The Curse of the Airport
DURING the following ten days passenger, sealed express and freight planes came and went with all the regularity of clock-work. Superintendent McCrea, who had been more than a little worried by a report from Alroyd, the freight plane pilot, that the beacon had apparently shifted, finally was able to convince himself that it was nothing more than a case of over work and eye-strain with three of his flyers. The relief pilot of the freighter had been unable to confirm or to deny Alroyd's report, having been busy at the time with a refractory fuel pump.
Tommy, Tillotson and Alroyd were driven together for mutual support in an effort to withstand the heavy barrage of witticisms from the other pilots during the first few days. Boyer was sure to take advantage of every opportunity of poking fun at the trio. As time went on they almost became convinced that the vagaries of the huge light had been hallucinations.
Then without warning, and as if possessed by an evil spirit, Number Seven beacon suddenly became a curse to be known from one end of the Transcontinental lines to the other as a siren, malicious and malevolent. Pilots who at first scoffed at the recurrent report, were soon forced to admit that something was wrong, they knew not what. McCrea, appealing for more and saner pilots, for electrical experts to put the beacon in order and for scientists to make tests of the light, bombarded the Pacific office with a barrage of radiograms.
It started again on a dark, moonless night when the west bound passenger plane landed thirty minutes late, after flying in a zig-zag course from the pass to Seven. The irate superintendent was waiting at the loading area when the pilot emerged from the cockpit. Tommy was there, having been placed upon the reserve board for two weeks, before resuming his disciplinary flights as second assistant under "Ace" Howard. Tillotson and Alroyd were handling their regular positions, as first relief and chief freight pilot, respectively.
"What's the matter, are you drunk?" shouted McCrea above the muffled purr of idling motors.
"No, sir, but the beacon would swing away to the north, and when I orientated the plane, it would turn back to the south, until I thought I had picked up the wrong light."
"Good gravy! And here I thought you men were through with all that nonsense. Don't you realize that there is not another light like that beacon within a hundred miles?"
"There's not one like it anywhere in the world," Tommy muttered from his position near the pair.
McCrea, evidently having overheard the remark, whirled toward him opening his mouth to speak, then choked and grasped. After an inward struggle he sighed audibly, turned and strode toward his private hangar.
The cry of "all aboard" sent a number of interested passengers back to the machine, with an absorbing topic of conversation and discussion for the rest of the journey. McCrea had broken one of the first rules of the company when he found fault with a pilot in the presence of passengers.
Scarcely had the huge plane left the field on its westward journey, when it was followed in the air by a tiny ship bearing the superintendent aloft. Still frowning and red of face, McCrea flew with wide open throttle directly toward the source of the circling beam, which dipped and rose from its vantage point on Sentinel Hill.
The Accident
THREE times he circled the light while gaining altitude, then the watchers at the airport saw his wing lights moving rapidly toward the east in the direction of the pass, until the hill hid them from view. Jameston phoned down the progress of the flight, kept in view in the field of his telescope, and the communications clerk relayed the messages to Tommy and members of the field crew.
"He headed east for several miles, and then came back toward the beacon--now he's flying toward the pass again, but very low--now he is coming back, climbing all the time--he's turning toward the south--now back to the other side." Then the tiny red and green flying lights appeared almost over the field, but swung away to the west as men were reaching for the switches to turn on the battery of flood lights.
After half an hour more the plane landed and McCrea strode toward the radio office with the expressed intention, flung back over his shoulder, of filing a message to headquarters that a demented pilot had been the sole cause of throwing the passenger plane behind schedule. Scarcely had he reached for a pad of forms, however, when a muffled crash and the reflected glare of blazing gasoline brought him to the loading area on the run.
The hill crest below and just to the left of the beacon was a mass of soaring flames. Madly jangling bells suddenly coming to life in the ambulance quarters were stilled again as the emergency squad roared away over the now brilliantly flooded airport, closely followed by a fire truck to which half clothed men were clinging.
"It's the west bound sealed express," the communications clerk gasped. "Flying low and washed out right at the foot of the beacon!"
The superintendent dashed toward his private plane, still standing on the concrete area way. Others were hurriedly turning to automobiles parked beside the enclosure, while several men caught the salvage trucks as they emerged from the garage.
