CHAPTER 5 – A LONG-DELAYED PROJECT
10:11 (Washington Time)
Monday, May 6, 1985 ‘C’
326 South Grove Street, Aurora Hills
Arlington, Virginia, U.S.A.
Ingrid had to carry her daughter inside their home after their taxi had parked in its driveway, as Nancy was fast asleep, dead tired after their long air trip back to the United States. Letting the taxi driver bring their luggage inside their house in Arlington, which was within sight of the huge structure of the Pentagon, Ingrid went up to Nancy’s bedroom and gently put her down in her bed, taking off her shoes and covering her. Going back down to ground level, Ingrid then helped the taxi driver finish to carry inside the five large musical instrument cases they had brought from Isfahan, then generously paid the driver and thanked him. Ingrid’s next action was to go ring at the door of their neighbors, the Loomis. Carolyn Loomis answered the ring after a few seconds, smiling on seeing that it was Ingrid at her door.
‘’Ingrid! You are back from overseas! How did it go?’’
‘’It was great, Carolyn! Iran in particular was really nice and very interesting. Did I get a lot of mail during my two-week trip?’’
‘’Quite a few envelopes actually, plus your daily newspapers. But come in, while I go get your mail.’’
‘’Thank you!’’
Stepping inside and closing the door behind her, Ingrid then followed her 59-year-old neighbor to her lounge, where she waited while Carolyn went inside her kitchen. Ingrid had first met the Loomis some thirty years ago, when she had bought her house in Aurora Hills after a two-year posting in Germany. At that time, the Loomis had two young children, Jimmy and Annie, who had quickly become good friends of a then young Hien, Ingrid’s adopted Vietnamese daughter. Now, both Jimmy and Annie had grown up to adulthood and had moved out of their family home, like Hien. However, Carolyn and Greg Loomis still lived next door to Ingrid’s house, with Greg now only years away from retirement as a federal justice prosecutor.
Carolyn Loomis soon returned with a plastic bag half full with envelopes, magazines and newspapers, giving the bag to Ingrid.
‘’Here you go, Ingrid. Are you still on vacation, or are you due to go back to work soon?’’
‘’I am still technically on vacation for four more weeks, although I am ready to answer the call if the White House would need me for some kind of emergency. I accumulated a lot of paid vacation time during my five-year trip in Space aboard the PROMETHEUS.’’
‘’So, what are you planning to do during those remaining four weeks of vacation?’’
‘’Well, Nancy and I just visited Germany, Great Britain and Iran. I think that it is high time that I show the United States to my daughter: right now, she is more familiar with the Saturn System than with her own country.’’
That quip made Carolyn smile in amusement.
‘’Now, that is an unusual statement. Your cute little Nancy has had quite a remarkable life up to now.’’
‘’And it is only the beginning of it, Carolyn.’’ replied proudly Ingrid. ‘’Thanks for collecting my mail.’’
‘’My pleasure, Ingrid. And don’t hesitate to bring in Nancy if you ever need a temporary babysitter: now that Jimmy and Annie have grown up and have families of their own, I have little to do, except maintain the house and cook for Greg. By the way, Jimmy and Annie are due to visit us with their own kids this coming Sunday, to celebrate Greg’s birthday. You and Nancy are of course invited.’’
Ingrid instantly beamed at that offer.
‘’Count us in, Carolyn! We will be most happy to attend that party and to meet again with Jimmy and Annie. At what time will the party start?’’
‘’Jimmie and Annie are due to arrive on Saturday evening with their kids, so that we would have plenty of family time together, while the official party will start in late Sunday afternoon, at around four, followed by a family supper. As for you and Nancy, you are welcome at any time on Sunday. Uh, about that party, could I ask you a little favor?’’
‘’Anything, Carolyn! Ask and you will get!’’
