Dragonfly

By William Wardlaw

A secret project prior to WW2 is planned to keep the United States out of the war in Europe. A beautiful German test pilot, a unique aircraft with one deadly flaw. Before the war begins the plane disappears. Seventy-five years later, a writer, Dominick August, gets pulled into the search for the missing plane and his world starts to spin as the search turns deadly. Events are controlled by a secret organization that fears the discovery of the missing airplane will focus government attention on them and reveal their real function as international profiteers that operate under their own rules. A lovely woman, Laura, helps Dominick get started before she is whisked away by the FBI; a female Rear Admiral, tough, beautiful and a little mischievous pulls strings that may cause her to lose her position in the Navy, or worse. From Los Angeles to Washington D.C.to the small town in the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the desert air base in the Mojave Desert, the search moves steadily to its surprising conclusion.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781387154234

Book preview

Dragonfly

Dragonfly

A Novel by William Wardlaw

Copyright 2017 by William Wardlaw

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First Printing 2017

ISBN 978-1-387-15476-0

[e-mail]

Part 1

Chapter 1 - The Dragonfly

Burbank, California

Saturday, September 3, 1939

The pilot pulled open the side door and strode without hesitation into the well-lit hangar. It was three-thirty in the morning and the collar of the pilot’s battered leather flying jacket was pulled up against the damp coolness of the pre-dawn air. The leather aviator’s cap was worn with the ear-flaps folded up. The tall, slender pilot walked without hesitation across the swept and polished concrete surface toward the small clusters of men in the center to greet Glenwood Cannon, the owner of the Cannon Aircraft Company. This morning Cannon wore a black pin-stripe suit with a matching vest, a somber tie and a white shirt with a stiff collar. The twenty-five man construction crew, most of them dressed in their best attire, stood apart in small groups, maintaining a respectful silence as the two approached each other. Everything important that had needed to be said and done had already been said and done; all the hundreds of relevant questions had been asked and answered. It was time to test the perfection of the design, engineering and construction.

Cannon’s demeanor was solemn and the pilot accepted his extended hand, returned his handshake with a firm grip. The pilot was five inches taller than Cannon. Their eyes met, conveying an unspoken understanding.

He looked at his pilot for several long seconds. Well, Grissie, are you r-ready?

I am ready, Mr. Cannon. Griselda Volker Haas’s voice was unwavering, strong. She was an experienced pilot; but more than that, she was a test pilot; one of perhaps a few female test pilots in the United States. Her high cheekbones and blond hair, alert blue eyes and the slight hint of guttural modulation in her voice reflected her Germanic upbringing; her parents had arrived from Germany forty-five years ago; before the Great War had reconfigured Europe. She had spoken only German at home, English at school. Her parents had died six weeks apart when she was a teenage girl and her older brother Max raised her. He taught her how to fly in 1917, when she was a tall, lanky girl of seventeen. Max was dead, killed in 1923 in a fiery biplane crash while he was performing aerial acrobatics for a traveling air circus.

A year after Max’s death, she met Adolph Haas, a handsome young German who had flown a Fokker Triplane fighter during the war. He had been shot down over France. Badly wounded, he was captured and spent six months in a prisoner-of-war camp in England. English doctors amputated his mangled left leg just below his knee. Adolph’s flying days were over. He immigrated to the United States, met Griselda and they were married three months later. Unable to find meaningful work because of his disability and poor understanding of English, Adolph resolved to take up writing about his war experiences. Possessing only a basic understanding of English language usage, he soon realized he had no real ability as a writer. His long and often convoluted novels, hand written on blue-lined paper, were rebuffed and his manuscripts collected a depressing pile of rejection notices from publishers. Adolph began drinking heavily and became despondent; two years into their marriage, he disappeared into the night. Griselda heard that he had returned to Germany.

She let go of her boss’s hand and turned to survey her surroundings. In the center of the hangar sat the airplane: the Dragonfly.

It was like no airplane the world had ever seen: sleek, nearly seamless shiny metal; a single, long, triangular vertical stabilizer started just behind the clear Plexiglas canopy over the tiny cockpit and ended at the back end of the fuselage, where the tail of most planes would be. The wings were swept back, like right-triangles on each side of the fuselage. The nose of the airplane was an elongated, sharply pointed cone instead of the usual blunt engine cowling; the massive propellers that would power this unique airplane through the skies were in the back, behind and unseen by the pilot.

