“Breadth of wing, 39 feet; length over-all, 44 feet; chord of wings, 8 feet; center of gravity, 7 feet below the center of pressure; wings mounted on framework above front end of fuselage, which is enclosed in glass and aluminum; enclosed car has room for pilot, passenger and motor; two 8½ foot propellers driven from gearing at 800 revolutions per minute; nonlifting tail surface of 50 square feet, in addition to a plane lifting surface of 546 square feet; rudder, 25 square feet; the car is 4 feet high, 30 inches wide and 14 feet long; beneath it an aluminum boatshaped body is arranged to enable the operator to alight in the water; two wheels in front and one in the rear form the running gear.”
Of the two boys, Frank was the son of J. R. Graham, a wealthy furniture manufacturer. Phil Ewing, a few months older than Frank, was employed in Mr. Graham’s factory. Frank, always a great reader, was of a romantic turn. He had a love of adventure which ran to distant lands, hunting and wild animals. This he had from books, the stories of Du Chaillu, Stanley, Selous and other great hunters. His actual experience extended little beyond books and he owned neither rod nor gun.
Phil was just the opposite. He was a fly fisherman, had shot his deer in the northern Michigan woods, was familiar with camp life and was a young naturalist. He owned his own gun, had made his own split bamboo rod, could tie a trout fly and, with a talent for drawing and coloring, could skin and mount birds and animals.
In the factory, Phil assisted in the machine carving department. His familiarity with tools made him the chief worker on the airships, but it was Frank’s digging into aviation history that produced many of the advanced ideas of the monoplane.
The first rays of the sun pouring through the glass of their cabin roused the boys to early activity. Apparently the monoplane was uninjured, but its big pneumatic landing wheels were deep in the mud of the field and the nearest house was a quarter of a mile away.
“Whatever we do,” said Frank, “I’m goin’ to get word to the folks.”
“Go to that house,” suggested Phil. “Maybe they have a telephone. You can buy something to eat.”
When Frank reached the farmhouse he saw, around a bend in the road, a village about half a mile ahead. This was Osceola and, from the biggest house in the place, he called up his home. He did not care to tell of his plight and, when he set out to rejoin Phil, he did so breakfastless.
Reaching the bend in the road at the farmhouse, he forgot his hunger. An unmistakable sound had fallen on his ear—the engine of the Loon working at half speed—and he hurried forward on a run. Phil wasn’t thinking of breakfast. He was attempting to get the monoplane to the edge of the field. Tugging at the car, he was using the engine at half speed to pull the airship through the mud. That he was succeeding, was shown by three deep tracks stretching out behind the Loon.