Tommy, nervous and pale, stood beside two waiting pilots, obeying, yet not giving a thought to the company rule which forbade flyers to visit the scene of a crash when other help was available. The ambulance and fire truck had crossed the wide expanse of the field, pursued by McCrea, ground hopping his plane like a monstrous grass-hopper, and tiny flashlights could be seen now as the rescue crews toiled up the steep incline.
"Which crew was flying it, I wonder." Then remembering the bulletin board under the electric on the wall, Tommy read, aloud: "'Crew 37, Sealed Express, Jones and Hillard, vice Thomas and Abernathy, west bound, 10:20 p.m.' Gee! it was Vance Thomas; he and I went through the training school together. I don't know Abernathy; he must be a new man on this division." The two waiting pilots were watching the dying flames, fascinated by the calamity which so easily might have been their own.
McCrea returned shortly to dispatch a radiogram to the western office, then following a telephone conversation with the lookout he approached the bench on which the three flyers now sat, each busy with his own thoughts.
"Well, it's too bad, boys. Jameston tells me that the ship had been flying much too low, just as yours did, Royce, when you so nearly cracked up. Thomas or Abernathy, whichever one was piloting, tried to pull her up at the last moment, but was too close to the hill."
"Yes," Tommy answered slowly, sitting forward on the bench with elbow on knee and chin in his hand. "It fooled poor old Vance Thomas just as it fooled me, but my plane can climb faster than one of these express crates. It just meant the difference between a miss and a wreck."
"Well, don't let this scare you, boys. There must be some reason for that light acting the way it has. Good gravy! There has to be a reason! I thought you pilots were going crazy at first but now I'll admit I was mistaken. I don't see how it can be the beacon, but anyway I am having oil flares placed on the hill tonight for the planes due before morning. Some extra lights can do no harm."
An eastbound passenger and a freight plane landed safely at number Seven within the next two hours, during all of which time the worried superintendent was engaged in writing out a two thousand word report to the Pacific coast office. He signed his name with a sigh and handed the last page to the radio operator on duty.
"There. I have asked for experts out on the first passenger ship in the morning. That is, if there are experts able to figure out this blankety blanked double dashed beacon."
Another Victim
OF the two remaining westbound planes due to arrive before daylight, the first was a regular express at 4:10 a.m., followed thirty minutes later by a freighter. The first missed the beacon by three miles to the north and came on to the airport from almost due west, twenty minutes late. The salvage crew watched it from the top of Sentinel Hill where the express was being sorted from the wreckage. The lookout picked up the wing lights of the freight plane to the southeast. The field was flooded with lights in an effort to attract the attention of the pilot, and the emergency spot lamp on the lookout tower was flashed skyward, throwing a bright pencil of light up until it touched scudding clouds thousands of feet overhead. In response the plane quickly veered to the north, then headed directly toward the beacon, as a moth is drawn by a candle. Ground crew men and electricians worked frantically flashing field lights and whirling the beam of the spot. The freighter, unconscious of danger, dipped lower and lower as it drove onward. The starboard wing light was hidden by the large fuselage of the craft as it drew abreast of the landing area, heading almost directly north. The tiny red port light on the tip of the left wing and the amber tail light on the stabilizer were all that could be seen in the dark.
The score of watchers on the ground grew silent and tense as the machine held lower and lower, now heading for the base of the beacon tower. The motors diminished their song, telling those below that the pilot had partly closed thethrottles, believing himself well above the beacon. Light from the oil flares on the hill crest now began to be reflected from the swiftly whirling propellers and polished metal nose cap. Flashlights were waved madly by members of the salvage crew on the hill top and then flicked off as the men sprang behind the concrete shoulder of the tower foundation, waiting for the inevitable crash.
Just when it seemed the hurtling mass was on the point of striking the outmost flare on the southern crest of the hill, the now dimly outlined shape swerved upward. The heavy craft had gained many feet in altitude at the expense of its momentum before the startling roar of wide open motors reached those waiting impotently at the service area. Closer and closer it came to the beacon, climbing ever steeper in a parabolic curve.
"He's hung her on her props!" Someone exclaimed. Almost over the beacon and not twenty feet from it, the craft hung for a long moment in a perfect stall, nose pointed almost straight skyward. Motors and pilot had done their best but it was not enough.
