al and Lang had preceded him, his cousin having stopped in for dinner, decided that he would accept Griff’s offered friendship with a grain of salt. ”

“ Curt said, rather ashamed but anxious to be as frank as Griff, whose manner and actions convinced them that he had been absolutely honest with them. “We suspected him of being mixed up in something.”
“Everybody suspects everybody else,” admitted Griff. “Dad suspects Barney, Barney suspects me, I suspect the supply clerk and the bookkeeper of working together to get cheaper supplies here, and they suspect each other and everybody else—even you three!”
“Well,” Bob waved the statement aside, “that isn’t getting down to brass tacks. Think, for five minutes, everybody. We’ve got to help Griff!” ”

“ Curt declared. “Not a scratch on it and the landing gear is perfect.”
“Whoever flew it must be clever,” declared Bob. “Look at the narrow strip of open, smooth ground he had to ‘set down’ on. If he hadn’t been able to shoot the field so as to get in on that long, smooth side, with only a few feet clearance, he’d have come down in rough stubble.”
“Yes, he must have been good,” agreed Al. “And it proves that he was forced down. Any sane pilot would have gone on to a better spot.” ”

“ Barney’s cabin airplane was again on the field, and as soon as they arrived and he saw them, from an office window, Barney summoned them.
“Well,” he greeted them, closing the door, “how goes the study of airplane building?”
“Oh, we know how they lay down the framework for the fuselage and how careful they are to see that every longeron and brace and strut and guywire and turnbuckle fits exactly in place and is well fastened,” Al exclaimed. “And we’ve helped put on the wings and the tail assembly, and Bob is going to help install an engine, today, and we will watch.” ”

“ Why is an airplane hidden in the grove at the edge of a cornfield? Our mystery because we discovered it and because, ever since we helped father solve his detective cases and took an interest in aviation we have wanted to solve something that connects up puzzles and ’planes!”
“A ‘crate’?” Al stared out. “I don’t see it.” Bob was not there to reply. He moved up to the pilot, Langley Wright, his cousin, who was test pilot for the Tredway Aircraft Corporation and who was giving this beautiful “job” its final test and check flight. ”

“ While they learned the many sections into which an airplane design is divided, and how carefully every curve, streamline, distribution of weight, lift of wing and drag of body must be calculated, Bob decided that no one in the office—at least no one with whom he came in contact—was acting in any suspicious manner. ”

“ Bob told his brother and Curt. “It’s serious, fellows! Missing parts aren’t half the puzzle—and tampering with airplanes isn’t all the rest.”
“What is, then?” demanded Al.
“They think, in the wing assembling room,” Curt put in, “that the airplane fell this morning because something went wrong with Mr. Tredway. The plant owner was delivering that craft himself. They all argue that he must have had a heart attack, or something of the sort, because the airplane was tested and gone over thoroughly. They say he must have been taken sick and lost control. ”

“ Will I stall too high and smash down? Will I be going too fast, and run too far? Can I glide in to the turf or will I set down in stubble and nose over?”
Resolutely, by all the will power he had, Bob crushed out those nerve-deadening, muscle-binding terrors.
There was the field. Where, now, did they keep the light producing flares? Oh, yes! There, in that little boxlike compartment.
He flung a detonating flare that would light in the air or on striking earth. Its light was what horrified Curt and Al. ”

“ Don’t you think we have eyes? It’s all over the plant what you are trying to do. Don’t you suppose we all know one of you is a close friend of the other two, and Bob and Al are sons of a detective? What’s the answer?”
“The answer seems to be that you thought we weren’t smart and so you went right ahead.” Curt was a little nettled by Griff’s statement, although common sense told him, now that Griff mentioned the point, that their scheme must be fairly evident to any sensible person. ”

“ To his surprise the other pilot did not land.
Instead he seemed to be circling at a very low altitude, not a hundred feet up, and with only bare flying speed, diving ten feet to catch up his speed and then climbing back to circle again.
“We can’t leave this crate standing on the highway,” Al called as soon as Bob had the engine running at idling speed. “Suppose a Sunday driver comes along at sixty miles an hour?”
“What else can we do?” Bob swung in his seat.
“That’s so. If we go up he’ll ride us down, and we might not make as good a landing—you might not, I mean.”
“Yonder comes a car!” ”