She approached the plane with deliberate concentration, her eyes absorbing all of the intricate details, even though she had watched with eager anticipation as the aircraft took shape over the last several months. It perched on three long-legged landing struts, one under each wing and one under the nose. It wasn’t a large plane; wing-tip to wing-tip it measured less than twenty feet and nose to propellers was about the same. She walked around the plane several times, touching, feeling, gliding her hands and finger-tips over the smooth duralumin surfaces, caressing the formed skin. She knew that just the evening before the crew had cleaned and waxed the metal surfaces until they shined like her mother’s silver tea service. She stretched to run her fingers over the varnished, six foot long propeller blades, stroking both the smooth leading and trailing edges. A small rolling ladder was already in place for her to climb up and look with the aid of a flashlight through an open inspection port into the engine compartment. Inside was the massive air-cooled V-16 engine; its turbocharger at the forward end would be spun by the engines exhaust. The complex gear mechanism at the rear of the engine would allow her to control the pitch, the bite, of the contra-rotating propellers. The engine was designed to develop over fifteen hundred horsepower.

She stepped down and without a word one of the mechanics replaced the panel and fastened it over the inspection port with six screws. He wiped the surface with a shop rag to remove their fingerprints and restore the shine. She continued her inspection of the airplane; the rudder, each wing, each of the landing gear struts, the elegant pointed nose, the stubby, two foot long wing-like canards near the front. She ran her hands and fingers along each crease, each edge, pausing occasionally to sweep a surface with her hand, like a lover’s caress, across some particular area to appreciate the smooth, nearly seamless construction. Her eyes searched every detail, looking for any tiny defect, but she was satisfied that the crew had already given the plane a thorough inspection before her arrival. However, it was her life that depended upon their sense of perfection, as they were well aware.

She stopped for a moment in front of the crescent-shaped openings that straddled the fuselage just behind the cockpit; they would direct cooling and combustion air to the engine. The scoops merged gracefully, almost sensually, into the overall sleek form. The carefully shaped and flush-riveted duralumin skin flowed elegantly into the leading edge of the wings and the vertical, triangular shaped fin that ran down the spine of the fuselage. The aircraft was a magnificent example of metal sculpture, a masterpiece fashioned with extraordinary care. It was a machine that invited its viewers to study it with pure, fascinated wonder.

She smiled to herself, nodded her satisfaction and climbed the rolling ladder leading to the cockpit. She stepped over the coaming and squirmed and squeezed her body into the tight space. The narrow, rudimentary seat provided only the barest of comforts; the thinly padded leather seat and back, built on an angular structure of aluminum, allowed only minimal movement of the pilot, now pressed in on three sides. She twisted to find a comfortable position, then with care, strapped herself in with leather belts across her lap and shoulders. She pulled them tight and tested them with a tug. The big Collins Radio Corporation transmitter and receiver with its collection of meters, dials and switches was directly behind the seat and out of sight; it was bolted into the forward bulkhead of the engine compartments.

Directly below the radio unit was a hollow that contained a bottle of compressed oxygen. Like the radio, it couldn’t be seen by the pilot. A small remote control communication panel with frequency switches and a plugged-in microphone was fastened on the right side, close to her right knee and just below the instrument panel. She reached for the umbilical cord that attached to her earphones, plugged it into the panel.

She moved the uniquely designed ‘w’ shaped control yoke and looked left and right, verified the corresponding elevator and aileron movements, then alternately depressed the rudder pedals and turned her head to peer toward the rear of the plane, observed the rudder shift from side to side at the back of the long, vertical fin.

She pulled the flaps of her leather aviator’s cap down and snapped the chin strap, making sure the ear phones that connected her to the two-way radio were secure against her ears. One of the mechanics approached with the rolling battery-cart; she watched as he connected the heavy electrical cables to the plane and nodded when he gave her a thumbs-up. She toggled the instrument panel switch to ‘on’ and observed that some of the gauges indicated new readings; they were the Dragonfly’s very first signs of life, her first detectable heart beats. In the radio unit behind her, the vacuum tubes began to warm and then in her earphones she heard the hiss of the receiver coming alive.

She put her feet on the brake pedals, shouted, Clear! and looked over both shoulders to make sure no one was near the big, contra-rotating propellers.

Clear! She shouted once again and then operated the starter switch, listened as the starter motor cranked the engine. The big V-16 emitted a high pitched, warbling whine for several seconds--then it fired and caught. It coughed and ran unevenly for several seconds before the un-muffled, earsplitting roar settled into a smooth, powerful cadence. The engine spewed a three-foot long cone of blue flames, like a huge welding torch, out of the stubby exhaust port.

The engine had been tested many times on the test stand, but this was the first time it was actually mounted in the airplane, the first time it was connected to the propellers. With her experienced ear she could identify the hundreds of individual components that comprised the engine; its turbocharger and the propeller gear box all worked in mechanical synchronization, becoming the heart and muscle of the aircraft. She nodded to herself. Yes! Der motor klingt gut! Without realizing it, she often thought and occasionally spoke in an amalgamation of English and German. ‘The engine sounds good’.