‘’Well, as you know already, both Jimmy and Annie have kids, quite a few of them, in fact. Jimmy has two boys and one girl, aged between thirteen and seven, while Annie has three daughters and one son, aged between twelve and four. Even when tightening up and improvising extra beds, Greg and I can accommodate at most four adult visitors and maybe two to three kids for a sleep-in on Saturday night. That would leave out at least four of the kids and we really want to avoid forcing Jimmy and Annie to have to rent hotel rooms. Annie’s husband in particular, who is an insurance clerk in Boston and who has four kids to raise, is not exactly wealthy and…’’
‘’Stop it right there, Carolyn! My little Nancy will be most happy to greet Annie’s children for a sleep-in at my house on Saturday.’’
‘’Ooh, thank you so much, Ingrid!’’ said Carolyn Loomis, ecstatic. ‘’This will help us tremendously. Will they be able to play in your outside play modules in your courtyard?’’
‘’Of course they will! Nancy will be delighted to play with them. Well, I believe that I have to go unpack now and wash our accumulated dirty clothes from our two last days of travel. We will see each other again on Saturday. Bye!’’
‘’Kiss your little Nancy for me, Ingrid!’’ said Carolyn before Ingrid walked out of her house.
Returning to her own house, a large, two-story bungalow with attached garage and private driveway, Ingrid went up to her private study and emptied her bag of mail on her large work desk, which she often used for technical design work when at home. Leaving aside for the moment the newspapers and two magazines in the lot, she then concentrated on the six envelopes in the bag. One was an electricity bill, which she put aside for the moment, while two where official letters, one from the Space Corps and the other from the U.S. Air Force. Her interest raised, she opened in succession those two official letters and read them quickly. She smiled with happiness on seeing that they were listing for her various dates and places where military flying exercises or training time had been scheduled for the months of May, June and July, with her being invited to participate as a pilot, so that she could fly a few hours and thus maintain her pilot’s type certifications. Powering up her personal computer and also opening her paper calendar notebook, she took a few minutes to register the various planned events, underlining those she was either interested in, meaning about all of them, and which she would be available for, which was a bit more limited. Next, she typed response letters for both the Air Force and the Space Corps to tell them which exercises she would attend and participate to, then printed those letters and prepared envelopes for them. Mailing those envelopes would follow in the afternoon, when she will go out to replenish her kitchen refrigerator and pantry with fresh food and beverages.
With that done, Ingrid then concentrated on the three other letters she had received. All three of them turned out to be offers from different aerospace companies. She rejected nearly at once two of the offers, one from the Lockheed Corporation and one from Boeing, which were offering her a permanent position as a senior design engineer on the staff of the companies. While they were interesting in their own right, Ingrid had promised President Bush that she would serve his administration as its National Director of Space Programs and Special Presidential Advisor, a promise she was not going to break. The third letter however both intrigued her and tempted her: it was not an offer for a permanent job but rather what amounted to a cry for help for her technical advice from the Hiller Helicopters Corporation, a modest helicopter manufacturing company based near Fresno, California. Basically, the Hiller Helicopters Corporation was finding itself marginalized by other, bigger and more powerful companies and had missed out on various government contracts offered during the last couple of years.
‘’Hum, so Hiller is asking me for advice on how to recapture a part of the helicopter market, hey?’’
Ingrid felt attracted at once to that request, as it meant only a short period of time involved with Hiller and had the potential to see something really new and innovative being realized and built for the aerospace market. What made that request for help even more attractive to her was the fact that Stanley Hiller, the founder of Hiller Helicopters, was a true pioneer of American aviation. Grabbing her telephone receiver, she composed the number for the Hiller Helicopters Corporation in Firebaugh, California, then waited for an answer. A female voice, probably that of a secretary, answered her call after two rings.
‘’Hiller Helicopters Corporation! May I help you?’’
‘’Yes, miss! This is retired General Ingrid Dows, calling from Washington, D.C. I have received a letter from your company, signed by your president, Mister Stanley Hiller, asking for my technical advice. I would like to discuss that letter with Mister Hiller, if he is available.’’
‘’He is, General!’’ replied the woman, sudden excitement showing in her voice. ‘’Hold on: I am transferring your call.’’
It took only a few seconds before a male voice came on the line.
‘’General Dows? This is Stanley Hiller. You can’t know how happy I am to see you respond to our letter.’’
