They moved quietly through the underbrush and made their way toward the rear of the hangar. There they stopped and listened to make sure that no one had been left on guard.
“All clear,” whispered Tim. “I’m going in.”
The flying reporter found a place where he could wiggle under the canvas wall at the rear of the hangar. Giddings was right behind him and when they stood up it was to look upon the most unusual workshop either of them had ever seen.
Workbenches and lathes were along the walls of the makeshift hangar but the object which held their attention was the monoplane in the center.
“I’m right!” exclaimed Tim jubilantly, “I’m right!”
“You sure are,” agreed Giddings. “I’m going to have a look at this contraption.”
The monoplane was the strangest plane either of them had ever seen. They pinched themselves to make sure that they were not dreaming for it was such a bizarre looking craft.
“Old Man Bauer will have a fit when he hears about this,” chuckled Giddings, “for he has always had a pet theory that this type of machine would never fly. Said you couldn’t get enough power into the wing propellers.”
“I’d like to try it,” said Tim as they started a quick inspection of the monoplane.
The machine had been camouflaged by an expert. On the ground it would have been invisible from the air while in the air it would be practically invisible from the ground, so cleverly had the colors been mixed and camouflage been applied. But the feature of the monoplane which drew their attention was the wing propellers. At the outer tip of each wing were mounted horizontal propellers, each about four feet in diameter. Small, powerful air cooled motors supplied the power for the wing propellers while a standard whirlwind was the motive power for the main propeller in the nose of the ship.