The big propellers behind her spun at idle speed, creating a noisy windstorm in the hangar. She motioned for the wheel chocks to be pulled clear. When she released pressure on the brakes, the airplane inched forward for the first time under its own power. Serious-faced Glenwood Cannon gave her a quick thumbs up and she responded with the same signal. Some of the construction crew stood as if at attention; others had their fingers crossed behind their backs, out of the pilot’s sight.

She reached overhead and pulled the Plexiglas canopy down, secured it with two snap fittings, then carefully powered the plane out of the hangar, across the broad concrete, carefully adjusting the turbocharger and propeller pitch controls, listening to the corresponding change in the sounds behind her. Free of the encompassing hangar for the first time, the plane seemed to have transformed into a living creature, curious and excited about the vast and novel surroundings in which it suddenly found itself.

She unclipped the radio microphone, held it close to her lips, pressed the button. Burbank Ground, this is Cannon Experimental, request taxi instructions for takeoff.

The response crackled in her ears. Cannon, you are cleared to runway 26 Right, altimeter setting is 29.5, wind 012 at three. Hold short of the runway and contact tower on channel two when ready for takeoff.

Burbank Ground, cleared for runway 26 Right, altimeter 29.5, wind 012 at three. Hold short of the runway and contact tower on channel two. She adjusted the small knob on her altimeter to reflect the barometric setting provided by the control tower.

Griselda adjusted the throttle control and watched the propeller tachometer; the complex gear box between the engine and propellers provided the unique co-axial drive and reduced the propeller speed. She adjusted it to 1,800 RPM. The two propellers spun in opposite directions; it was a fairly recent technical stratagem designed to improve the propeller efficiency and overcome the torque of the engine. It took only a few minutes for Griselda to guide the plane to the holding area near the end of the runway. She pressed the brakes and the plane rocked gently to a stop. The plane vibrated and shook with restrained power, seemingly eager to explore its new environment. Griselda shut her eyes and reached out to touch each of the individual controls, softly mouthing their names: throttle, turbocharger boost, cockpit heat, and the rest. Her life would depend upon these controls. She scanned the instrument panel one more time, committing to memory the exact location of each of the fifteen critically important gauges. Green lights indicated that the landing gear was extended and locked. She reached and double checked that the canopy was shut and securely latched, that the required navigation lights were switched on, that the engine heat baffles were withdrawn. All checked normal.

She switched the radio to channel two. Burbank tower, this is Cannon Experimental. Holding short.

Cannon Experimental, taxi into position and hold.

Burbank, Cannon. Taxi into position and hold.

She urged the plane onto the runway. White lights bordered each side of the runway, seeming to disappear in the distance. Pressed the brakes.

Burbank tower. Cannon Experimental. Holding in position.

A moment later: Cannon Experimental, you are cleared for takeoff. Good luck.

Cannon cleared for takeoff. Thank you.

Dragonfly was ready to soar for the first time.

The recently sanctioned Civil Aeronautics Authority had little if any control over the flights of experimental aircraft, and control towers at commercial airports were technically still in their infancy. The main improvement was the radio communication with the airplanes during takeoffs and landings.

She pressed her feet hard on the brake pedals, throttled the big engine up to speed. She felt the plane lunge against the brakes like a powerful race horse anxious to break from the starting gate. She had piloted the five powerful race planes that Cannon Aircraft had constructed, but this airplane felt much different, more an intimate mélange of machinery and its human pilot. Whereas the race planes had huge engines, they were designed for short-term raw power and didn’t have the feeling of speed, soaring endurance and fluidity of this airplane.

Outside, the eastern sky along the mountain ridge was just beginning to turn deep purple. Most of Burbank’s twenty-thousand citizens would still be in bed on this early Saturday morning. Beverly would be at the bedroom window, listening for the sound of the big engine; Griselda smiled at the thought.

The weather seemed to be promising a warm, sunny day and some folks might be leaving in a few hours to spend a Saturday at the nearby beach. A few might already be up and around and hear the unusual high-pitched snarl of the contra-rotating propellers; some might even move to a window to try to get a glimpse of what was creating the noise in the early dawn. Most observers would see nothing except the fast moving red and green navigation lights and perhaps the blue blowtorch flame of the Dragonfly’s exhaust.

Without access to the sophisticated wind tunnel tests used by some of the major airplane companies, the Chief Engineer had mathematically calculated that the delta-winged airplane needed to reach 125 miles per hour for a safe take-off; she guessed Sam probably padded the figure with an extra ten percent safety factor. She smiled; Sam would be looking after her safety.

