The terrors of the upper air

Looking upwards, Pemberton could see a speck circling above and rapidly growing smaller. It was the aeroplane winging its way ever higher and higher. He leaned over to the President, “How is it we can hear their voices and can not hear the roar of the motor? On the ground it was impossible to hear a voice because of the deafening roar of an aeroplane motor.”

The President leaned over and tapped one of the men on the shoulder, who was tinkering with the instrument, and said, “Billy, tell Mr. Pemberton here about the wireless telephone--tell him why one can hear a voice from above and yet not hear the roar of the motors.”

Billy dropped into a chair next to Pemberton and keeping one eye on the instrument, explained:

“Kidwell and Dexter are using the same kind of wireless telephone instruments that our aviators in France had begun to use when the war ended, to communicate with each other and with headquarters. You know sound is vibration of the air and travels in waves and in a straight line unless turned aside by something. The aviator’s instrument is like a helmet and covers most of his head. The receivers are flat and lie over his ears. The outside sound is deadened by the padding in the helmet and it was found that it would be necessary for the padding to cover most of the lower jaw to kill the outside sound. The mouth-piece, the part they talk into, is fastened directly in front of the mouth. It is padded to stop the outside sound. Only a tube-like opening directly even with the person’s mouth is left unpadded. There are three or four small holes in the tube and when the person talks, his voice is thrown straight through the small openings and makes the instrument work while other sounds pass by as the waves do not get a straight entrance to the diaphragm.”

“Both the receivers and the mouth-piece have wires running to a plug in the side of the aeroplane which connects with the batteries and instrument that send the wireless waves in all directions and reach us; they also catch any that we should send and transfer it to speech when it reaches the ears. Instead of the usual receiving instrument, we have hooked on a sound magnifier here, so that everybody can hear directly. Now the very--”

“One mile up and everything is running fine.”

The voice of one of the men from the speck above spoke from the horns. A cheer greeted the announcement.

“Kidwell will do all the talking because it is he who is equipped with the long distance sending and receiving apparatus. Dexter can talk with Kidwell and Kidwell can talk with Dexter by changing the plug at the side of the machine, so he is directly connected with Dexter. Dexter is the pilot in the rear seat and will drive unless something happens. If something should happen, Kidwell can drive as they have double controls.”

“Hey, below! We are having fun up here chasing toy balloons. Those that have been let loose on the Fair Grounds have reached this far up. There are twenty or thirty in sight. We have run down three or four. One was thrown back by the propeller’s draft and hit Old “Dex” on the head and busted. He would have jumped out of his seat if he were not tied down with a safety belt. Thought part of the machinery had hit him, I guess. We are climbing in circles and staying over the Fair Grounds as nearly as we can. The hand on our instrument is gradually crawling near two miles and we can begin to tell it is getting very cold. We feel sorry for you poor land mortals below sweating in that 100 degrees in the shade. But say, ‘you don’t have to stay in the shade’--Ha, Ha!”

The sound of Kidwell’s laughter from two miles above roared through the horns. It ceased and no other sound came from above for several minutes.

“Got another balloon; caught it alive this time; going to tie my pipe to it and drop it overboard. The pipe will pull it down. Tell the kids down there I will give five dollars to the one who gets it and I will wring their necks if any of them busts my pipe. Here she goes--”

Cheers and laughter greeted this last announcement and many small boys jammed in the crowd began to crowd and squirm frantically to get out into the center field where they could watch for Kidwell’s pipe pulling a toy balloon down.

“You below! We are going to have trouble in just a minute. Saw several balloons above us snatched and rushed east at a speed that makes us look like a snail. It’s one of those terrific wind currents that different persons have discovered two or three miles up. We will be O. K. when we get in it, but going from slow to fast air is going to give us some rough riding. We are starting; I can feel our old machine beginning to pitch. Here we go!-- God, we are pitching and spinning like a leaf. We are on our tail--now we are upside down. Over we go sideways--now we are level--whew, we just made a complete flip-flop. It’s a wonder we hold together--we are rocking and pitching like a row boat on a stormy ocean.

“We are getting up in the main current and don’t pitch so much. It is all I can do to hold my dinner down. I’m sea-sick--we are heading west, but I think we are losing several miles a minute as this terrific air current drifts us east.”

A deadly hush fell on the crowd below as they pictured the aeroplane being tossed and pitched about in one of the mighty air currents that are found miles above the earth. They could see the two men fighting to keep their machine right side up, as they fought through the eddies and whirls at the edge of the current and into the steady but fast moving air of the center. When Kidwell announced that they had made it, a mighty cheer went up. Several minutes passed and no sound came from the men miles above--then----

“Hurrah for the Liberty Motor--we just had another fight to get out of the big current and are now in still air above it. We were pitched and flung about, upside down and every which way, just as when we entered it. Our Motor did not miss a lick. Old “Dex” got sick. I saw him gulping and raise his helmet and lean over, but nothing happened. Now we are riding smoothly. We are heading straight west instead of circling so as to gain the distance we were carried backwards in the big air current. It is getting cold. We are using oxygen from our tanks as the air is mighty thin here--Dex has just called my attention to our instrument--what do you reckon she reads?--whoop--she has touched it. She’s reached thirty thousand feet. We’ll make it. We’ll break that old world’s altitude record.”

A roar that shook the Grand Stand went up from the listening crowd below. For ten minutes they cheered and flung things in the air in their excitement. A few more minutes and the world’s highest altitude record would belong to America once more. The cheering died down and then broke out afresh.