Tom Swift and His Diving Seacopter Read Free Page A

chooses, merely by adjusting the blade pitch. She’ll be wonderfully nimble down in the depths, too, thanks to the interplay of the downward push of the rotors with the ship’s upward buoyancy. Just like the way it’s easier to pull a string than to push it!" Tom now warmed to his subject. "The seacopter has a lightweight, ultrastrong hull constructed on the same principle as our rockets—layers of Tomasite over a rigid mesh of magtritanium alloy."
    "She’ll need to resist some real pressure."
    "Up to 18,000 pounds per square inch!"
    Bud boggled. "It’s not that I don’t want to be a hero, but I’d prefer to be a three-dimensional one!"
    "But think of what we could accomplish!" continued Tom. "Humans have rarely penetrated more than three and a half miles beneath the surface, but in places the depth of the ocean floor is almost twice that. The oceans cover more than 70 percent of the planet, but we’ve only mapped about 5 percent of the bottom. Who knows what mineral, chemical, or archeological secrets might be hiding down there—not to mention unknown life forms, as many as two million of ’em!"
    Walking over to his sliding workbench, Tom touched a concealed button. Instantly a drawing board, with a large blueprint of the seacopter, slid out from the wall.
    "Wow!" Bud exclaimed, admiring the drawing of the sleek forty-foot craft. Discus or saucer-shaped, but smoothly tapering fore and aft, the submersible had a wide, circular opening in its center that penetrated the hull from top to bottom. The adjustable propeller-screw, twelve feet in diameter and mounted on a vertical pivot, occupied this space.
    Bud noticed that the body of the seacopter was divided into two self-contained sections. Cabins at either end, labeled Compartments A and B—each of which would accommodate three people—were linked by narrow corridors on each side of the rotor well, allowing passengers to walk from one compartment to the other.
    The young pilot looked puzzled. "Which is the front end and which is the rear?" he asked.
    "Take your choice." Tom laughed. "The ship can travel in either direction. This feature will come in handy should we get into a submarine cave, or other spot in which it’s impossible to turn around. And speaking of safety, the seacopter has positive buoyancy. If the power fails, she’ll just bob up to the surface."
    "Great," Bud said with enthusiasm. Then he looked at Tom inquisitively. "But how do you do all this? I mean, how do you propel this contraption once you’re under water?"
    Tom pointed to the undersides of the two compartments. In the middle of each section were streamlined, triangular units attached to the craft by a swivel coupling.
    "These are jets," he said, "powered by super-heated steam created by atomic reactors, one for each compartment. The seacop won’t be as fast as the jetmarine—no Mach 1 for this baby—but she’ll really move."
    "I see," said Bud. "And they’re your steering apparatus?"
    "Yes. The jets are on a gimbal system, so they can be rotated through 360 degrees. The steam pressure also drives the turbine that powers the blades, which is inside this thick hub."
    Bud nodded. "Very clever, pal—as always." Then he grinned. "So let’s get down to the meat. Or in this case, the fish! What’s all that nimbleness for, anyway? Herding whales? Or are you going on an oyster-hunting expedition?"
    "You’re nearly right." Tom chuckled. "But instead of diving for pearls, we’re going after gold."
    "Explain, chum!"
    As Tom stowed the blueprints away, he said, "Well, it’s not entirely a treasure hunt. It’s half undersea exploration, half archaeology. In any event, it’ll take the seacopter into some pretty rough terrain on the ocean bottom."
    "Rough terrain?" Bud looked at his friend suspiciously. "Just what is it you plan to go looking for, Tom?"
    The young inventor smiled dreamily. "Oh, some old ruins— very old, in fact. You might have heard of the place. It’s called