She checked right and left, looked at the length of runway stretching before her. She wasn’t a religious person, didn’t say a prayer before she started. Her mind flashed through the years of flying experience that had put her in this pilot seat; flying was second nature for her, almost as easy and natural as walking. She briefly considered the Chief Engineer’s single, major concern, then erased the thought from her mind. Now was not the time--

She looked both ways once again, released the brakes and felt the plane lunge forward eagerly. Unrestrained, it rolled easily, quickly picked up speed. The acceleration pushed her deep into the seat. The tires thumped a quickening rhythm on the recently installed macadam runway.

She felt a gust of wind nudge the plane from the right, adjusted the rudder to keep the plane heading straight down the center of the runway. Her experienced mind was recording every second, each sound and feel as the plane gained speed, approaching take off speed. The air-speed indicator passed 120, moved to 122 then 125 and Griselda pulled back gently on the control yoke. The nose lifted and the nose wheel clunked hollowly when its shock absorber hit the bottom. Then the wing wheels lifted clear of the runway.

Dragonfly was airborne on her maiden voyage!

The ground dropped away quickly. At one-hundred feet Griselda operated the switches that electrically retracted the landing gear and tucked them securely into place within the wings and pointed nose. Three seconds later the green indicator lights turned to red; all three wheels were up, stowed and locked, completing the airplane’s transformation into a graceful air-creature. Dragonfly climbed easily, smoothly gaining altitude. Griselda could not help smiling. Ah! You’re a good girl, Dragonfly!

Almost as if it was responding to the pilot’s whispered comment, the airplane shivered delicately as it passed through an unseen layer of cold air.

The sun was just beginning to paint the eastern sky light purple. Streetlights were still lit as the town faded into the distance below. There would be very little public awareness that a revolutionary type of aircraft was flying a half a mile over their city.

She let the airplane climb gradually to three thousand feet. Her eyes roamed over the instrument panel; all readings were in the normal range; her air speed registered 295 miles per hour and was still climbing. The compass showed her heading to be 260 degrees. Ahead were the Santa Monica Mountains and the blue-black Pacific Ocean with its ribbon of white sandy beach where the coastal mountains dropped abruptly into the sea. To her left, San Vincente Peak slid by, a dark shadow surrounded by streetlights that would soon be blinking off. A few homes showed specks of light through windows; early risers were up and around, some going to work, others welcoming the weekend.

She listened with sensitive ears, conditioned by her years of flying experience, for the slightest sound that could indicate something was not as it should be; perhaps some minor piece of machinery that could be running too hot, or the tiny rattle of a loose bolt, or a control cable thrumming like a guitar string in some remote part of the fuselage or wing.

Though rigorously tested on the test stand, this was the big sixteen cylinder engine’s first time under load in the aircraft, its first time off the ground. Two banks of eight big cylinders each; its hoarse, metallic snarl was reduced to a restrained, muted roar by the airstream passing through the engine compartment. The engine, nearly six feet long--eight feet long if you included the turbocharger and gear box--was running smoothly with virtually no vibration. Her ear was tuned to the meshing of the hundreds of engine parts, valves, pistons, connecting rods, as they moved in carefully engineered mechanical synchronization. She could hear the near super-sonic whine of the turbocharger as the engine exhaust gasses spun the turbine up to speed--over twenty-thousand revolutions a minute. In turn, the turbine spun a compressor, forcing huge quantities of air into the cylinders so that they could burn more fuel, significantly increasing the power of the engine.

She heard a tiny hiss of cool, morning air finding egress somewhere in the cockpit; she would report that to the engineers. The Plexiglas canopy provided almost a complete 360 degrees of visibility; on each side the leading edge of the wings angled back quickly; wings that were smoothly sculpted triangles of metal that housed the fuel tanks.

The view directly ahead was not encumbered by an engine cowling and cooling fins or a spinning propeller; instead the fuselage funneled into a stiletto-like point designed to slice smoothly through the air creating the least possible turbulence. The unique W-shaped control yoke replaced the familiar control stick most pilots had experienced. She had spent hours in the partially finished cockpit during construction, practicing to get the location and feel of the controls, mentally imaging the airplane soaring, twisting and turning.

This morning’s tests were to simply verify the basic design parameters of take-off speed, cruising speed controllability and landing speed. Her rate of climb, maximum air-speed and maximum altitude would be tested soon enough.

She made a broad, sweeping turn to the left over the beach where the waves were crashing, the same beach where she and Beverly often spent dreamy Sunday afternoons bathing in the warm sun before they retreated to her house for the evening.

