Grantville Gazette-Volume XIII Read online

  One problem was performance. Even reconditioned up-time spark plugs performed better than his. If they had been noticeably cheaper than reconditioning up-time spark plugs, he might have had better sales. But at the price he had to charge to make a profit, sales so far had been worse than disappointing.

  He looked the expensive equipment sitting idle on the workbench, and at the boxes of finished product stacked against the wall. Sure, there was some demand as up-time spark plugs failed beyond repair, but there was no driving need for lots of his new spark plugs. Not yet. What he needed was something to generate demand. Like someone making new engines. Because new engines would need new spark plugs.

  Until then, it was back to designing plumbing installations.

  * * *

  The Spark of Inspiration

  Written by Gorg Huff and Paula Goodlett

  Neil O'Connor looked over at Johan. "Say what ever you like, man, that girl is fine." He continued to turn the spark plug wrench as he talked.

  "She may be pretty but she is too forward, I think," Albrecht Knopf said. "She is becoming too American in her attitudes."

  Neil pulled the plug and glanced at it. Whatever he was planning to say about the girl was forgotten. "Damn! This thing is burned clear through. You guys have been running the mix too lean again, haven't you?"

  Neil and Al were doing thousand hour maintenance on the Jupiter, which was known far and wide as the Monster. Neil didn't know why Georg Markgraf didn't just give up and change the name, but he wasn't the designer, so what the heck.

  Al poked his head around the cowling. "How's our stock?"

  "All down-time made," Neil said. "Change them every hundred flight hours. Frankly I'm a bit surprised that we can make them at all."

  "Too complicated?" Al Knopf asked with a bit of a glint in his eye.

  "No. Incompatible expansion rates." Neil held up his hand in surrender, or at least partial surrender. "More a chemistry problem then craftsmanship." He had lost a number of bets with Al over the last couple of years. They'd been bets having to do with what down-time craftsmen could do with just a file and a chunk of metal.

  Neil looked back at the plug and then at Johan. "You know, I wonder how long it's going to be till we start building aircraft engines."

  "Start?" Al asked. "We have already started! How much of that engine we're working on was made here? The plugs, the gaskets, three tappet valves. . . ."

  Neil held up his hands, interrupting the list before Al got good and started. Al could talk for hours about the parts of the engines that were now hand made. "That's not what I meant, Al. How long till we start from the design and make engines that are really for airplanes, not just auto engines pushed into service?"

  "I don't know, Neil," Johan said. "But if we don't do it soon, we'll be buying our engines from someone who has." He shrugged and grinned. "Anyway, that's a management problem. I'm just a pilot. I just point the plane where they tell me to go." Johan made a great deal of money pointing the plane where he was told. Not to mention the stock options. Still, in spite of being unwilling to bet with Al on what down-time craftsmen could do, Neil didn't believe it. A whole engine was just too complicated for the down-time tech base to handle.

  * * *

  Magdalena van de Passe set down the phone with a sigh. If it wasn't the fuel, it was the engines. She had just had to turn down another job. Because they had just one airplane. Well, three, if you stretched it to include two two-seat small planes that ran with a pilot and a sack of mail. And they couldn't keep the Monster in the air all the time. She had had it all explained to her in great boring detail. In normal use, an automobile engine might reasonably be expected to do thirty thousand miles a year. Perhaps fifty thousand, on rare occasion even one hundred thousand miles a year. But the stress on that engine during most of the time was not that great. The engine would spend time idling, and providing only enough push to maintain the automobile's speed. Not so in an aircraft. For all practical purposes, an airplane spent almost all of its time going uphill, even in level flight. The engines were forced to work as hard as a normal engine going up a grade.

  TransEuropean Airlines was making money hand over fist. That was true enough. But they were turning down more jobs than they were taking because and if one of their engines broke in a way they couldn't fix, they were out of business.

  "Georg, we need more engines. We need more engines because we need more airplanes. And we need them soon."

  "And I have the airplanes for you. Two more Jupiter One air frames sitting in the hanger, ready to go, if I could buy the engines for them. Find me eight one-hundred-plus horsepower engines and I'll have two new Jupiters for you in a month," Georg said.

  He stopped talking when Neil burst through the door.Neil always burst through doors, generally without knocking first. Neil had apparently heard him, because he said, "Al and Johan figure you should build your own." He shook his head.

  "I've been thinking the same thing."

  "Maggy, you don't know how complex internal combustion engines are," Neil insisted.

  Magdalena and Georg shared a look. It figured that it would be the up-timer in the room that brought that up. Sometimes the up-timer's constant harping on the great and amazing complexity of the up-timer technology got more than a little old. In point of fact, Magdalena, in the past year, had twice been involved in the complete disassembly and reassembly of one of the Monster's engines. And she probably knew—well, almost—as much about them as Neil did. But Neil failed to grasp the degree of precision that fine craftsman of the seventeenth century were capable of. Even Magdalena hid a grin after all the bets he had lost with Albrecht Knopf.

