“Forty-five minutes from fifteen minutes?” repeated Buck twisting his pencil. “That don’t seem right. Oh yes, you borrow, of course. One degree,” he went on, “that’s—” and he hesitated.
“You know how many minutes there are in a degree, don’t you?” prompted Ned, smiling at last.
“Three hundred and sixty,” exclaimed Buck proudly.
Ned held up his hands in amazed despair. Buck didn’t seem the most promising material for a competent observer. And yet there was something about the Herald reporter that made Ned anxious to take him along.
“I suppose there isn’t such a job as steward or galley boy on this ship,” went on Buck with his engaging smile. But Ned could only answer him with a shake of the head. Then, leading the way to the gallery of the second deck all passed into the pilot room. In no way, except in size did it differ from the wheel house of an ocean liner.
The compass box, with its compensating magnetic mechanism beneath and its shaded lights above, stood just in front of the steering wheel, beneath which, parallel with but not connected with it, was the larger plane elevating and depressing wheel. Both the steering and plane wheels operated indirectly, utilizing compressed air cylinders to move the big rudder and wing surfaces. At the right of these wheels was the engine control; a lever board containing the starting and stopping levers for each engine and the gear clutch for each wheel. At the left, in compact semicircular form, was the signal board, the automatic indicator which gave at all times a record of the position of each plane, the set of the rudder, the speed of the engines and, below this, the air craft chronometer.
Hanging at the pilot’s left side and on a line with his face was a speaking tube. But it was on the rear of the pilot that indicators and gauges appeared in confusion. This was the observer’s station. On each side of the room a small door opened onto the side galleries. Aft of the door on the port side a metal ladder led through the floor into the compartment beneath. On the starboard side, between the gallery door and the aft partition, stood the observer’s desk. Here all readings were recorded, the detailed log continuously set down and the observer performed his duty as assistant to the pilot.
Many of the instruments were enclosed in an outside case open to the weather and wind. Heavy glass doors gave the observer access to this case but his observations were to be made, in the main, through the glass. The aerometer, attached to the top of this outer case, registered on the observer’s desk. The automatic barograph, the checking barometer and a self-recording thermometer were housed in the exposed case. Within the room the equilibrium statoscope, the compressed air gauge for all compartments, interior thermometer, chart racks, hooks for pressure and speed tables and indicators to show the consumption of fuel and lubricating oil, covered the walls except in the center of the rear bulkhead where a door gave access to the next compartment.
In this pilot room, the heart of the gigantic airship, Ned turned lecturer. The place was small and hot but no one seemed to mind these things.
“How about your compressed air funnel?” asked the major pointing to the bank of aluminum tubes that passed along the roof of the cabin. “Has it been tested?”