John Davis - Seize the Reckless Wind

‘I see. How very odd. Then how is it you’re a captain already?’

‘I own the airline. The major partner. In fact, I only fly as co-pilot, not as captain.’ The civil servant looked at Redcoat with new suspicion. ‘But, as a lawyer, I’ve started drafting the legislation to shortcut …’

‘I need a proper lawyer, Mr Mahoney – the C.A.A. doesn’t take shortcuts.’

‘I am a proper lawyer, Mr White. And I do understand airships, which your lawyer won’t. All I’m asking for is cooperation, so we know what you’re worried about.’

‘We’ll be worried stiff about everything! Good Lord, a monster twice as long as a football field, flying over London in a gale … Mr Mahoney, before you ask us for guidance, you’ll have to convince us our effort is not going to be wasted.’

Mahoney smacked the pile of files. ‘There are the plans, prepared by an expert. And there’s my effort so far at drafting the legislation. Now, are you going to read them or not, Mr White?’

Mr White sat back and looked at the ceiling. ‘Mr Mahoney, how much is one airship going to cost?’

‘Between ten and fifteen million pounds, once we’ve got a production line.’

‘And’, Mr White said politely, ‘has Redcoat got that kind of money?’

‘Not yet.’

‘No,’ Mr White said, lowering his eyes. ‘And the banks won’t lend it to you. And where do you propose building such a huge thing? No building I know of is big enough.’

‘At Cardington,’ Mahoney said grimly. ‘There are two old airship hangars.’

‘Cardington?’ Mr White mused. ‘Where the ill-fated R 101 was built? Charming connotations. And will the government lease them to you, do you think?’

‘They’re a white elephant, and government will be delighted that we’re providing employment.’

‘ If the Civil Aviation Authority endorses your plans. And what about airports, Mr Mahoney? You can’t land these things at Heathrow. You’ll want government to build airports? Where? At what tremendous cost? That’s the sort of thing—’

‘That’, Mahoney said, ‘is exactly the sort of thing I want to talk about. I have here provisional plans for airports, plus full-scale ones for the future, all diligently prepared by Major—’

‘Indeed? And who’s going to pilot these things? You have been awfully busy, Mr Mahoney, but who is going to instruct the instructors who’re going to instruct the trainee pilots? It’s a whole new ball-game.’

Mahoney took a breath. ‘We are, Mr White,’ he said. ‘Redcoat.’

Mr White stared. ‘But what’, he said, ‘are your qualifications?’

Mahoney leant forward. ‘Mr White, I’ll soon know more about airships than almost any man alive. Now, the C.A.A. is going to have to allow somebody to test-fly the first airships. And you’ll have to grant concessionary licences to those test-pilots for that purpose.’

Mr White looked at him. ‘I see …’ Then he scratched his cheek. ‘What about the banks? What do they say?’

‘We haven’t been to the banks yet. They’ll want to see that the C.A.A. are taking it seriously.’

Mr White glared at the formidable pile of files. ‘The chicken or the egg?’

‘Yes,’ Mahoney smiled.

Mr White suddenly shook his head wearily, like an ordinary human being. ‘You know damn well I’m required to look into this bumf.’

Mahoney put on his most charming smile. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

Cash flow. That’s what airlines desperately need, to pay their huge operating costs: and plenty of it. Cash flow, that’s what the Civil Aviation Authority insists on seeing in airlines’ books, to satisfy themselves that this airline can pay engineering maintenance so their aeroplanes do not come crashing down out of the skies. (So you can’t even cheat on your income tax.) Cash flow, that is what bank managers insist on from little airlines who haven’t got big shareholders behind them: cash constantly flowing in, to justify the huge amounts of revolving credit the airline needs to keep it aloft from one week to the next: no sufficient cash flow, no more credit, no more airline.

‘Five million pounds was our gross cash flow last year.’

‘Yes, but our local branch had to lend you over four and a half million while you earned it,’ the bank executive pointed out.

It was Mahoney’s first venture into the City. He didn’t like messing with bank managers, men who could cut off his lifeline at any time, but if he had to he preferred the suburban variety who held Redcoat’s purse-strings at Gatwick, not these silver-haired, heavy-duty gentlemen of the City.

‘You’ve earned a lot of interest,’ he said. ‘We’ve been good business for Barclays.’

‘Indeed,’ the banker said, sitting up. ‘Mr Mahoney, we are not belittling Redcoat. We respect you as hard-working and ingenious. In fact we’re amazed that you’ve survived, let alone prospered. Your local manager’ – he consulted a letter – ‘says that, when you first arrived, the airline wallahs expected you to collapse in two weeks.’

Mahoney knew he wouldn’t get the money. ‘But?’ he said grimly.

The banker decided to cut through all this.

‘Mr Mahoney, five million pounds turnover a year is a great deal of money to you and me. But to banks, Redcoat is a very small business.’

Mahoney nodded. ‘But if British Airways were asking you for fifteen million pounds, it would be different.’

‘Obviously it would put a different complexion on the matter.’

‘British Airways’, Mahoney said heavily, ‘lost eighty million pounds last year. Redcoat made a good profit.’

‘But’, the banker went on, ‘even if it was British Airways, I would not be financing an airship project. I am a good deal older than you, and I remember the old airships, though I was only a boy. I remember them flying over London, darkening the sky. Wonderful things – but completely impractical.’ He shook his head. ‘I remember the Hindenburg crashing in New Jersey. Our R 101 crashing in France—’

Mahoney groaned. ‘Modern airships …’

‘I know. Will use helium instead of hydrogen. But I took the trouble, when your branch manager referred you to us, to approach a client who is the chairman of one of the biggest airlines in the world.’

‘And I bet he’s losing money. Well?’

The executive smiled thinly. ‘He gave me seven reasons why airships will never work. I’ll read them.’

He picked up a letter.

‘One. The huge cost of design and development …’

Mahoney said, ‘They have already been designed by Major Todd and his consultants. The only cost was Major Todd’s army career, and the shares he will give in his company to the consultants for their work.’

‘Two,’ the banker said. ‘The slow speed, about a hundred miles an hour, which means it will be very difficult to keep to schedules in high head winds.’

Mahoney shook his head. ‘Speed is so unimportant, Mr Hampstead. Who needs speed? Only fat businessmen flying to New York and Tokyo. I’ll be flying not them but their products. And a hundred miles an hour is a lot faster than ship and rail.’

‘Three. The powers of lift vary with atmospheric temperatures and pressures. For instance, in the tropics, twelve percent of lift is lost by the heat.’

Mahoney said, ‘Aeroplanes are affected too! Who is this guy?’

‘Four,’ the banker said resolutely. ‘The problems of having to fly low. For every one thousand feet of height the helium expands three percent, so you either have to valve it off, which is expensive, or start off your voyage less than fully inflated.’

‘Sure!’ Mahoney shrugged. ‘Who wants to fly high?’