  * * *

  At first they were going to go with a V8 or perhaps a radial engine Then a research project at the National Library suggested that the Wankel rotary engine made popular by Mazda was the way to go. This was because if it over-heated you lost some power, but the engine didn't seize up, as well as the fact that it was lighter per horse power. They also considered turboshaft and turboprop engines, but all three fell victim to the materials problem. They would be better airplanes if they had the materials to make them . . . but they didn't. After much debate and several library research projects, they had been forced back to either a radial or a V engine. Then to a radial design, because the radial design was simpler to manufacture and cooler than the inline cylinders.

  Magdalena looked around the room like a nervous conspirator. Well, actually more like a twelve-year-old pretending to be a nervous conspirator. "Can any up-timers hear us?" she whispered, rather loudly.

  Georg Markgraf rolled his eyes and Farrell Smith stuck his fingers in his ears. He was, after all, an up-timer.

  Arnold Swartz snorted. Arnold, it had to be admitted, had something of a love/hate relationship with Grantville and its machines. He was a master blacksmith whose shop in Suhl now had several production machines running. His senior journeyman could run those, so Arnold felt a bit unnecessary there. It wasn't an especially comfortable feeling for him, either.

  "It's not that bad." Georg insisted, looking apologetically at Farrell.

  Farrell grinned "You couldn't prove it by me." The issue was, of course, tolerances. Up-timers—some up-timers—were still insisting that down-time craftsmen weren't capable of the tight tolerances modern machinery needed. "Look, Dad is a good guy and a good engineer. But most of his work has been in the office and not that much on the factory floor. Mostly he's adapted well enough. I know he can be a bit of a by-the-book guy, but he is right about the fact that a lot of people died to write the words in FAA manuals."

  "That is not what I object to," Arnold said. "I can deliver the tolerances and the material strength needed. But not if he insists on testing half the parts to destruction. The up-time engineers have told me that the usual percentage for critical components is 10%. Granted, machines, at least well-made machines, produce more consistent results but his attitude is both expensive and insulting."

 
Farrell just nodded. "How long will it take your shops per engine?

  "Less than you might think." Arnold smiled. "The cylinder casings can be cast to their basic shape, cooling fins and all, then finished by hand. We'll use crucible steel, not as light as aluminum but quite strong enough for what we need. By being extra careful with the molds, we will save finishing time on the parts themselves. I have craftsmen working for me, not what you call 'hacks.'

  "But it will be expensive. Craftsmanship takes time and craftsmen need to eat. It's not the precision of your machines that we can't compete with—it's the speed."

  "And that brings up another issue," Magdalena said. "To the extent possible, we want to use off-the-shelf parts, and adjust the design to fit them. That will save us money and save your craftsmen's time for where it's needed."

  "How much can we get from the auto companies?" Arnold asked.

  "Not that much. They still haven't fully finalized their designs," Georg complained.

  "It's not that bad. They do have some of the parts in limited production," Farrell corrected him, gently."Someone over there has been at least a bit clever and realized that some of the parts they would need for their automobiles would also be useable for other products. They prioritized those for production. They are building their heads to take the plugs Grantville-Zuendkerze-Kompanie makes. They've settled on a cylinder size, even if they aren't making them yet."

  As a whole, the auto people were working in the red and probably would continue doing so till the assembly line got up and running a few years down the road. But by making parts that could be used in other devices as well as automobiles first, they were managing to keep the red ink from getting quite as deep as it would otherwise be. Standard-sized nuts and bolts, ball bearings, brake pads, hydraulic brake systems—even, oddly enough, rotors. But they were still years away from a mass-produced automobile or a mass-produced engine. "On the up side, the parts of an engine that wear out fastest are coming into production pretty fast now. The biggest problem is going to be the engine-specific parts, especially parts specific to the radial engines. Things like the finned cylinders Arnold mentioned."

  Arnold Swartz didn't seem at all put out by that. In fact, he grinned widely. With dollar signs flashing in his eyes, near as Magdalena could tell.

  * * *

  Six months later Swartz Aviation engines delivered four seven-cylinder 120 horsepower air-cooled radial engines. They weighed 220 pounds each. By then Arnold wasn't smiling quite so wide. Word had recently arrived that another firm was also making aviation engines.

  Georg Markgraf, on the other hand, was ecstatic. And Magdalena was pretty pleased herself.

  * * *

  Sunday Driver

  Written by Laura Runkle

  Grantville

  July, 1634

  Father Nicholas Smithson stood by the side door and shook hands after early mass at Saint Mary's Catholic Church. Father Athanasius Kircher was greeting parishioners coming out of the main door, but some always left by the quicker route.

  He smiled as he saw three faces that had been missing for a month. "Lolly Aossey! Welcome back! How did the twins take to the field session?"

  "It's good to see you, Father Nick." Lolly Aossey sent a tired look back at her older children. "Mimi and Larry are both teething." Cathy and Matt were each holding a plump baby. Behind them beamed Jim McNally, the proud paterfamilias, a hand on the shoulder of each teenager. If Nick knew anything about the older McNally children, it was to keep them from bolting.

