“That’s the Dragonfly,” he thought.
Light, speedy, almost “touchy” in its easy response to control, the Dart, on the other hand, lacked that safety margin.
The Dragonfly could not go into and come out of aerial “stunt” positions with the same facility that the Dart had. The Dart, though, was so “touchy” that, with its margin of quick answering to controls, quick “stunting” possibilities, it was far less easy to keep in stable flying control.
“We can’t out-maneuver the Dart, if they once get into the air,” Garry decided, “but, then, the Dart isn’t as easy to hold steady as our ’bus is. One thing in our favor will be that Don knows this ship better than John understands the Dart. And—with Don against John,” he thought, whimsically, “it’s a queer thing that our Dragonfly has wings of white and the Dart is lacquered and doped in red.”
He smiled, being of a calm, humorous character.
“White wings or red?” he added. “We’ll have to see what we see!”
Don, almost over the boathouse at the moment, gave a swift look to estimate the progress made by the two beneath him.
“It will take a minute to warm up that engine,” he decided. “We can get into position!” His plan was to make a swoop from a fair altitude, just timed to take the steadier ship across the path of the other, and slightly above it, as it took off.
“The propeller ‘wash’ will throw him out of control too low to catch that touchy Dart,” he told himself. “It will put them down before they get high enough to be hurt badly. I don’t want to be the means of injuring anybody, if I can help it.”
He came around, and gave a quick glance to see the progress of the starting Dart. In the vivid light from a flare that Chick had put over he saw that the red-winged craft was beginning to skip over the water.