“Oh, I see,” exclaimed the journalist. “We have at last come around to Jules Verne’s cannon ball that was fired at the moon.”
“Only that in this instance,” replied Ned soberly, “we have a guidable, continuously propelled cannon ball.”
“Didn’t an aeroplane man go up eleven thousand feet?” queried the Herald manager suddenly. “Did he fly faster?”
“On the contrary,” explained Ned, “he had great trouble in maintaining his position and in controlling his machine. But that wasn’t because the mathematics of it was wrong,” and again he laughed. “All other conditions changing at that enormous height, your mechanical appliances must also change. Propellers made alone for the heavy air of the lower altitudes are not adapted to use in the rarefied atmosphere seven or eight miles up. The Ocean Flyer has propellers that compress the thin air of the upper levels. Gasoline engines doing their best work when ordinary air is used in the explosion chambers are far less efficient when air at one-half or one-fourth pressure is used. The Ocean Flyer has an arrangement for compressing air. Its liberated, exploded gas expands even better in thin air. Present-day aeroplanes and their engines and propellers are made for sea level work. Hoxie, who did that eleven thousand elevation feat skyward had no excuse for such a flight.”
“And you think you can live at that altitude?”
“We’ll carry oxygen, of course,” went on Ned, “but we won’t even need that. The Ocean Flyer has the first enclosed car or cabin used on an aeroplane. The compartments of its two decks connect with each other but all can be made one airtight whole. Even the engines are within an airtight compartment. Attached to the point or bow of the car is a large, metal funnel with a wide flange. Tubes leading from the small end of this pass into each room. Flying at sixty miles an hour causes the air to rush into this funnel with such force that all or any one of the compartments are soon full of compressed air. At a speed of two hundred miles this would be so great that, instead of having too little air, we would have too much unless the pressure gauges were watched and the flow shut off from time to time.”
The great editor looked on the young aviator as if the latter possessed some of the mysterious power of a wizard.
“That does seem reasonable,” was his comment at last.
“At least mathematically,” went on Ned with the same smile. “This will not only give us breathing air but the pressure ought to give us sufficient heat to prevent frost bite. It will certainly do another thing. If we are driven to use our engine at such a height, we can draw the air for mixing with its gas directly from the engine room where it can be regulated to sea level pressure.”
“Major,” suddenly exclaimed the puzzled and not unexcited editor, “send me those contracts when they are ready. I’m going over to Newark and have a look at this Ocean Flyer. I think I’ve made the best bargain of my business life.”