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Usually he would be in front of his drafting-board working on a new design for a muffler or a machine-gun turret or a self-starter, or figuring out the possibility of flying through the Arc de Triomphe, which, he claimed could be done with six feet to spare at each wing-tip. This, and climbing the Eiffel Tower on its girders, were two of his pet projects.
Slowly, very slowly, I lifted the other hand, always thinking of my elbow, so that I might keep all the muscles relaxed. Very slowly it approached, and with as swift a motion as I could achieve, I grasped at the vampire. I felt a touch of fur and I gripped a struggling, skinny wing; there came a single nip of teeth, and the wing-tip slipped through my fingers.
And Tommy emptied his automatic at the glittering thing which drew it. There was a crashing bolt of blue light. The machine canted, spun about with one wing almost vertical, that wing-tip struck the marsh, and it settled with a monstrous splashing of mud. All was still. Tommy reloaded, watching it keenly. "The framework isn't smashed up, anyhow," he observed grimly.
She was originally planned, with three sister ships, as an aerial submarine-chaser. One hundred and twenty-six feet from wing-tip to wing-tip, she was equipped with three big Liberty motors a monster seaplane, ideally suited to the purpose for which she was designed.
He must have been fifteen feet from wing-tip to wing-tip. He had seen his danger ere we saw him, and, tilting his body on the blast, he carelessly veered clear of collision. His head and neck were rimed with age or frost we could not tell which and his bright bead-eye noted us as he passed and whirled away on a great circle into the snow to leeward. Margaret's hand shot out to mine.
A good deal of vibration and of shuddering whipped the wing-tip, too; all was different, here, from the calm warmth, comfort, and security of the fuselage. The men seemed standing on the very pinion-feathers of some fabled roc, sweeping through space. Above, below, complete and overwhelming vacancy clutched for them.
Of the remaining six shots but one was effective breaking the wing-tip of a young female, which was secured for a live decoy. Kennedy now proposed a plan for approaching a large flock, which had alighted about a half mile distant on the sea-ice.
The world swings furiously, and down below that left wing-tip a little farm sways gently. "Now you are in a gentle turn feel that breeze on your cheek? We are side-slipping; give her a touch more of left rudder. Not so much. Now your nose is dropping; pull back on the stick. Back! Not forward! Back! Now your nose is too high; take us out, and don't forget that opposite stick and rudder.
One was making rapid evolutions, the other following, and clinging to the set course in a series of whirls with its own wing-tip as a pivot. Below, the comments went on from the staff surrounding the Commander, who would say now and then: "Look you there! Was that not fine?" "Hard to beat," seemed to be the general verdict. "Fritz will have to open his eyes tomorrow."
They cut swiftly through the water, heeling far over under their queer lateen sails, like hungry sea-birds that sweep the waves with one wing-tip in their search for booty.