JUMPER by Richard Barth

Author:Richard Barth [Barth, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-SIX

To bypass the jumps, the previous day they had run the cars with an inserted bridge section simulating the correct arcs. Today they removed the extra lengths of steel and their supports and faced the issue squarely. The most important things to test were the laser guidance system, and the spinners, and the TOA mechanism. The plan was to start with optimum conditions—dry track, no wind, normal temperatures, and a set car weight—and then move on to testing inside their operating parameters. But even though the acrobatics they were putting their vehicle through had never been tried before, they were not really flying blind. The tenth-scale layout had answered most of their velocity and trajectory calculations. What they were working on now was fine-tuning the jumps’ backup systems to make them a hundred percent safe. These two systems were capable of moving the nose of the full-scale vehicle almost eight feet in a 360-degree circle, more than enough leeway to insure the mating of the train’s funnel-shape catchers with the track’s continuing rails. In the worst case scenario, as Garvey had calculated it, an unexpected sustained gust of wind of up to eighty miles per hour would deflect the nose of the vehicle 6.8 feet. Since the system was designed to correct deviations instantaneously and automatically as they were noted by the laser monitors, the deviations should never accumulate beyond a few inches at most.

Garvey watched intensely as the first vehicle was loaded on the red track with the simulated passenger weight, then released from the start position. It climbed slowly up the first hill, then glided away over the track that had been shimmed to perfection the day before. It approached the first jump less than a minute later and without hesitation, flew over the open space like a champion steeplechase horse dispensing with a routine hedge. Garvey glanced at the numbers on a computer and noted that it had been dead on course. He watched as it continued around the track and approached the second jump. Again it flew over the space effortlessly and landed on the Kevlar catch rails with the smallest swishing sound. Twenty seconds later it was back at the start position.

“Congratulations,” Jason said with a broad grin on his face.

“Red track,” Garvey said. “Let’s try the blue one.”

A second car was loaded in the start position of the blue track and sent up the start incline. A minute and a half later they had the car back with the same good results.

“This is ominous,” Garvey said with a smile. “Only a minor problem on jump two.”

“How about together?” Jason urged.

Garvey thought for a moment. “Why not?” he said finally. “We’re on a roll.”

The two cars were released simultaneously, which was the way the ride was designed, as a kind of race. Watching it in tenth-scale layout was not the same as watching it like this, on a scale one could imagine real people riding on. Once again the cars started along their separate tracks,

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.