‘’I am sorry if I didn’t contact you earlier, Mister Hiller, but I just came back from a two-week trip overseas. So, you would like to get some suggestions and advice from me in order to help your company recapture a larger part of the market, is that it?’’
‘’That is essentially it, General Dows. I know that you have a job at the White House but even only a few days of discussions between you and my engineering and design teams would do us a lot of good. I promise to make that time worth it for you.’’
‘’Mister Hiller, do not worry too much about me asking you for big consulting fees. What I have in mind is more like a small share of your eventual success in any venture initiated by me. Essentially: zero success in any joint venture will mean zero fees or payment for me. In case of success and good profitability for your future new product, then my fee will be quite simple: ownership for me of your first series production model. What do you think about that, Mister Hiller?’’
It took only a second of reflection for Stanley Hiller to make his mind.
‘’That sounds like a most fair deal, General. Knowing your reputation as a pilot, I certainly can understand you wanting to be paid with a personal aircraft. So, do you have a specific idea in mind for us?’’
‘’Uh, I would prefer not to discuss this on the phone, Mister Hiller: there are a lot of stories of industrial espionage going around as is. Rather, I propose to come visit you in California and discuss in person with your design engineers. Suffice to say that, during my later years of service, I spent long years on interplanetary space missions, the latest one being my five-year-long trip to Jupiter and Saturn aboard the U.S.S. PROMETHEUS. During those space trips, I had lots of time to think and fantasize about various aerospace projects which I could not develop further at the time, me being quite busy planning our national space systems. One of those projects I fantasized about would, I believe, be a perfect fit for your company: it is about an aircraft that would be fairly inexpensive, easy to build, maintain and operate and which would be able to fill a multitude of roles, both military and civilian. If that project gives birth to something concrete, then it should bring you a huge market, a market big enough to force you to sub-contract production in order to keep up with the demand.
‘’You are already making my mouth water, General. You are talking about a light helicopter, I suppose?’’
‘’Actually, it is something a bit different, but enough said on the phone. Expect me sometime tomorrow afternoon at your company’s site at the Firebaugh Airport. I will bring with me a few sketches and notes about what I have in mind, along with my little daughter.’’
‘’Your daughter, General? I am afraid that I don’t understand.’’
‘’Simply said, Mister Hiller, I will use my trip to the West Coast to show more of our country to my little Nancy. She is now two and a half years-old and has spent all but six weeks of her life aboard the U.S.S. PROMETHEUS. She thus has seen very little of the United States up to now.’’
‘’Wow! She could rightly claim to be an authentic Space girl. I will have somebody ready to act as a babysitter while we discuss together and tour my production plant tomorrow.’’
‘’Sounds like a plan, Mister Hiller. I will call your secretary back today or tomorrow morning, once I will have finalized my trip to the West Coast. Until then, have a good day, Mister Hiller.’’
‘’And the same to you, General. Thank you again for calling me.’’
Both then hung up, with Ingrid thinking for a long moment while sitting behind her desk. That project she had in mind for the Hiller Helicopters Corporation, while being most feasible and desirable in her mind, had been kept by her on a slow burner for years, as much higher priority projects on aerospace systems had kept her quite busy. However, as she had said to Stanley Hiller, it was a really low technology project that should be easy and quick to develop. On the other hand, if it turned into a commercial success, it would have the potential to truly change many things in the United States and around the World.
14:32 (California Time)
Tuesday, May 7, 1985 ‘C’
Firebaugh Airport, Fresno County
California, U.S.A.
The airport of Firebaugh was what you could only call a ‘local general aviation airport’ and was on the same scale than the town of Firebaugh itself, which could have easily been called a simple village, with its population of barely 3,000 inhabitants. Ingrid and Nancy arrived there from San Francisco aboard a small, twin-engine regional commuter aircraft, with a grand total of seven other passengers aboard her flight. She was able at once to locate visually the Hiller Helicopters Corporation buildings, situated next to the airport and on the other side of a canal, as her commuter aircraft was taxying towards the small airport terminal. Right away, it was obvious that the company was not exactly what you would call an aerospace giant, far from it. However, Hiller had a long history of innovative designs, both in the domain of helicopters and that of experimental VTOL{6} aircraft, something that made it worthy of help in Ingrid’s mind.
