"Those parts will need to be clearer and drawings made of the . . ." Pierre paused. He didn't know how or why little wings Herr Krause talked about moved up and down. ". . . of whatever it is that moves those little trailing wings up and down."
"They're called ailerons," his employer told him. "Or, more generally, control surfaces. And they are moved by a system of cables that are run inside the wing and body of the aircraft."
"Just as you say, sir, but they will need to be drawn for the plans and I will need to know what they look like."
"More than that, the book Aerodynamics 101, insists that a scale model should be made and tested in a wind tunnel," Herr Krause said. "I will not skimp on such a step because, as the up-timers say, it's my pale pink body that will be strapped into the thing when it flies." Then he grinned at Pierre again. "Do you happen to know a carpenter of skill that could help us first with making the model and later with making the airplane?"
"I may, sir. Giuseppe Bonono is certainly skilled enough," Pierre said. "He is from Padua and came to Grantville to see what new skills and tools of the carpenter's art might have been developed in the future."
****
It took a few days to arrange a meeting with the carpenter. It part that was because it wasn't, as it turned out, one man. Giuseppe Bonono, a widower and master carpenter from Padua, had on arrival in Grantville discovered Black amp; Decker power tools. Hand-cutting a hole in a piece of wood so that you might insert a dowel had never been one of Giuseppe's favorite occupations. Electric motors to do the grunt work so that the carpenter could concentrate on the art of carpentry had impressed him greatly. So had the advancements in treating wood. Not that the up-timers knew everything. Giuseppe had his own tricks of the carpenter's trade and thirty years of hands-on experience.
It was, by up-time standards, a small shop in Rottenbach, on the road from Grantville to Badenburg. By the standards of the seventeenth century, especially in terms of output, it was major industry. Still, while their bread and butter was the tables, chairs, and desks they produced, they were also very interested in prestige work.
Willem Krause's delta-wing airplane had the potential to be prestige work. The sort of work that they could advertise and that would bring in sales.
It only took convincing them of that.
Not that they were going to do it for free. Prestige work meant prestige prices, after all.
"Gentlemen and masters, I am on a budget," Willem complained pitifully.
"You do that very well, Herr Krause," Giuseppe complimented him.
"Yes, thank you, Master Bonono," Willem agreed immodestly. "I thought the squeak at the end was especially artful, as though you had just twisted the tongs in which you held my stones. Nonetheless, it is true. If we can't come to an equitable agreement, I will be forced to go elsewhere. I don't want to. Pierre tells me good things about you. But my backer is already concerned over the expense involved and he actually has access to tongs. Red hot tongs, if needed."
No one asked who his backer was. There was no law forbidding the building of aircraft for Louis of France or the Holy Roman Empire. But being able to say honestly "I had no idea who it was for" might prove useful. Besides, it wasn't their business.
Eventually they agreed on a price for the scale model. It was to be a one-twentieth scale model which would make it a bit over a foot wide and a bit under two feet long. It would be much heavier for its volume than the full-size one would be, but the control surfaces would be adjustable so that that the model could be tested in the wind tunnel with ailerons up and ailerons down so that the effect on drag lift and ground effect could be measured.
****
"Gemma," Master Bonono shouted. "Gemma, bring wine!"
"Yes, Papa," a girl's voice said.
The noise of the power tools was muted here and Willem was glad of it. His ears were still ringing a bit from the noise of the table saw.
A pretty young girl brought wine and Willem gave her an appreciative smile for the wine as his eyes took in her form. Nicely curved, firm, yet soft. He let her see that he had noticed then went back to the discussion. "I'm told the model will need attachments where they attach little threads which are in turn attached to weights and scales and dials. One at the center of balance, one at the nose, one at the tail, and one on each wing."
The girl seemed to accept his appreciation as her due but showed more interest in the plans. "A delta wing?" she asked curiously.
"Yes!" Willem was suddenly more interested in the girl. "You know about delta wings?
"Not really. But I was the German translator on your additional questions at the research center, so I had to read up on aircraft design. From what I read, delta wings are not particularly well thought of by Herr Smith."
"There are disadvantages but also advantages. For one, a delta wing doesn't need as much wing span for the same amount of lift. So a delta might be able to use a runway that a straight wing wouldn't."
"You know this man?" Master Bonono asked his daughter suspiciously.
The girl, Gemma, rolled her eyes as her papa went all fatherly on her and Willem hid his smile as the girl answered.
"I've never met him till today, Papa, but I have seen him at the research center, consulting with Darius."
"You watch out for that boy. He doesn't have two dollars to rub together, even if he is an up-timer."
"He's just a friend, Papa!" Gemma said with clearly strained patience and a face growing a bit pink.
When Willem first learned that the girl knew of his interest, he had had a moment of concern. But it was clear, after all, that all that had happened was a coincidence and perhaps a useful one. "So you have some familiarity with aircraft design?" he asked. "From your work in translating the questions?"
"A little," Gemma admitted, doubt clear in her posture. "I have a good idea what the words mean, anyway."
"So here," Willem said to Master Bonono while gesturing at the girl, "you have a consultant on the interpretation of the design in your own house. How convenient."
Making such a model is not the work of an hour or a day, but for a master like Giuseppe Bonono it wasn't the work of a lifetime, either. In a couple of months, there would be a twentieth-scale model, of the arrowhead plane, as Giuseppe called it. Ready for the wind tunnel test over at Smith Aeronautics.
Leaving the Bononos, father and daughter, to their work Willem went looking for flying lessons.
****
"And this is realistic?" Willem didn't even try to hide his doubts.
The man shrugged. "It was my son's, and he mostly used it for gun-fighting games. But it has the flight simulator on it. The ads say it's realistic, but I don't really know. It's fifty dollars an hour if you want to use it. If you don't, there's others who do."
Willem tried it and didn't know if it was realistic or not. It did let him get used to the idea of banking into a turn and a little bit familiar with the gradualness of flight. And, perhaps more importantly, the misleading nature of that gradualness. Planes do things slowly and smoothly . . . till they don't. The don't part is when they get close to the ground. Then things get fast. A crash at two hundred miles per hour is pretty sudden.
****
The second simulator was a thing of wood and canvas, controlled by men with ropes and poles. They rocked and tilted the mini-plane in three dimensions in response to Willem's manipulation of the controls. Again, it was far from perfect but it taught him something about flying. Well, reinforced something the flight game had shown him. If you bank the plane to the right then bring the stick back to neutral, you're still banked to the right. To get back to level flight, you have to move the stick not just back to neutral but beyond it, till you have reversed what you did to bank in the first place. And all the time you were banking to the left and un-banking, you were turning left. So, to turn left, you pushed the stick left, then back to center, held the stick as you made most of the turn, then pushed the stick right till you were out of the bank, then brought it back to center. And with each move it was easy to go too far or hold it too long, and it took practice to get it right.