Slowly a green light appeared, rising at one wing tip while the red one sank lower and lower, telling the agonized onlookers that the plane, having lost all flying speed, was falling off toward the landing area. The pilot was doing everything possible now to save his ship, settling ever faster down the slope of the hill under full power in an effort to gain his minimum flying speed of sixty miles an hour and level off before striking the ground. The distance allowed him was frightfully short. With left wing still a trifle low the craft touched the ground at a point just within the lighted boundary, bounced into the air with crumpled landing gear, then settled forward and slowly nosed over in a fog of illuminated dust particles.
A Promise From Boyer
THE ambulance and fire truck raced over the field for the second time that night, shrieking their way through the running spectators already midway to the wreck.
The fateful beacon serenely traced its bright path around the horizon, content now with dipping its beam low over the second catastrophe of the night, then turning onward to the east as if beckoning new victims to a like fate.
Eager hands tore open the emergency doors on each side of the pilots' section. A groan was heard from within as flashlights were directed into the small control cabin. The large figure of George Boyer, head down, hung limp against the instrument board. One foot was caught in the rudder bar stirrup and held him suspended. He was tenderly lifted down and placed upon an ambulance cot made ready beside the stricken craft, just as the superintendent arrived on foot, gasping for breath.
"Boyer is the only pilot in here, Mr. McCrea," one of the men announced, emerging from the inverted doorway.
"Nonsense, there must be others. An express wouldn't be allowed to leave Airport Six without two pilots and a mechanic; keep looking until you find them."
Tommy was already entering a wing door, opening from the control cabin into the interior of the huge wing. The cat walk was overhead and it was with difficulty that he made his way along the narrow forward spar and over themetal ribs. An electric lamp still burned at the first wing motor, twenty feet from the fuselage, but beyond that all was dark.
After reaching a position beyond the projecting portion of the engine housed within the wing, Royce discerned, by the aid of his flashlight, the forms of the relief pilot and mechanic crumpled beside the out-board motor. A height of only four feet through the long thick wing would make it difficult to carry the men all the way back to the cabin, so Tommy found an inspection manhole and quickly unfastened it. Then he lifted the men up through the opening.
With the crew out of the machine, cables were quickly hooked to the tail wheels from powerful salvage trucks in an effort to right the plane and move it from the landing area before others arrived.
"The men are suffering from severe contusions, but apparently no bones are broken," the field doctor declared after a hurried examination. "Take them to the hospital, boys."
"Wait a minute," said a husky voice from a cot and burly George Boyer hoisted himself to one elbow. "Where's Tommy Royce; is he here?"
"Here, George."
"Well, all I gotta say, Royce, is that I take it all back about the d . . . old beacon--what I said to you. And when they let me out of the hospital we'll see what is the matter with it if it takes all summer." He eased himself back with a sigh, saying, "all right boys, load me in."
CHAPTER III
Why Airport Seven?
"WHY should there be an Airport Seven," was the question mentally asked by the humdrum business man later that morning as he propped a paper against the sugar bowl and munched his toast.
The first editions carried scare-heads of the mysterious happenings, featuring the isolated airport and the beacon as the most interesting news of the day, but with only meager details. Later editions carried histories not only of the beacon and Airport Seven, but of the Transcontinental company, hurriedly prepared by feature writers for news agencies and the larger dailies.
The evening papers explained to the business man upon his return from work that same day that the Transcontinental interests had founded the New York-San Francisco line primarily for transcontinental traffic, and for that reason had located service airports at evenly spaced intervals along a great circle route between the coastal points. Short feeder lines connected some of these airports with the larger population centers along the way, offering an expeditious means of reaching either the Atlantic or Pacific coast. Passenger traffic over the line however, was only an adjunct of the last freight and express service. The "sealed" express planes, carrying sealed compartments from coast to coast, were a link in the rapidly expanding World Corporation belt-line, inaugurated in 1932, and connecting all continents in the northern hemisphere. A subsidiary of the Transcontinental operated a fleet of amphibians on regular schedule between San Francisco and Manila, while associated European interests controlled the Transatlantic and Eurasianroutes.
