Tom Swift and His Megascope Space Prober Read Online Free PDF

to free the stick. It would not budge. "The boosters in the control system must be jammed!"
    "How about the booster-release lever?" asked Bud tensely.
    Tom reached for a lever to his left and pulled it hard. He tried to move the stick. "No good! The release doesn’t work, either!"
    "The air speed is increasing," Mr. Swift warned. The plane had entered a full-on inverted dive.
    Tom continued to struggle with the control stick but had no success. He desperately worked a hand-operated hydraulic pump, but he could not regain pressure. "I’ll try the trim controls."
    He reached to his left where two dials were located. One of them read: aileron-trim control. He turned it slowly. The plane shuddered slightly, then started to respond.
    "We’re rolling out!" Mr. Swift cried.
    Tom continued to adjust the aileron-trim control. But as the jet began to shift out of its upside-down stance, the blue ocean drawing near as it tilted sideways over their heads, Bud suddenly gripped his friend’s forearm. "No—no more. Shift her back, about halfway. You’ve got to turn the arc into a full loop. Go, Tom!"
    The young inventor understood instantly. Again the jet was inverted, but not completely. Tom played the trim controls against the slipstream, knowing that any moment they could stall out and begin to plunge beyond all hope of recovery.
    The watery horizon seemed to lower in front of them as the forces drove the blood from their heads. For the slightest terrible instant they nosed straight down— down seemingly in front of them like a wall! Then the moment was past. The cockeyed loop was completed. They were topside-up once again.
    " Yeah! " Bud cheered. But Tom cautioned him: "We’re not out of this yet!"
    "Have you any control at all?" Mr. Swift asked his son.
    "I have rudder control, but I still can’t directly raise or lower the nose. We can make Enterprises, but as for a landing—! I’m going to try to use the elevator-trim control to bring us in. It’ll be tricky, but it’s worth a try."
    "You can do it, pal," said Bud quietly.
    Tom skillfully adjusted the trim controls. He managed to turn the plane toward Shopton, then tuned the cockpit radio. "Swift Enterprises tower," he called. "This is Tom Swift, SCC-R19. Mayday!"
    The radio receiver crackled and a voice emerged from the speaker. " Swift tower. We copy, Tom! What’s the sitch? "
    "Aileron and elevator controls inoperative. I’m one hundred fifty miles due east. Going to attempt a landing using trim controls!"
    " Copy that. " There was a pause. " Tom Swift, you are cleared for an emergency landing on east-west runway 5. Winds northwest at one-six. We have you on radar lock. We’ll have a crash team standing by! "
    Upstate New York fled beneath them, and presently Lake Carlopa appeared ahead. Tom maneuvered the aircraft east of Enterprises’ huge landing field. He then turned west in order to line up with the landing runway.
    They could almost hear the sirens blaring.
    "Swift tower, this is Tom on final approach!"
    " You are cleared to land! "
    Tom reduced power slightly for a descent. "We’ll have to come in faster than normal to keep the trim controls effective." Tom adjusted the elevator-trim-control dial constantly as the plane eased downward and approached the landing end of the runway. He increased power momentarily, reduced it again, then turned the trim control to nearly full nose-up position. The plane responded slowly and flared out about fifteen feet above the runway.
    "Hold on!" Tom ordered.
    " We’re holding! " gulped Bud in a whisper.
    A wing dipped. Tom adjusted the aileron-trim control. The plane gradually leveled out. Then the nose began to lower again. He turned the elevator-trim dial to full nose-up and increased power slightly. The jetcraft seemed to hang in the air for a split second, then dropped hard and fast onto the runway surface. The tires screeched! Tom cut power completely. The plane skittered along the tarmac at frightful speed.
    "We’re