“But he’s away,” argued Al.
“Only temporary, I guess. Anyhow, you can tell me what you hear and see, and let it go at that. I’ll communicate with Mr. Wright, and if he thinks there is anything as bad as you say, I can tell you how to go on.”
“All right,” agreed Curt.
Bob and Al added their own agreement to the suggestion.
The designer and the engineering staff were introduced and several hours were devoted to discussions between them, for the benefit of the trio, about airplane design and the things that had to be taken into consideration.
“If my young friends are going to learn airplane building,” Barney asserted, “it will be better if they know how important it is to figure stresses, safety margins, stability and so on, before ever a design gets on paper.”
“I thought all those things came out in the tests, after the airplanes are built,” Al contributed.
“Oh, no,” the designer said. “The tests show us how well we figured and how good the designs are that we created. But we work everything out up here before ever an engine part is cast, a fuselage built or a wing assembled.”
“Any other way would be hit or miss,” Bob agreed.
While they learned the many sections into which an airplane design is divided, and how carefully every curve, streamline, distribution of weight, lift of wing and drag of body must be calculated, Bob decided that no one in the office—at least no one with whom he came in contact—was acting in any suspicious manner.