In last week’s episode, David learned how to write his reports as part of a larger structured argument. In this week’s episode, David learns that the skies are filling with airships…
David was finally starting to fall into a deep cycle of sleep when Ranell’s knock came at the cabin door, rousing him for duty. It was nearly midnight. Groggily, David rose and dressed in his flight suit. Next, he pulled on his insulated bib overalls and rain jacket. Both clothing items were made with high visibility fluorescent panels to reduce the danger to ground crews working outdoors. His cold weather kit came with insulated boots and gloves and a baseball-style cap with a chinstrap and earmuffs that folded back out of the way when not in use. He put the gloves in one pocket, and left his heavy jacket unzipped as he made his way to the galley for a cup of coffee before moving forward to the main cabin.
He joined Ranell, who was dressed similarly, seated at the table. Ranell was looking down at the floor, oddly turning his head from side to side. It took David a few moments to realize that Ranell had his XR glasses on. “What ‘cha looking at, Doc?” he asked.
“Oh, Mr. Wilson.” Ranell looked up. “I was distracted. I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Is there a problem?”
“Oh, no, no,” Ranell removed his glasses, which was unusual because you could usually see real objects easily with XR glasses on. You typically didn’t need to take them off to talk to someone. “They’ve just put us in a holding position while another aircraft prepares for departure. We’re waiting for the runway to clear.”
David’s head instinctively turned to peer out the big windows of the main cabin, but it was no use. The fog was so thick that his visibility was essentially zero. “They must have parked us in a cloud.”
From the co-pilot’s chair, Singh heard David’s comment and replied in a fashion typical of a trained meteorologist, “We’ve got mostly cloudy skies with scattered snow and rain showers right now. The temperature is in the upper twenties, with west winds coming in from five to seven knots.”
I wasn’t talking to you. The snarled mental rebuke was senselessly directed against Singh’s innocuous comment.
Ranell interrupted David’s thoughts. “Mr. Wilson, do you have your XR glasses handy? You really ought to see this.”
David snapped out of his reverie and went back to retrieve his glasses.
When he came back, Ranell used a cable to patch him into the St. Paul’s computer. When he put them on, he saw a display that was unlike anything he’d seen before. Instead of normal reality with avatars or data overlaid, he now saw the ground and the Loring Aerodrome terminal in high relief.
Formerly known as Loring Air Force Base, the facility in northeastern Maine had been converted to a civilian air facility through the Base Realignment and Closure Commission in 1994. Through the glasses, it was easy for David to discern even tiny details. Yet there was no color; everything was in black and white and varying shades of grey.
“What’s this, Doc?”
“It’s our Synthetic Aperture Radar or SAR,” Ranell replied. “The St. Paul is bouncing radio waves off the surface and generating this highly detailed three-dimensional image you’re seeing. We use the SAR for all-weather and night flying operations. It can even see through smoke and trees, like when there’s a forest fire. It’s very useful for search and rescue operations.”
“Wow,” David muttered, “this is really clear.”
“Yes, the St. Paul can generate highly detailed real-time maps of disaster sites and then transmit them to responding agencies. We’ve used this many times with great effect. I can’t transmit the data wirelessly to your XR glasses though, that’s why you had to plug in.”
The image before David’s eyes started to fade to solid white. “I think something’s wrong. I’m losing my picture,” he said.
“No, you’re not,” replied Ranell. “That’s what I wanted you to see, that’s the HAV John Burgoyne heading for the Strange Lake rare earth mine in Northern Quebec.”
“HAV?” David asked.
“Hybrid Air Vehicles,” Ranell explained. “They are a GML competitor based out of England.”
This brought a comment from Captain Pruitt. “I used to fly the St. Paul on that route, back when she was just the Sky Tug,” he said. “We were opening up the northern air lanes back then because they were more economical than the ice roads the truckers were using. Unfortunately, the St. Paul couldn’t compete with the new Airlander 50s like this one here.”
The enormous cargo ship continued on her slow, stately ascent, and David asked, “Why couldn’t the St. Paul compete?”
“Too small,” Ranell answered. “The John Burgoyne’s got a fifty-ton cargo capacity compared to our twenty-ton.”