  Lolly brightened. "Since I'm back, come to dinner after the last mass? Jim's apprentices should be back from Countess Kate's by then. It'll just be the usual summer fare, but I'd love to tell you what all happened."

  "I'm sorry, but there are a couple of out of town visitors I want to see. Otherwise, I'd very much like to." Nick's regret was real. The conversation and the cooking at the McNally house were usually both lively.

  Jim McNally smiled. "Bring them along. The more the merrier. That's what the Sunday usual is for."

  Matt rolled his eyes. "The usual has got to be better than Cathy heating up one of Aunt Dina's casseroles."

  "Ha! As if we'd want to eat your scrambled eggshells again!" Cathy's tone was sharp enough to cause the baby in her arms to stir.

  "Let's go home, kids. I doubt Father Nick is interested in your unsupervised culinary attempts. If you want the usual, y'all have a bit of chopping to do." Jim pushed the kids out onto the sidewalk. "We'll see you and your visitors at two, Father."

  Nick sighed as he waved farewell. Jim was right. After his visit last month, he'd had no further interest in the culinary attempts of either Matt or Cathy. Fortunately, today's dinner promised to be more interesting.

  * * *

  Nick regretfully decided that eating another bowl of the berries and cream would be gluttonous. There were still the remains of the wheaten salad and mutton pastries on the table. Across from him, Lion Gardiner and Henry Gage were enjoying the delights of fresh tomatoes with salt. Several conversations buzzed around.

  "Ja, Mrs. Aossey. He says that when I've helped finish up this circular divider, and written the paper on it, I'll probably only have a year or so left until journeyman."

  "Amsterdam? Really? If you could send on a letter for me, I'd be most grateful. Jake Koch has set up a correspondence back and forth from Augsburg, but I'd like to correspond with the Netherlands also. I've expanded from just optics to instruments, as well, but they have mighty fine opticians."

  "No. Steel like this requires both nickel and chromium. Mom's graduates have found nickel in tailings from more than one mine, but no chromium yet. When? Any year, now."

  "About half girls, again, Marie. And at the ceremony on Wednesday, Ron Koch told me that the instrument maker that Jake is visiting has started training his own daughter. You won't be alone when it comes time to do your journeying."

  "No, sir. The ballet company has moved to Magdeburg, so there aren't any performances here this week. But I hope to go to school there this fall, if Dad thinks we have enough money."

  Everyone focused on Jim. He said, "Honey, there's no question that we've got money. We've been putting aside your mother's fees for the field camp into a couple different funds, and they've done very well. The problem is that the twins' early arrival tapped us out for this year, as far as liquid cash goes."

  "Daaaad! I've got enough money of my own from dancing to pay those fees!" Cathy wailed as only a fourteen-year-old girl could.

  "But it's not liquid, and won't be for another couple of years," Jim said.

  Young Cathy had a gift, and gifts were to be cultivated. Nick spoke up. "Don't spend so much time worrying about the future that you ignore what you have. Cathy should be studying with Mrs. Matowski."

  Lolly sighed. "We're trying. But the only thing that would give us enough cash for the fees would be to sell the Subaru. No way are we selling the SUV. And you know that selling something as expensive as a car usually takes a month or so to get a buyer okayed by the bank."

  "Subaru? That would be the car engine that makes a good airplane?" Lion Gardiner asked. "How much were you going to ask for it?"

  "More than I'd feel comfortable talking about over a family dinner," said Jim. "Part of it depends on how much they cost now, compared to how much it would cost to make one. Marie, how long do you think it would take until your father can make an airplane engine at his foundry?"

  Marie Schmidt, Jim's older apprentice, looked up. "Papa's foundry couldn't any time soon. He's too committed to making the sewing machines. But someone could make one by hand, if they had the right materials. Right, Thomas?"

  Thomas Swartz gave a wry smile. "That's why I'm here. I'm learning how to make all kinds of small instruments, and glasses and other things, so that my father and people like him can inspect small work. But the materials—?"

  "—Any year, now." The chorus came from around the table.

  Henry Gage leaned forward, tomatoes forgotten. "Mr.
McNally. We've come on behalf of a client who's not interested in waiting for 'any year now' to come. When would you be interested in discussing whether you think we could be approved by your banker? We have a letter of credit from the Wisselbank."

  "You can worry about that tomorrow. Today, come look at the car." Jim stood up and beckoned to both visitors.

  Nick winced. He'd learned what the visitors were doing in Grantville. Now he just needed to know who they were representing, before the banker cleared the letter. It was easier to worry about tomorrow than he would like.

  * * *

  As Henry Gage and Lionel Gardiner left the McNally home, they were talking quickly, and waving their hands at each other. Nick was certain he caught a "vroom" coming out of Gage, but that could have been a trick of the breeze. They had certainly enjoyed their spin in the Subaru, "to make sure that the engine is in working condition."