With their Cessna commuter finally stopping on the small tarmac area next to the terminal, Ingrid then left the plane with Nancy and the other passengers and waited beside the aircraft while an airport employee took their bags out of its small baggage compartment. She then walked with Nancy inside the terminal building’s small passenger lounge and went to the woman sitting on the other side of a service counter.
‘’Excuse me, miss. Is there a taxi stand here at the airport or do we have to call for a taxi?’’
‘’Unfortunately, the passenger traffic here is too small to attract a taxi on a permanent basis, miss. I will however call for a cab right away. What is your name, please, and where are you going?’’
‘’My name is Ingrid Dows and I am going to the Hiller Helicopters Corporation. I would have walked there, if it would not have been for the canal.’’
The receptionist smiled at that while picking up his telephone receiver.
‘’The canal does complicate a bit the east-west movements in the town, I must say.’’
She then made a quick call, at the end of which she again smiled to Ingrid.
‘’A cab will be here in a few minutes, miss.’’
‘’Thank you!’’
Ingrid then walked to a row of seats and placed Nancy in one of them, while putting down their suitcases next to her.
‘’The woman called a taxi for us. It should be here shortly. Just wait here with me.’’
‘’Yes, Mommy! Can I play my barbat while waiting?’’
‘’Let’s wait for that, sweety: the wind here carries a lot of sand and dust and taking your barbat out of its carrying case now would risk exposing it to damage.’’
‘’Oh!’’ simply said Nancy, obviously not liking the idea that her precious practice barbat could end up being damaged in any way. In truth, Nancy had been playing her musical instruments every time she was able to do so and loved in particular to play her barbat while on the move, with her qanun being her favorite instrument when at home. Some six minutes later, Ingrid saw a taxi stop in front of the terminal and grabbed their three pieces of luggage.
‘’The taxi is here, Nancy: time to move!’’
The taxi driver proved to be on the lazy side, simply popping open his trunk from the inside rather than stepping out to help Ingrid with her luggage. Refraining from commenting on that, Ingrid sat in the back with Nancy and spoke a few terse words.
‘’To the Hiller Helicopters Corporation, please.’’
Again, the driver simply nodded before putting his taxi in reverse and turning it around to take the airport’s service road. The drive was actually short, being less than one kilometer, and the taxi arrived at the Hiller buildings in less than four minutes. The driver again didn’t step out to help, earning himself a very meager tip that made him look up at Ingrid from his seat.
‘’That’s it?’’
‘’Yes, that’s it, mister.’’ Replied coldly Ingrid. ‘’You should step out of your cab from time to time: the exercise would do you good.’’
Ingrid then ignored the incensed taxi driver’s look and grabbed her bags, walking inside the Hiller office building with Nancy. Both of them found themselves inside a small, modestly furnished reception lobby.
‘Hum, not exactly your typical New York or Washington big company offices.’ thought Ingrid to herself before going to the woman manning the reception desk.
‘’Good afternoon, miss. My name is Ingrid Dows and I have a planned meeting with Mister Hiller.’’
‘’Mister Hiller is effectively expecting you, miss. I will show you to his office.’’
‘’Thank you!’’
Following the receptionist down a corridor connecting with the reception lobby, Ingrid and Nancy were introduced into a room where a secretary was busy typing some kind of document.
‘’Misses Miller, General Dows is here for Mister Hiller.’’ announced the receptionist to the secretary, who smiled at once to Ingrid while getting up from her chair.
‘’Welcome to the Hiller Helicopters Corporation, General. Let me just warn Mister Hiller that you are here. I can take care of your cute daughter while you speak with him.’’
‘’Thank you for that, Misses Miller.’’ replied Ingrid before looking down at Nancy. ‘’Please stay here with the woman while I discuss with Mister Hiller, Nancy.’’
‘’Yes, Mommy!’’
