Dorothy Dixon and the Mystery Plane. Wayne Dorothy

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СКАЧАТЬ of fog below, an immediate landing must be made before it becomes thick enough to interfere seriously with the approach.’ Heavens, what a fool I am! Now that we’re in it, though, I might as well see if it thins out nearer the water.”

      Her compass told her she was flying almost due west. Throttling down the engine, she pushed her stick still farther forward, at the same time applying right aileron and hard right rudder. As the proper gliding angle was reached, she neutralized her elevators and held the nose up as necessary. Next, she checked her wing with the ailerons and eased her rudder pressure. Then having made a quarter-spiral with a change in course of 90 degrees, she applied left aileron and hard left rudder until the wings were level laterally, and with her stick still held forward, continued to descend in a straight glide until she was within fifteen hundred feet of the water. The plane was heading directly back across Long Island Sound toward the Connecticut shore.

      But each moment the fog seemed to grow more dense. To land blindly meant a certain nose-in and was out of the question. And even if the mist did not hold to the water’s level, to fly lower meant the chance of striking the mast or spar of a ship, a lighthouse, perhaps, or anything else that came her way.

      “We’re up against it, Wispy,” she murmured, opening the throttle and pulling back her stick. “If we can’t go down, at least we can ‘go above,’ as they say in the Navy. Beat it for the heavens, my dear. This beastly fog can’t run all the way to Mars!”

      Dorothy was not frightened, although she knew how serious was her predicament. No pilot likes flying blind in a fog. With the knowledge that what one sees, one hits, it is a nerve-wracking experience.

      But Dorothy’s nerves were good – none better – and she sent her plane into a long, steady climb, hoping for the best and keeping her vivid imagination well within control.

      Headed into the north, she continued her climb, leveling off every few thousand feet to ease the strain on her engine. When the altimeter marked thirteen thousand she began to worry, for the service ceiling of her plane was but two thousand higher. The cold damp of the thick mist penetrated like a knife. Hemmed in by the dank grey walls, she could barely distinguish the nose of her ship. The active needles of the altimeter and rate of climb indicator were the only visible signs that Will-o’-the-Wisp was moving at all.

      Fourteen thousand feet – intense physical discomfort, added to the nervous strain, were becoming intolerable. Dorothy clenched her chattering teeth in an effort to retain her control. Then with a suddenness astonishing, the fog parted and she sailed into clear air.

      Below her the heavy mist swirled and rolled like a sluggish sea, grey-yellow streaked with dirty streamers, while directly ahead loomed a towering mass of cotton-like clouds rising tier upon tier as far as she would see.

      A quick glance over her shoulder and to the sides, brought forth the fact that this small pocket of free air was entirely surrounded by similar cloud formations. There was no time for thought. Automatically, her hand clasping the stick shot forward, bringing down the nose to the position of level flight, and she drove the amphibian straight at the thunderhead. Immediately afterward the plane passed into the cloud, and like a leaf caught in an inverted maelstrom, it was whipped out of her control.

      Gripped by tremendous air forces, the amphibian was shot up and sideways, at a speed that burned Dorothy’s lungs. Tossed about like a rag doll, with her safety-belt almost cutting her body in two, she was thrown hither and yon with the plane, blind, and without the slightest idea as to her position.

      Never in her wildest nightmares had she dreamed that a heavy plane, weighing close to four thousand pounds when empty, could be tossed about in such fashion by currents of the air.

      For a space of time that seemed years, she was entirely away from the controls. But gradually, with infinite effort and in spite of the whirling jolts of her air steed, Dorothy managed to hook her heels under the seat. A second later she had caught the stick and was pushing it forward into the instrument board.

      Will-o’-the-Wisp reared like an outlawed bronco, then dived until the airspeed indicator showed one hundred and sixty-five miles per hour. Still her downward speed was less than the rate of the upward draft, for the rate of climb indicator told the frenzied girl that the plane was being lifted fourteen hundred feet per minute.

      Still diving at 45 degrees, the phenomenal force of the updraft carried the plane to the mushroom top of the cloud, where with a jar like an elevator hitting the ceiling, it was flung forth into the outer air.

       Chapter V

      HIDE AND SEEK

      The strong air current which spread horizontally over the thunderhead blew Dorothy’s plane sideways and away from the cloud. An instant later it was roaring downward in the thin air, quite beyond her control, a self-propelled projectile rushing to its doom.

      While shooting upward in the cloud, the violent and intensely rapid gyrations of the airship caused her safety belt to become unclasped, and had her parachute not caught in the cowling, she must have been flung clear of the plane to a horrible death far below.

      With her heels still hooked beneath the pilot’s seat, she wrenched the parachute loose. Then she closed the throttle and half-suffocated by the force of the wind and lack of breathable oxygen, she commenced to pull the stick slowly backward.

      A glance at the altimeter showed a height of eighteen thousand feet – three air miles above earth – and three thousand feet above Will-o’-the-Wisp’s service ceiling.

      Notwithstanding the shut-off engine, the speed of the diving plane was terrific. Dorothy felt the grinding jar of the wind-strained wings as the nose began to rise in answer to the pull of the elevators; and wondered helplessly if they would hold.

      The air pressure was agony to her eardrums. Her head reeled. She was well-nigh exhausted. She no longer cared very much what happened.

      The plane dropped into a blanket of fog. She felt the wet mist on her face, refreshing and reanimating her. Suddenly she realized that her parachute was starting to fill and would shortly pull her out of the cockpit. With her free hand she reached under the seat and brought forth a sheath knife. A frenzied second later she had rid herself of the flapping bag. As it flew overboard, she tightened her safety belt and placed her cramped feet back on the steering pedals.

      Though still fog-blind, she could at least breathe comfortably now as the plane lessened speed in descent. Will-o’-the-Wisp still shook and groaned, but no longer fought the pull of the stick. Up came the nose, slowly but surely and with her ailerons functioning once more, Dorothy gained control and sent the plane into a normal glide. The altimeter marked five thousand feet. The dive had been over two miles long.

      Another fifteen hundred feet and gradually the mist lightened until it became mere wisps of smoky cloud. Long Island Sound had been left behind. Below lay the wooded hills and valleys of the Connecticut ridge country, cloaked in multi-shaded green. As she still headed north, Dorothy knew now that she had been blown beyond New Canaan. She gave the plane hard right rudder and right aileron and sent it swinging into a long half spiral, which, completed, headed her south again. Almost directly below, she recognized the Danbury Fair Grounds, with home just twenty miles away.

      Again her hand sought the throttle and as Will-o’-the-Wisp snorted, then roared, Dorothy breathed a thankful sigh. Fifteen minutes later she had housed her plane in its hangar, and was limping up the porch steps of her home.

      Lizzie, the Dixons’ servant, met her in the hall.

      “Whatever is the matter, Miss Dorothy? You’ve had an accident – you’re СКАЧАТЬ