The red light indicating the nose landing gear was stowed and locked blinked to green without warning. A green light indicated that the nose wheel was down and locked into position as it would be when landing! She frowned. Surely, if the wheel and strut were actually down, she would have noticed a change in the handling of the airplane. Maybe it was an indicator light problem. She made another turn to the left, this time banking steeply. A few seconds later, the light switched back to red. Okay, it was most likely a loose wire or bad connection. Anyway, it was time to return to the airport. Of course, she’d report the problem to the engineers.

She flew a reverse course past the parallel rows of lights illuminating the runway of the Burbank airport.

Burbank Tower, this is Cannon Aircraft Experimental.

Burbank Tower. The control tower replied.

Burbank Tower. This is Cannon Experimental five miles south east of the airport at 4,000. Request landing instructions.

Cannon Experimental. Cleared to runway 26 Left, wind 012 at seven, altimeter 29.5. Report downwind for a left pattern.

Burbank, Cannon. Report downwind for left pattern.

She did another shallow left turn, found the airport amid the sea of street lights, performed another left turn, adjusted until she was in line with the double strips of lights and began her landing approach.

Burbank Tower. Cannon Experimental. Downwind for 26 Left.

Cannon, you are cleared to land 26 Left. Contact ground control when clear of the runway.

Cannon cleared to land 26 Left. Contact ground control when clear.

She adjusted the propeller pitch and listened to the change of sound behind her, sensed the plane slow slightly. She felt the gusts of wind buffet the plane. Altitude was 1,200 feet. She had one hand on the throttle, ready to push it forward.

She operated the two landing gear switches. The light indicating the wing wheels went from red to green; they were down and locked in place. The light indicating the nose gear remained red.

Griselda frowned. What’s the matter, mien little beauty? You don’t want to go back home yet? She operated the switch to raise the wing wheels and the green light switched to red. She jiggled the nose wheel switch. The light remained red. She glanced at the altimeter. 1,000 feet and the plane was closing on the runway at over 250 miles an hour. She needed a little more time--

Burbank Tower. Cannon Experimental. I need to abort this landing.

Cannon Experimental. Burbank Tower. Do you have a problem?

Burbank. Cannon. I may have a nose gear problem.

Cannon Experimental. Burbank Tower. I understand your last. You are clear to abort the landing. We have no other aircraft in the area. Let us know how we can help you.

Griselda smiled. Burbank Tower. Cannon. I understand that. Let me try a few things first.

Cannon, Burbank Tower. Good luck.

She pulled back slightly on the yoke, throttled the engine back up to full power and flew over the runway at 1,000 feet, turned left and waggled the wings, attempting to free the nose gear. She tried the switches once again; nose wheel still showed a red light. She felt the handling of the airplane change slightly; she felt certain that all three of the landing gears were down. Okay--was the problem in the landing gear mechanism, or was it the warning light circuit? Was the nose gear actually locked in the down position? She dared not land the airplane with the nose wheel not extended and locked. She operated the switch once again to retract the nose gear; the light remained red.

She did a half-roll to the right and put the airplane on its back, then waggled the wings again, not as gently this time. She completed the roll and operated the switch. No good. She repeated the maneuver, tried the switch again. Two green lights! All three landing struts indicated they were down and locked. She nodded; was the problem fixed, would the nose gear collapse when she landed, or could it just be a loose wire or bad connection?

Burbank Tower. Cannon Experimental. I think we’re okay now. I may have a landing gear indicator problem. Request landing instructions.

The tower replied and she once again turned into her approach to the runway. She pulled back the throttle to half throttle and changed the propeller pitch some, pulled the nose up, watched as the air speed dropped--200--150--140--Pulled the nose up a little more--Neighborhoods and vacant fields and streets and farms flashed by quickly under the wings; the altitude dropped--1,500--1,000--750--500--The ground below was lit by the early twilight. The sun had not yet made its full appearance.

Right hand on the throttle, ready to apply full power--left hand on the control yoke, holding the plane centered on the runway--wind from her right tried to move the plane left of the runway--a little right rudder to compensate--

The white landing marks on the runway came into view; she raised the nose a little more.

The nose landing gear light suddenly turned red. Moments later the light turned again to green.

What kind of spiel are you playing, mien little Dragonfly? The warning light stayed green. Was the nose landing gear actually down and securely locked? If it was not, the strut could buckle; she would probably plow the nose of the plane into the runway, possibly flipping the plane over onto its back. It would be a nasty, disastrous, perhaps fatal crash.