“She’s huge,” David commented as he used his glasses to look the John Burgoyne over from bow to stern, “and that means she’s almost three times our size, right?”
“No,” Pruitt corrected. “That ship’s only about 100 feet longer than us.”
“How’s that possible?” David was surprised. “Isn’t the St. Paul almost 300 feet long? Are you telling me the John Burgoyne’s only 25 percent longer and yet she can carry almost three times as much payload?”
“It’s the square-cube law,” said Ranell.
“What’s that?”
“Well, imagine you have a cube that was one foot wide, one foot tall, and one foot deep. That would give you one single cubic foot of volume inside, right?”
“Yeah.” David nodded.
“Now imagine you had a cube that was twice the size; two feet, by two feet, by two feet. How many cubic feet of volume would it hold?”
“Oh, I see,” said David. “It would hold four cubic feet.” David didn’t realize that he had gotten his math wrong.
“No, Mr. Wilson, a two-foot square cube, would hold eight cubic feet of volume.” He emphasized the number and then waited patiently for David to do the math in his head and the light of understanding to dawn on him.
“Oh yeah, right,” David said sheepishly.
“That’s quite all right, Mr. Wilson. It’s counterintuitive. The envelope volume for the St. Paul is about 1.28 million cubic feet of helium. Captain, what do you think the envelope volume is for the John Burgoyne?”
Pruitt looked up from the controls. “There’s some variation among the Airlander 50s, just like all these big ships, because the John Burgoyne is custom made,” he replied. “But I’d say she comes in at around three and a half million, or thereabouts.”
“Why do you guys all talk in English measurements rather than metric?” Singh asked incredulously. “It’s the global standard.”
“Not here in America,” Pruitt quipped back.
David was about to give his opinion on the subject when Ranell caught his arm. “Ignore them. It’s an old debate.”
To an outside observer, David and Ranell would seem to be peering around foolishly inside the cabin of the St. Paul, but the onboard computer was feeding images to their XR glasses that appeared to be located below their feet, outside of the St. Paul’s walls. “This is how you can tell an HAV ship from a GML ship. You see that the John Burgoyne is double-lobed, while we are a three-lobed design?”
“Yes, I noticed that” David said, “and it looks like she has two propellers mounted directly behind her by the cargo bay, rather than having all four mounted along the side of the hull like we do.”
“Good, Mr. Wilson, what else do you see?”
“What is that cone-shaped structure on the front?”
“That’s another propeller, her bow thruster. They used it for precision flying and ground handling because they don’t have the ACLS system like we do.”
“They don’t?” David asked. “Then how do they land? Do they use wheels or something?”
“They use a kind of inflatable skid,” Ranell answered. “The skids run up and down the bottom of the airship and keep the gondola from impacting the ground during landings. During flight, the skids deflate and are pulled back up into the hull for better aerodynamics.”
“That setup is a lot cheaper and lighter than our ACLS,” Pruitt added. “But for ground handling, give me the ACLS every time.”
“I heard the new Airlanders are going to have the ACLS system, Captain.” This came from Singh.
“Really?” asked Pruitt. “I hadn’t heard that. Using the inflatable skid is one reason HAV was able to leapfrog over GML in the heavy cargo market. It took us a long time to perfect our ACLS technology for the Sky Freighters.”
“Sky Freighters are the next generation of GML heavy lift cargo airships.” Ranell filled David in on the details: “They have a seventy-ton cargo capacity. GML now operates four vessels of this class, and they are just starting to see a substantial return on investment. Unfortunately, HAV won the Strange Lake freight market. We’re operating in other areas, though.”
“Did you hear that GML just signed a letter of intent to start building one of the new Sky Liners?” Singh asked. He seemed to enjoy displaying his knowledge of the industry.
“What’s a Sky Liner?” David asked.
“Same basic design as the St. Paul.” Something sounded akin to euphoria in Singh’s voice. “But with a 500-ton cargo capacity and a price tag at close to two billion each. If Aeros doesn’t beat GML to the punch with their Aeroscraft ML86X, the Sky Liner will be the largest flying machine ever built.”