Seize the Reckless Wind

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?’

‘But what about mountains?’

‘Fly around the high ones! Plan your routes.’ He shook his head. ‘Next complaint?’

The banker shot him a look. ‘Five. The environmental objections to flying a monstrous and noisy machine low and slowly over inhabited areas.’

Mahoney was amazed. That this ignorance, from an alleged expert, was stopping his loan.

‘Noisy?’ he exclaimed. ‘It’ll make a fraction of the noise of a jet! Good Lord – ask the people who live near Heathrow and Kennedy about jet noise! And airships will cause one-fifth of the pollution from engine exhaust!’

The banker looked at him. ‘What about this one? Six: the problems, especially in high winds, of controlling a monstrous machine as large as the Albert Hall and as light as a feather?’

Mahoney sighed. There was no point in antagonizing the man. ‘All aeroplanes are affected by winds. So are ships. But airships will also use the winds, like the sailing ships did, to push them along. They’ll fly trade-wind routes. And as for landing in winds, an aeroplane can only tolerate so much cross-wind, but an airship doesn’t use a straight runway like an aeroplane. It can approach its mast from any direction, so it’s always flying into the wind when it’s docking. And it can fly away and stay up there for days, waiting for the weather to improve. An aeroplane can’t do that.’

The banker put the letter down. ‘Finally,’ he says, ‘a 747 can fly five times the number of miles that an airship could in a year – therefore do five times the work. Earn five times as much.’ He looked at him with raised eyebrows.

Mahoney sat back.

‘Bullshit, sir.’ (The banker blinked.) ‘Who is this guy? Which airline?’

‘I’m afraid—’

‘Look, all the big airlines are losing money – British Airways, Pan American, Air France … How many failures do you people need? Of course a jumbo 747 can fly five times as many miles a year, because it flies at five times the speed. But at five times the cost of fuel for each mile! And the world’s going to run out of fuel! And a jumbo can only fly to big expensive airports – it can’t fly to the middle of the Sahara or the Amazon jungle! So add to the cost of a jumbo’s cargo the onward transmission of it by road or rail – if they exist! And for every 747 you’ve got to have at least three crews: one flying, one resting, and one about to take over! Big airlines have six or seven crews.’

‘And how many crews for an airship?’ the banker asked.

Mahoney held up a finger. ‘One.’

The banker looked surprised. ‘How?’

‘Because’, Mahoney said, ‘they’ll sleep aboard. A ship only has one crew, doesn’t it? We’ll keep watches, like a ship at sea. A captain and two officers. Plus an engineer. Plus a loadmaster – who’ll double as cook.’ He shook his head. ‘They’ll have proper sleeping cabins, bathrooms, dining room – they’ll five aboard.’

The banker was silent. Then he smiled, and sat forward. ‘It’s a romantic notion,’ he admitted. ‘Young man, may I ask your age?’

‘Thirty-nine.’ Mahoney had decided to stay thirty-nine for some years.

The banker nodded, for a moment envy flickered on his face. ‘You look younger. But will you forgive me if I offer some friendly advice?’

‘Go ahead.’

‘You used to be a lawyer. And I suspect you were a good one. Now you’re an airline owner, and doing it well too. But you’re a romantic, I can tell. Which is fine. Enjoy it. But out here in the big bad world of business, it’s cold-blooded. Not romantic.’

‘So what’s your advice?’ Mahoney smiled grimly.