She was traveling at 135 mph when she flashed over the end of the runway and gingerly let the wing wheels touch the runway without a bump. Her right hand caressed the throttle, ready to shove it forward at the first indication of trouble. She kept the nose raised as the speed slowly dropped, held her breath as she allowed the nose to come down very slowly. The nose wheel made gentle contact with the asphalt runway; moments later she felt the shock absorber take up the weight--the nose slowly settled--and it held. She eased the throttle back to idle, gently applied the brakes, saw the warning strips flash by, watched as her speed continued to drop until it finally reached twenty-five miles an hour, slow enough to allow her to safely turn the craft back toward the hangar. Only a few stars were visible as the pre-dawn sky began to lighten. It was going to be a nice day in Burbank.

The cluster of employees of Cannon Aircraft stood outside the hangar, smiling broadly as they applauded the first successful flight of the Dragonfly after seven and a half months of construction. When she got out of the cockpit, she greeted Glenwood Cannon with a hearty handshake and told Sam Parkinson what had happened with the nose gear. The Chief Engineer immediately put the team to work.

Three hours later Parkinson relayed to Griselda that the engineers and mechanics had gone over every inch of the electrical wiring that controlled the nose wheel. They didn’t find anything wrong. To be on the safe side, Sam ordered the electric motor and its control relays that raised and lowered the nose gear be replaced. They would test the circuitry thoroughly before the next test flight.

Griselda spent the rest of Saturday with Cannon and the engineers in a debriefing session. They examined every move she had made, every control she had adjusted or operated, every airplane sound and vibration during the twenty minute test flight. She was familiar with the procedure and could talk through the flight minute by minute, and if necessary, second by second. She was a damn good test pilot--she had to be; Cannon was paying her $2,500 a year, almost twice the annual salary a high school teacher reportedly earned and more than three times that of the airplane mechanics who had assembled and worked on the plane.

She could hardly wait to share today’s experience with Beverly--

Chapter 2 - The Legend

There was a legend ascribed to the Dragonfly that circulated among employees at Cannon Aircraft Company. Griselda listened to the familiar story as one of the aircraft fabricators repeated it for a new hire as they sat in the employee lunchroom.

According to the story, he began, the Dragonfly came to be as the result of a few minutes of lighthearted monkey business by a first year aeronautical engineering student at California Polytechnic Institute. One warm afternoon in May 1938, during a period of casual class discussion, the student had folded a single sheet of paper into a typical dart-shaped paper airplane and launched it into the air. It looped once before it crashed nose-first into the floor, much to the entertainment of his fellow students. The story teller made ample use of his hands and arms to enliven his presentation.

Those around the story teller chuckled and he continued. He straightened the bent nose, made a few adjustments to the trailing edges of the arrow-like wings and the triangular rudder and used a sliding paperclip to adjust the center of balance. On the fourth toss the paper airplane flew perfectly straight the length of the classroom and glided in for a flawless landing. The class burst into applause and a few cheered.

The story teller looked around at the faces. The student said, ‘Hell, all it needs is a motor and a goddamned propeller and it would fly’.

Griselda smiled and the workmen around her chuckled.

The story teller continued. "The professor, Doctor Thomas G. Wyley, had in fact been teaching this same class for eleven years and had seen many a paper airplane launched in the classroom. This time, he watched and listened with unexpected interest, perhaps triggered by an article he had recently read in a technical journal. According to the journal, an aircraft with triangular wings had been designed in Germany by Alexander Lippisch, a pioneer in aerodynamics. Lippisch built and first flew his triangle shaped-wing aircraft in 1931. Four later versions of what Lippisch called his ‘Delta’ aircraft continued to incorporate improvements but in spite of the changes, the airplane was very difficult to handle at low speeds. Lippisch’s Delta project died from lack of governmental interest and cuts in research funding as international tensions grew in Europe.

That evening Wyley filled and tamped Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco into his pipe, lit it and sat at the kitchen table with his slide rule, pencil and a pad of paper. You know, engineers always have their pipe and slide rule handy! His listeners chuckled. "Over the next three hours he calculated the rough dimensions, wing area, wing span, weight and horsepower requirements for a full-sized, delta-wing aircraft. It would be of monocoque construction, with no internal framework; its strength and shape determined by its aluminum skin, similar to the exoskeleton of insects--like a dragonfly. It would incorporate a single seat, triangle-shaped wings and a vertical stabilizer like the paper airplane, and a pusher propeller turned by a powerful engine mounted behind the cockpit. When Lippisch finally leaned back in his chair it all seemed quite possible, at least hypothetically. He spent the next several evenings rechecking and refining his figures. Using his drafting table he made detailed scaled drawings with dimensions--front, side and top views--of such an aircraft. Finally, he sat back and surveyed his work; an airplane of this design would be very fast and highly maneuverable.

"Wyley typed a carefully worded cover letter, attached his calculations and sketches and mailed the package to the Chief of Aeronautics, United States Army Air Corps, Washington, D.C.