Ingrid took the time to extract from one of her suitcases a large envelope and a rolled set of blueprints, then entered Stanley Hiller’s office, where he found a man in his early sixties already walking around his desk with his right hand extended for a shake.
‘’General Dows, I am so happy to see you here. I had dreamed of meeting you for decades already: you are such an icon and hero of American aviation.’’
‘’You are too kind, Mister Hiller.’’
‘’But please, let’s sit and discuss on this sofa. Would you like something to drink first?’’
‘’Thank you but no: we had drinks on the plane.’’
Going to the sofa designated by Hiller, Ingrid sat at one end, while the helicopter designer sat at the other end. Hiller examined her for a second before speaking again.
‘’I must say that, in view of your known official age, your youth and beauty are stunning, General. My wife would be jealous of you.’’
‘’Most women are jealous of me, Mister Hiller.’’ replied Ingrid, grinning. ‘’But let’s talk about your corporation and what you are expecting from me. First off, I must warn you that I won’t be able to consecrate more than a few days to your company at this time. However, I am ready to come back periodically on weekends, when I am off from my job at the White House, to follow the progress of our project and to discuss any problems with you and your engineers.’’
‘’That would already represent a lot to me and my company, General. As for this present visit and any future visit by you, I will be happy to foot the bill for your hotel stays and flights from Washington. Since you are not asking for hourly fees, that is the least I could do for you.’’
‘’And I accept your offer with pleasure, Mister Hiller.’’
‘’Please, call me simply ‘Stanley’, General.’’
‘’Only if you call me ‘Ingrid’, Stanley.’’
‘’Deal! Now, what is that old project of yours that you want to propose to me?’’
Ingrid answered while taking out of her large envelope a series of documents that she then offered to Hiller.
‘’The key to our future project will be to keep it as inexpensive as possible while still producing a safe, dependable and performing machine. That will allow the maximum of people to be able to afford buying it. Another important point will be to keep that machine as easy as possible to fly and maintain. For that reason, I believe that it should be powered by a gasoline engine able to use standard commercial gasoline, with an octane grade of no more than 91, rather than aviation gasoline with octane grades of 100 or higher. This will allow the users of our future aircraft to be able to refill at any rural or city gas station, instead of having to refuel at local airports, making our future aircraft a lot more practical for many people. I realize that this will limit the power available and the maximum takeoff weight, but a turbine engine, while potentially much more powerful and lighter, would represent some serious risks of burns to users, due to its super-hot exhaust gases. It would also necessitate to use kerosene as fuel.’’
‘’I agree with you on that, Ingrid. It will also have the advantage of allowing normal car mechanics to effect repairs or inspections on that piston engine. So, you have in mind a light helicopter powered by a piston engine burning automotive-grade gasoline, right?’’
‘’Not exactly!’’ replied Ingrid with a devilish smile. ‘’What I have in mind is an aircar.’’
‘’An aircar?!’’ exclaimed Hiller, stunned. He then had his first look at the documents handed to him by Ingrid as the latter continued to speak.
‘’Yes! This project, which has been cooking in the back of my mind for many years already, is about creating a compact VTOL aircraft not much bigger than a large automobile and also much safer to use than a light helicopter, whose large rotating rotor blades would represent high risks of injuries to bystanders and passengers if it was to operate from within a city. In contrast, my aircar project will be as safe to approach as a normal car, allowing it to land and park right in the driveway of a private resident. That, plus the fact that it uses standard automotive gasoline, would liberate its users from the necessity to operate from an airport. Being a VTOL aircraft would also allow it to land and take off from anywhere, be it a private driveway or a flat building roof. Those two capabilities should attract buyers like a magnet. However, I do not wish to see about anybody pilot such an aircraft: the air traffic control chaos that would represent thousands of such aircars piloted by neophytes would be nightmarish. Rather, I see my aircar as a more polyvalent and more practical alternative machine to those who are qualified single engine aircraft or helicopter pilots and who are certified for at least VFR{7} conditions.’’
Stanley Hiller nodded slowly his head at those words.
