The Accidental Patriot by Joseph Bauer

Author:Joseph Bauer [Bauer, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781480896185
Publisher: Archway Publishing
Published: 2020-11-13T05:00:00+00:00

29

NUTS AND BOLTS

For weeks Stanley worked steadily on the project drawings. He completed the specifications for the wall panels first, and then he designed the floor flanges to which they would be secured. Every side and angle was separately drawn. Nothing was left to interpretation. The pages mounted. He sketched elevations of the completed “box in the ground,” as he described it to Brew, and experimented with different options for the ground-level roof structure.

The roof was the most difficult design challenge. His first thought had been a laterally sliding roof, powered by electric motors that would function like a double pocket door lying on its side. When the containment base needed to open, two sections opening from the center would retract to the sides into slots built into the ground just below the surface. Once the aircraft had ascended, the roof sections would slide back. He asked Brew to get him information about the volume of sand and dust that would be displaced during takeoff and landing by the vertical thrust mechanisms of the aircraft. Brew’s report convinced Stanley that a roof that slid laterally was not practical. The volume of moving sand around the open pit was too great. A huge removal system would be needed, and even then the aircraft remaining in the base below would probably be damaged.

He settled instead on roof flaps that would rise like the four sides of a cardboard box. Like the interior walls, they would be fabricated from beryllium. Unbelievably light for their size, they could be raised and lowered with a small hydraulic system. And when opening during the drones’ ascent, and raised during their descent, the upright sections would act to shield the open pit from much of the swirling sand and dust. The debris that did enter the container could be managed and removed with a reasonable vacuum system once the flaps closed.

Stanley considered every detail of each component piece needed for the facility. To make for speedy assembly, he decided to attach all the wall panel sections with the same size machine screws, to be self-tapping and tightened with simple tools. He knew this was not the most cost-effective means, because it meant that smaller parts were being held together with fasteners much larger than necessary. But it meant the soldiers would not need to select from various sizes and keep changing tools and driver bits.

Over their next dinner in his Pittsburgh apartment, Brew nodded approvingly as Stanley showed him his sketches and explained his reasoning.

There was one aspect of the construction that worried Stanley. The concrete foundation and cement support stanchions, the first components to be installed after excavation, needed perfect placement. The entire design concept of the beryllium overlapping panels for the walls, floor, and roof depended on their matching alignment. The stanchions were to function like vertical wall studs rising from the foundation every thirty-six inches around the perimeter. Formed by pouring concrete into precisely calibrated forms, the interior side of each stanchion would

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