Six weeks later he received a brief, formally worded letter from the Air Corps. In so many words it said: ‘Thank you, Professor Wyley. We’ll take it from here.’ Wyley was sure that his radical suggestion had fallen into a giant black pit, never again to see the light of day. The listeners looked at one another and chuckled. Many had experienced at some point in their life the vexation of dealing with the federal government.

The story-teller looked around at the intent faces. "However, the United States Army Air Corps was, in fact, very interested. With one eye on the unsettled situation in Europe as well as Japan’s aggression in the western Pacific and China, the Army Air Corps was already making inquiries into developing and manufacturing a single-seat, high-speed aircraft to supplement or replace the cadre of clumsy fighter and pursuit aircraft currently comprising the inventories of both the United States Army and Navy. They needed a new airplane, given the increasing probability of war, to put into aerial combat against Germany’s Messerschmitt ME-109s and Japan’s new Mitsubishi Zeroes; both types were faster and more maneuverable than anything in America’s arsenal.

The design and supporting technical information provided by Professor Wyley appeared to be a possible solution. The delta-wing construction project was quickly awarded to the Cannon Aircraft Company and was designated ‘Project Dragonfly’ by the Army Air Force. The project was classified confidential, and we all got these great jobs. A round of laughter followed as the men got up from their lunch break and went back to work.

Cannon Aircraft Company was located in two adjacent corrugated tin aircraft hangars off Vanowen Street at the Burbank, California’s public airport. The big sliding doors on Cannon’s hangars had excellent access to the two 3,600 foot long asphalt-paved runways. The twelve year old company was owned by Glenwood Phenley Cannon, an entrepreneur who had inherited a small fortune. In the late twenties, at the age of thirty one, he began designing and building race cars. The Cannon Racer of limited fame was designed and built by Cannon in 1933. The long-hooded vehicle was a luxury two-seat race car built for movie star James Downey. Powered by an eight cylinder in-line engine that produced 225 horsepower, the car was raced by Downey in illegal races. Speeds often exceeded 125 MPH on the narrow streets of Los Angeles. Downey wrecked the car twice; the second time he was thrown from the car and killed. The wrecked car was restored and sold but was never raced again; it had found its way into someone’s private collection.

After hiring a college friend and aircraft engineer named Samuel Mace Parkinson in 1934, Cannon Company switched to making small, single engine airplanes. By 1937 the company employed the Chief Engineer Parkinson, three assistant engineers (one aeronautical, one mechanical, one electrical) and a clerk. An electrician, a dozen aircraft fabricators with experience in aluminum shaping and riveted aluminum construction and another half dozen with various necessary backgrounds brought the number up to twenty-four.

And the test pilot made it twenty-five.

Glenwood Aviation subcontracted two major components of the Dragonfly. The massive engine was built by Manteeka Engines, located in Columbus, Ohio. Manteeka had supplied engines for several of Cannon’s airplanes and race cars. Manteeka had recently announced the development of a turbo-charged air cooled V-16 engine, dubbed the ME-16. It was somewhat smaller and much lighter than the Duesenberg Model H V-16. The more compact Manteeka engine was made of duralumin, an alloy consisting of aluminum with small percentages of copper, magnesium and manganese. The alloy is considerably stronger than pure aluminum. The ME-16 displaced a massive 2086 cubic inches and developed 960 horsepower; turbo-charged, the engine would develop over 1525 horsepower.

In addition to the engine, Cannon sub-contracted the design and construction of the variable pitch, contra-rotating propeller transmission units to the well-known McComb & Downey Aeroprop Company, located in Long Beach, California. M&D Aeroprop had manufactured all of Cannon’s previous propeller units. Each blade of the four-blade propellers was six feet in length, constructed of close-grained hard maple. Driven by a single coaxial shaft, the pitch of the propeller blades was pilot-variable through a complex arrangement of gears and electrical motors.

Glenwood Cannon had graduated from San Diego University with a mechanical engineering degree. Three years after graduating, he married June Hathaway, whom he had met while in college. The marriage seemed destined for failure and they divorced after three years of prickly bickering; there were no children. June blamed Glenwood’s all-consuming work. Two years later she married a would-be Hollywood actor; that marriage spun out of control and crashed in a little over a year.

Glenwood had inherited the family genes: medium height, a tendency toward a pot-belly, sloped shoulders, a long narrow face, coal black hair with a prominent widow’s peak and an inclination to stammer slightly when he became uneasy.

When the after-flight meeting was over, Glenwood placed a long distance call to his older brother Tremont, in Washington D.C. He waited patiently as the telephone company long distance operators relayed the information from point to point. Finally, the phone rang in Washington.

