Tom Swift Among the Fire Fighters, Or, Battling Flames From the Air, is Volume 24 in the original Tom Swift novel series published by Grosset & Dunlap.
Plot summary
While Tom and Ned Newton are reviewing financial records, a fire breaks out at the fireworks factory in town. Assisting the firemen, they rescue Josephus Baxter, Mr. Baxter is developing a new dye formula and has hired out laboratory space at the factory. During the mayhem created by the fire and the rescue, Mr. Baxter loses the formula, but he is positive that the owners of the factory have stolen it. Tom feels pity for the man and allows him the use the labs at the Swift Construction Company.
While observing the blaze, Tom wonders if there is not a more efficient way to fight the fire, especially having troubles with multi-storied buildings or skyscrapers. These thoughts lead him to develop a new fire suppressant chemical, and an air-borne system to deliver the new chemicals to the upper stories of skyscrapers.
Tom also rescues a small boat in distress, with the aid of a naphtha launch.
Inventions & Innovation
The bulk of inventions are centered on various chemical compounds which will be used to suppress the fire. Tom has several iterations of a promising chemical, which basically delivers carbon dioxide into the blaze in such quantity as to suffocate the fire in a very short period of time. The formula is contained in special carboys which Tom terms grenades, designed to be dropped (either manually or automatically) from the air.
When the formula is considered ideal, the next step will be to develop a delivery system using airships. A four-passenger airship is built, with sufficient storage to carry an unspecified amount of the fire-fighting grenades. To aid in dropping grenades, Tom builds a bombsight, which, when mechanically adjusted for altitude, air speed, wind, and the weight of the grenades, will permit accurate placement of the grenades over the target.
A bomber is a military combat aircraft designed to attack ground and naval targets by dropping air-to-ground weaponry, launching torpedoes, or deploying air-launched cruise missiles. The first use of bombs dropped from an aircraft occurred in the Italo-Turkish War, with the first major deployments coming in the First World War and Second World War by all major airforces causing devastating damage to cities, towns, and rural areas. The first purpose built bombers were the Italian Caproni Ca 30 and British Bristol T.B.8, both of 1913. Some bombers were decorated with nose art or victory markings.
A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874 and developed in detail in 1893. They were patented in Germany in 1895 and in the United States in 1899. After the outstanding success of the Zeppelin design, the word zeppelin came to be commonly used to refer to all rigid airships. Zeppelins were first flown commercially in 1910 by Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-AG (DELAG), the world's first airline in revenue service. By mid-1914, DELAG had carried over 10,000 fare-paying passengers on over 1,500 flights. During World War I, the German military made extensive use of Zeppelins as bombers and as scouts, resulting in over 500 deaths in bombing raids in Britain.
Strategic bombing is a military strategy used in total war with the goal of defeating the enemy by destroying its morale, its economic ability to produce and transport materiel to the theatres of military operations, or both. It is a systematically organized and executed attack from the air which can utilize strategic bombers, long- or medium-range missiles, or nuclear-armed fighter-bomber aircraft to attack targets deemed vital to the enemy's war-making capability. The term terror bombing is used to describe the strategic bombing of civilian targets without military value, in the hope of damaging an enemy's morale.
Schräge Musik, which may also be spelled Schraege Musik, was a common name for the fitting of an upward-firing autocannon or machine gun, to an interceptor aircraft, such as a night fighter. The term was introduced by the German Luftwaffe during World War II. "Schräge Musik" was previously a German colloquialism, meaning music that featured an unusual tuning and/or time signature. The standard usage of the adjective schräg is often translated as "slanting" or "oblique", but its slang usage is often translated as "weird" or "strange".
Incendiary weapons, incendiary devices, incendiary munitions, or incendiary bombs are weapons designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using fire, using materials such as napalm, thermite, magnesium powder, chlorine trifluoride, or white phosphorus. Though colloquially often known as bombs, they are not explosives but in fact are designed to slow the process of chemical reactions and use ignition rather than detonation to start or maintain the reaction. Napalm, for example, is petroleum especially thickened with certain chemicals into a 'gel' to slow, but not stop, combustion, releasing energy over a longer time than an explosive device. In the case of napalm, the gel adheres to surfaces and resists suppression.
Technology during World War I (1914–1918) reflected a trend toward industrialism and the application of mass-production methods to weapons and to the technology of warfare in general. This trend began at least fifty years prior to World War I during the American Civil War of 1861–1865, and continued through many smaller conflicts in which soldiers and strategists tested new weapons.
The Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 was a British single-engine tractor two-seat biplane designed and developed at the Royal Aircraft Factory. Most of the roughly 3,500 built were constructed under contract by private companies, including established aircraft manufacturers and firms new to aircraft construction.
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1915:
This is a list of aviation-related events from 1917.
World War I was the first major conflict involving the large-scale use of aircraft. Tethered observation balloons had already been employed in several wars, and would be used extensively for artillery spotting. Germany employed Zeppelins for reconnaissance over the North Sea and Baltic and also for strategic bombing raids over Britain and the Eastern Front.
A parasite aircraft is a component of a composite aircraft which is carried aloft and air launched by a larger carrier aircraft or mother ship to support the primary mission of the carrier. The carrier craft may or may not be able to later recover the parasite during flight.
Jack O'Lantern is an alias used by several supervillains appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.
Cardiac is a fictional character, appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by writer David Michelinie and penciller Erik Larsen and first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #342 in December 1990.
Luft-Fahrzeug-Gesellschaft, also referred to as LFG, was a German aircraft manufacturer during World War I. They are best known for their various "Roland" designs, notably the Roland C.II Walfisch (whale), Roland D.II haifisch (Shark) and Roland D.VI, although they also produced a number of airships and many experimental designs.
The best-known German air campaign of the First World War was carried out against Britain. After several attacks by seaplanes, the main campaign began in January 1915 with airships. Until the Armistice the Marine-Fliegerabteilung and Die Fliegertruppen des deutschen Kaiserreiches mounted over fifty bombing raids. The raids were generally referred to in Britain as Zeppelin raids but Schütte-Lanz airships were also used. The Zeppelin Company was much better known and was responsible for producing the majority of the airships.
Tom Swift and His Air Scout, Or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky, is Volume 22 in the original Tom Swift novel series published by Grosset & Dunlap.
A life net, also known as a Browder Life Safety Net or jumping sheet, is a type of rescue equipment formerly used by firefighters. When used in the proper conditions, it allowed people on upper floors of burning buildings an opportunity to jump to safety, usually to ground level. Invented in 1887, the device was used with varying degrees of success during several notable fires in the 20th century. Due to advances in firefighting technology, it became obsolete by the 1980s. Owing to their former prevalence, life nets often feature in popular culture as a running gag, especially in cartoons where they often appear in use during scenes where a fire is taking place.
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon is a tactical shooter video game developed by Next Level Games and published by Ubisoft exclusively for the Wii. The game, set in modern day Norway and Russia, follows the efforts of two United States Army Rangers in toppling a fictional ultranationalist Russian regime.
The 1991 New Zealand bravery awards were announced via a Special Honours List dated 19 December 1991. Twelve of the 33 recipients were recognised for acts of bravery during the Aramoana Massacre on 13 November 1990.
The 2007 New Zealand gallantry awards were announced via a Special Honours List on 2 July 2007, and recognised four New Zealand military personnel for actions while serving in Afghanistan in 2004. The identities of three of the four award recipients were not released for operational security reasons. Willie Apiata was awarded the Victoria Cross for New Zealand, the first and so far only time the decoration has been awarded since its inception in 1999.
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