Tom Swift and His Sky Racer

Tom Swift and His Sky Racer, or, The Speediest Flight on Record, is Volume 9 in the original Tom Swift novel series published by Grosset & Dunlap.

Tom Swift and His Sky Racer
AuthorVictor Appleton
Original titleTom Swift and His Sky Racer, or, The Speediest Flight on Record
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SeriesTom Swift
GenreYoung adult novel Adventure novel
PublisherGrosset & Dunlap
Publication date
1911
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages200+ pp
Preceded byTom Swift in the Caves of Ice 
Followed byTom Swift and His Electric Rifle 
TextTom Swift and His Sky Racer at Wikisource

Plot summary

A $10,000 prize lures Tom into competing at a local aviation meet at Eagle Park. Tom is determined to build the fastest plane around, but his plans mysteriously disappear, which means Tom must redesign his new airplane from the beginning. A side-plot through the story is Mr. Swift's failing health.

Inventions & Innovation

1909 era monoplane similar in form to Tom's Sky Racer.

Tom's Sky Racer, known as the Humming-Bird, is a two-seater monoplane, like his previous monoplane the Butterfly. However, the Sky Racer, is smaller and faster — making it ideal for air racing. It uses a single gasoline, air-cooled engine, which can attain air speeds of well over 100 mph with a minimum thrust of 1000 lbs at 2000rpm. Tom also invented an automated stabilizing unit which allowed the Sky Racer to handle adverse weather conditions without loss of control. The Sky Racer's design was compared to that of the Blériot XI and the Antoinette VII, however its wings were patterned after that of the hummingbird, rather than standard rectangular wings.

gollark: However, you could get about the same performance in a thinner thing if you are willing to pay more and probably have horrible cooling problems.
gollark: My laptop is a powerful nonthin laptop (it weighs 2.5kg plus a 1kg charger brick rated for 230W, and the back extends slightly past the screen so they can shove more IO on it) which I got cheaply via methods.
gollark: But yes, something something tradeoffs. You can get powerful thin laptops too, but they cost more than a bad thin laptop or powerful nonthin laptop.
gollark: A desktop is portable, just glue a car battery and 23" monitor to the side.
gollark: Unfortunately, they cost a lot (the M1 is very much not optimized for cost, and Apple like charging lots), run MacOS, and cannot be repaired.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.