Hello! The brusque voice was that of Senator Tremont J. Cannon.

Good e-evening, Tremont.

Oh, it’s you! How did the test go?

Passed with f-flying colors! Looks like the Army’s g-going to get a new plane!

Well. Glad to hear the good news, Glenwood. The Senator’s voice sounded tired. I knew that it would.

We’ve got to run a lot more t-tests before we hand it over to the Air Force. And--we’re still w-waiting on the Army on that l-last engineering issue. I t-thought maybe you could use your influence to m-motivate them back there--.

I don’t know, Glenwood. I’m trying to stay out of this--I’m sure you understand the position I’m in, being a Senator and all. I must remain above reproach.

Y-yes, I understand, Tremont. He paused. We’ve g-got a fine airplane here. I think we will meet all the Air Force’s s-specifications, Tremont.

You’ll let me know?

Of course. Silence for several seconds. How are your k-kids?

Well, they’re getting ready to start school again.

They’re g-growing up, Tremont--

Yeah, they are.

There was another long silence. Finally Glenwood Cannon said, better let you go. It’s l-late back there.

Okay.

I’ll call as soon as we’re finished t-testing.

Okay. Bye for now--

Yeah. Bye--

Chapter 3 - Potomac Knights

Chief Engineer Sam Parkinson arrived home a little after eight o’clock, parked his four year old Ford on the parallel concrete strips that served as a driveway, walked through the front door, hung his fedora on the coat tree and immediately scooped up his two daughters, four years old Sally and Tabatha, a year younger.

Did it fly, Daddy? Sally inquired seriously as she gazed directly into his eyes. Did it fly?

It flew beautifully, Sal. Just like I knew it would. He gave the two girls a kiss and set them down so that he could hug his wife, Julia, who had stood back waiting for the evening ritual to run its course.

I’m so happy for you, Sam, she whispered as they embraced. It must be a great relief.

Everyone’s really pleased, Julia. We’ve done a lot in a very short period of time. He paused and shook his head. But we still have a lot of testing ahead of us.

I wish I could see it, Sam. She peered up at his face. Julia was petite; two inches under five feet tall, wore her brunette hair cut stylishly short. Sam stood four inches over six feet, was slim with brown hair parted down the center and had a carefully trimmed beard already tinted with silver. He wore round, wire rimmed glasses. Julia thought he looked quite scholarly in his suit and tie and especially so when he wore his gray fedora.

You know that the government wants to keep this whole project confidential--away from the public’s eye, Julie. But, he frowned for a moment, maybe I can take a photograph of it--secretly--just for us.

Julia smiled up at her engineer husband. That would be wonderful, Sam. I was beginning to think that you were spending all of your time with another woman. She smiled. It’s good to know that it’s only an airplane. She gently touched his beard. Maybe you can get rid of this awful beard, now.

Julie, I’ve worn this awful beard for eleven years. I think it’s here to stay.

*  *  *

When Griselda Haas reached her small bungalow in nearby Glendale she peeled off her leather jacket and carefully hung it up. She stretched and yawned before she dropped into the big, deep overstuffed chair in the corner. She felt bone weary after the exhilaration of the early morning test flight followed by the daylong debriefing session. Though the flight had produced a few engineering and construction problems, for the most part, the plane had behaved just as it should. But the engineers had asked what seemed like hundreds of technical questions covering nearly every move she had made in the cockpit. She had answered the questioning easily, provided descriptions and details that the engineers scribbled into their always present notebooks. As far as she could determine, since the nose gear problem had already been addressed, there was little that needed immediate corrective action. The engineers were simply being engineers and they wanted to know everything down to the slightest, smallest detail. She smiled to herself as she thought perhaps they were vicariously flying the plane as if they were at the controls. The continuous stream of questions went through the what, how, where, when, why spectrum. They covered in detail the airframe, the engine, the controls, the cockpit and the instrumentation. It was a fatiguing meeting but at last it was over. When the engineers had put down their pencils and closed their notebooks, Glenwood Cannon stood at the head of the table and made a little unprepared speech, complementing the engineers for their dedication to the task. Then he turned to Griselda.

Grissie, he had started, I cannot even b-begin to tell you what a wonderful job you have done as our test pilot! You do what none of the rest of us can do. Your rock steady, c-careful, intelligent handling of the plane--of the ‘Dragonfly’--has p-proved that the fundamental concept, the unique design, the skillful engineering and the precise construction is flawless. We have several more hours of tests and I know we can depend on you as we move forward with even m-more demanding tests. We all thank you, Griselda!

The engineers had moved their chairs back, stood and clapped loudly. Griselda had sat quietly, smiled at their enthusiastic acclaim, nodded and playfully blew a kiss to each one.

She