Sharp, joyous answers echoed in his ears as the engineers hastened to start the engines which were capable of sending the Goliath through the air at a maximum speed of 120 miles an hour.
The rear engine crews were the first to get their motors turning over but within a minute the steady pulse of the 12 powerful engines could be heard. Engine room after engine room reported to Andy and he checked each one off as they reported ready. In three minutes he turned to Captain Harkins and said:
“The engineers are ready.”
The Goliath was ready to test its wings. For a moment it hung, poised just above the ground. Then Captain Harkins nodded again, Andy’s whistle shrilled the “lines away” call and the Goliath floated upward into the heavens. For the moment it was the world’s largest balloon, drifting upward in the warm rays of the afternoon sun, lifted higher and higher by the buoyancy of its helium gas.
Andy, Bert and Serge were grouped at one of the windows in the control cabin together. The ground simply floated away from them. There was no sense of sudden rising; no undue motion to the great craft.
Fifty, one hundred and then two hundred feet the Goliath climbed into the skies, its powerful motors purring smoothly and ready to take up their task.
Andy cut in the general connection to all of the engine rooms and warned the engineers to stand by for further orders.
When the Goliath was three hundred feet above the field, Captain Harkins turned to Andy and gave the order for slow speed ahead.
“Slow speed ahead,” Andy repeated into the transmitter.
The Goliath came to life almost instantly. The great gas bag shook itself as though getting accustomed to its new power and then moved slowly ahead, the ground beneath drifting away in a fascinating panorama.