With seven intermediate airports between the two coastal cities, Airport Seven was arbitrarily located in north central Nevada, at a point east of Reno and south of Elko, the most desolate of all the stops along the route. Wayside had been a small western frontier town, practically deserted following the ebb of the mining tide which had washed over the west. Water was available, pumped from deep wells. Transcontinental by preemption and purchase rescued the place from ultimate decay, installed a power plant, erected hangars and other necessary buildings and placed a beacon upon Sentinel Hill. Still given on the older maps as Wayside, all pilots knew the place only as Airport Seven, where planes were refueled and crews changed.
Contrary to forecasts made several years earlier that planes would make non- stop flights from coast to coast on schedule, the rapid progress of aviation with large planes had demonstrated the advantage of operating with a system of division points, as used by railroads. In place of carrying useless weight by loading on sufficient fuel for a non-stop flight, the fuel tanks merely served from one airport to the next, allowing the maximum of payload. Plane crews were changed at each stop for additional safety in operating the huge multimotored crafts, as tests had shown the superiority of using an air liner pilot at his point of best efficiency, relieving him before he became aware of fatigue.
Experts Take A Hand
MCCREA's urgent appeals for aid brought not only a corps of electrical and airport illumination experts from San Francisco during the morning, but also brought a number of officials, several major stock holders in the corporation, moving picture news reel cameramen, and a horde of newspaper reporters and photographers. By ten o'clock the two sides of the field were lined with visiting aircrafts, in sizes ranging from the dilapidated single seater of a free- lance photographer to the palatial four thousand horse-power private ship of the executive vice-president, with a wing spread of more than two hundred feet.
Royce, Tillotson and Alroyd were called upon to testify as to what they had seen, and were requested to remain for the subsequent conference which took place in the drawing room of the air yacht. Electricians busied themselves meanwhile in inspecting the tower and beacon, although without finding anything at all unusual or out of the ordinary.
McCrea made a plea for a cessation of night flying over divisions seven and eight until the mysterious trouble could be located, but was immediately over- ruled by his superiors.
"No, McCrea, that's impossible," the chief ex-executive replied. "Our two strongest competitors are looking for just such an opportunity as that would offer them. We can't afford to delay a single freight or express ship."
"But something must be done, Mr. Clark. The beacon may be alright tonight and again it may be the cause of several more wrecks before daylight tomorrow. It has cost the lives of two pilots and a mechanic already, to say nothing of three men now in the hospital, one ship totally destroyed and another damaged."
"Surely some of these operatives here today can think of some suitable safety measures. We can turn off the beacon if necessary and instruct all pilots to fly by compass until they pick up the field lights."
"No, Mr. Clark, you are subject to a heavy fine if your company deliberately turns off a beacon," declared a man at the foot of the long table. All eyes turned to regard the new speaker, John Cavanaugh, a Federal Bureau of Aeronautics inspector, who had that morning arrived to investigate the accidents for the Department of Commerce. He continued: "Until we are positive that your Number Seven beacon, which is listed upon government maps as 'type A, 62,' is at fault it must continue to burn."
"That's right," Clark replied, then added reflectively, "the Interstate Commerce Commission has been after us to install a short-wave directional radio system over our whole line, but as this is primarily a freight and express route the board of directors has been unwilling to vote such an expenditure, at least until next year. Perhaps it may be necessary to install such a system temporarily for a guide over this district. Can it be done immediately?" He turned to a radio executive beside him.
"Yes, the communications equipment at each airport can easily be supplemented with directional beam apparatus, but we shall need at least two weeks to install receivers in all company planes."
"All right, I shall remain here tonight and will know more definitely by tomorrow; see me then. There is one angle of this business that has struck me as very peculiar, McCrea--do you know what I mean?"
"It must be, sir, that no east-bound pilots have been bothered by the light; it is always the westbound planes that get into trouble."
"Exactly. Now let's draft a set of instructions for all pilots leaving Airport Six tonight, telling them what to guard against and telling them for heaven sake to watch their altimeters!"
The afternoon was spent in placing several flares at intervals on the desert between Sentinel Hill and the pass. Half a dozen men were placed at vantage points to the east, equipped with surveyors' levels, small telescopes, or binoculars, to watch the beacon and make notes on their observations.