‘’That makes a lot of sense, Ingrid. Your criterias would make our future aircar very attractive to tens of thousands of general aviation pilots in the United States. The market for that kind of machine would be huge.’’
‘’Indeed! However, the market for our aircar would not be limited strictly to private pilots presently flying small piston-powered aircraft. With adequate variants produced, our aircar could be turned into an air ambulance, a police patrol aircraft, a search and rescue aircraft or even a military light liaison and reconnaissance aircraft, all roles in which a compact and safe to use machine would excel. Now, if you look at the planned design and specifications I came at after all those years of thinking, you will see that I am envisioning a large car-sized machine able to carry four to six people, plus a limited amount of luggage, and capable of rolling on short distances along streets in order to enter a crowded parking lot or private garage. The main body of the aircar will espouse the section profile of a low-speed aircraft wing and will provide aerodynamic lift sufficient to make it fly horizontally at speeds over sixty miles per hour, without the need to use part of the power from the propellers to keep the machine in the air. That will allow its four ducted, variable-pitch propellers to pivot ninety degrees to act like conventional aircraft propellers, in contrast to the rotors of a helicopter, which have to always use most of their power simply to keep the helicopter in the air, thus severely limiting its maximum speed and range. On the blueprints I brought for you, you will see that those ducted propellers, while mounted on pivots to effect transitions between vertical and horizontal flight, are also equipped with vectoring flaps downstream of the propellers’ wash. Those flaps will allow our aircar to be able to maneuver like a helicopter when hovering or flying at very low speed close to the ground. Also, those ducted propellers, which are all connected by light driveshafts to a single engine, can be pivoted to vertical stowage positions alongside the aircar’s body, making the design a garage-compatible machine. You could thus take your aircar out of your garage, then take off from your city home driveway, fly up to 900 miles or more and land vertically in another city or location. If done right, this aircar design could revolutionize short to medium range travel across the United States.’’
By then, Stanley Hiller had a mesmerized look on his face as he pictured such an aircar in his mind.
‘’My God! Your aircar would indeed revolutionize air transportation in the country, Ingrid. Also, your idea of building specialized variants for medical, police or military use could attract thousands of extra orders from various levels of governments. Imagine if an aircar ambulance could go pick up a wounded person somewhere on the slopes of a mountain, something the rotors of a helicopter would make nearly impossible to do safely.’’
‘’And another nice thing about it would be the top speed it could attain, Stanley. Presently, the fastest and most powerful helicopters can barely attain a top speed of 190 miles per hour, at the cost of a humongous expenditure in fuel. In contrast, our aircar could easily attain and maintain speeds of 250 miles per hour or more while flying at economical speed, using its body profile to provide it with sufficient aerodynamic lift, thus increasing greatly its range. That air ambulance aircar would be able to get to that wounded much faster than a helicopter.’’
‘’Damn, you’re right! Ingrid, you are a genius!’’
‘’Pah!’’ replied Ingrid, making a dismissive gesture. ‘’I have been designing military aircraft and various spacecraft and spaceships for nearly forty years now. In comparison, designing this aircar will be as simple as building a kid’s toy. The real challenge will be to keep it as light as possible, in order to maximize its performances, to make it as inexpensive as possible to build and thus make it as affordable as possible for customers to buy. We will also have another big challenge: to keep this project as secret as possible. You can imagine how the company executives at Beechcraft, Bell, Cessna and Sikorsky would react on learning about our aircar project and its possible impact on their future share of the light aviation business.’’
Hiller’s enthusiasm was suddenly replaced by a concerned look.
‘’Damn! I wouldn’t consider them above either spying on the project and stealing the design or even trying to sabotage it: hundreds of millions of dollars of light aircraft market would be at play. We will have to truly keep a tight ship on this, Ingrid. Well, let’s talk about the details of your design while I have you with us. First, let me call in my senior engineers on this.’’
‘’Please do, Stanley!’’
In the anteroom, little Nancy appeared to the secretary to be in the midst of an agitated sleep on the visitors’ sofa sitting in one corner of her office. She would have been shocked if she would have known that Nancy was actually in the process of remembering yet another of her past inc