Other editions of book Tom Swift and His Aerial Warship, Or, the Naval Terror of the Seas

The story was written in 1915, and World War I, also known as The Great War, was already in progress. As the story opens, Tom is explaining his newest invention to his friend, Ned Newton. Just as Tom is in the middle of explaining the problems he is having, a fire erupts in one of the sheds, where explosives are stored. After the fire has been put out, careful investigation shows that the fire was set deliberately. In preparation for presenting his new airship to the United States Government, Tom has invited a Lieutenant Marbury, from the Navy, to review his ship. Marbury informs Tom of a possible plot against Tom and his inventions, past and present. Tom scoffs at the idea, but soon finds out otherwise, as his new airship is hijacked by foreign spies with an unknown agenda.

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

The Tom Swift series were a total hit at the beginning of the twentieth century, being continued due to popular demand well after Edward Stratemeyer created the first few volumes. Today, more than 100 volumes depicting the adventures of Tom Swift remain, written by a collective group of dedicated and skilled children’s literature authors known simply by the pseudonym “Victor Appleton.”Tom Swift and His Aerial Warship is the 18th volume in the series, having been written right after the dawn of the Great War (WWI) in 1915, at a time when the authors decided to have Tom take an active stance in the war, revealing his latest invention – his brand new airship.As Tom Swift explains some of the problem he’s been having, however, a fire erupted that was quite difficult to put out. Careful investigation revealed that the fire was set deliberately; but will this fact have any bearing on Tom’s efforts, and can he present his new invention to the US Government in time, before the plot against him and his inventions gets underway to cause any serious damage?As always, Tom Swift combines adventure with science and inventive ideas to create an exciting storyline that children will thoroughly enjoy. While the theme has to do with the military use of Tom’s inventions, the focus remains heavily on science as the answer to all the problems – the attempt to build the most superior inventions in order to thwart the Germans, who were already using flying machines known as zeppelins at the time.Tom’s inventions, as always, are quite different from what was available at the time, the authors using the full extent of their ingenuity and imagination to come up with sound, educationally viable and overall brilliant solutions that are still capable of entertaining children today, even a century after the story was penned.

Tom Swift and His Aerial Warship, or, The Naval Terror of the Seas, is Volume 18 in the original Tom Swift novel series published by Grosset & Dunlap.The story was written in 1915, and World War I, also known as The Great War, was already in progress. As the story opens, Tom is explaining his newest invention to his friend, Ned Newton. Just as Tom is in the middle of explaining the problems he is having, a fire erupts in one of the sheds, where explosives are stored. After the fire has been put out, careful investigation shows that the fire was set deliberately.In preparation for presenting his new airship to the United States Government, Tom has invited a Lieutenant Marbury, from the Navy, to review his ship. Marbury informs Tom of a possible plot against Tom and his inventions, past and present. Tom scoffs at the idea, but soon finds out otherwise, as his new airship is hijacked by foreign spies with an unknown agenda.Tom creates two new inventions for this story: a huge airship for military use, and a method of dealing with recoil on the weapons to be used.The airship is built on a similar model as the German-built zeppelins. These are huge craft, Tom's measuring at 600 feet in length and 60 feet in diameter. It is built of a semi-rigid airbag with several separated gas compartments, which would permit lift even if one or more of the gas compartments was damaged. Three cabins are hung below the airship: at the front is the pilot house, in the middle is the general quarters, and at the rear is the engine. A non-flammable gas is used for lift, and a single gas-powered engine provides forward momentum. Storage batteries, coupled with an electric motor, are used as backup power in the event of main engine failure. Tom hoped to sell this to the United States government, with an eye on the hostilities occurring in Europe at the time of the story.Secondary to the airship, Tom needs to conceive of a way to neutralize recoil from the guns which he plans to mount: two 4-inch cannon, and several unspecified machine-guns. When fired, the cannon would generate enough recoil to rip the ship apart, but Tom is inspired by Ned's observation of how an automatic door closer operates. Tom's invention is similar to the recoil system used in the French 75mm field gun.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.