A Night of Terror
THE first plane to be sighted from the watch tower after dark was the west bound passenger. A radiogram had reported its departure from Airport Six on time to the minute, with the crew fully informed as to all the precautionary measures to be observed.
A new moon was just dropping behind the low range of hills to the west, scarcely an hour behind the sun, when the communications clerk reported to the large crowd that flying lights had been picked up, high above the pass. The beacon swung monotonously around the sky, rising in its passage from east to south, descending as it veered to the west then up in a grand arc over the northern horizon. The brilliant beam showed bright and steady at all times.
Clark stood within the passenger area, hands clasped behind his back and occasionally addressed a remark to McCrea as he waited. Suddenly a light was seen at the foot of the beacon tower. It waved up and down, then began flashing on and off in the dot-dash of a code message relayed from the observers to the east.
"All observers report beacon light O.K." the message ran.
The drone of the passenger plane was soon heard flying overhead. It landed several minutes later after gradually circling down. Following a hurried refueling and change of crew it took to the air again, fifteen minutes late. At the same time another plane was reported from the east, thoughtby Jameston to be a tourist ship, as the sealed express was not due for almost an hour. The pilots who had brought in the passenger craft were being interrogated by Clark and McCrea at the landing area.
"Well, I am glad that you report the light as O.K., at least for this evening, "the executive said.
"I am inclined to the belief that the other pilots may have been at fault. Perhaps--"
"Just a moment, Mr. Clark, the observer on the hill is flashing a message. Write it down Royce, as I spell it out." The group fell silent as McCrea announced the message letter by letter and all were dimly aware of its significance even before Tommy read it aloud.
"Observer No. 1,--Peculiar refraction or parallax noted at 8:21, when beacon apparently moved down several hundred feet to angle of seven degrees below my level. Relay man at tower also apparently lower with his light in answering my message."
"McCrea, that seems impossible; its all right from here!" Clark exclaimed. "What about that other plane that was just sighted? Where is it now?" No answer was necessary, for the throb of approaching motors could be heard distinctly in the still evening air. Royce was the first to pick up the winglights, showing just above the hill top and almost directly behind the beacon tower. The relay man was waving his tiny flashlight wildly, for it could be seen at times by those tensely silent at the airport.
"He is going to crash!"
"No, he will clear if only he won't try to fly directly over the beacon; why doesn't he turn!"
The plane, at the last moment climbed upward and to the right but as the watcher breathlessly waited for the red wing light to flash clear from the upper corner of the tower, there was an apparent collision, followed by the swerve of the free wing tip, when the mass settled to the ground half way down the dark hill side and burst into flames. For a single dazzling instant the brilliant beam on its westward swing outlined a tiny figure high in the air. The sound of the crash was not heard at the service area until the light had swung away to the north. In that instant Tommy was reminded of the first crude talking pictures he had seen as a boy in which the action on the screen at times preceded the sound sequence.
The rest of the night was a nightmare to those at the airport. The flyer who had collided with the tower miraculously escaped with only a broken ankle, owing to a new type instantaneous self-opening parachute he had been wearing. It was he the others had seen outlined in the beacon's glare, just as he was catapulted from his plane. The parachute had in a measure checked the speed of his fall before he landed dangerously close to the blazing wreckage. He was a tourist with a penchant for night flying, traveling in a small monoplane.
An emergency radio sent by the now frightened executive to Airport Six to hold all planes landing there that night, was too late to stop the freighter, already on its way toward the fateful light. After an agony of suspense the watchers breathed a sigh of relief when the plane was finally reported with five thousand feet elevation and several miles to the south. Prepared for and fully expecting a severe reprimand for bringing his ship in forty minutes late, the chief pilot was complimented by the chief executive for his excellent work; so surprising him that he later said in an aside to Tommy that it was "almost as bad a shock as if I had washed out on Sentinel Hill."
The beacon was not satiated until it had wrecked one more ship, a private touring plane, shortly after midnight. Flying too low, under the delusion that the beacon was still below him, the pilot with his family as passengers, was barely able to clear the hill, to land awkwardly at the edge of the airport and nose over. From their cots in the now crowded hospital, they reported later that they had passed Airport Six without stopping, intending to buy fuel at Number Seven to take them on to San Francisco before morning.