Carreidas 160

Carreidas 160

Drawing of a sleek jet as it flies over an island visible below

The Carreidas 160, from Flight 714, about to land
Publication information
First appearance Flight 714 (1968)

The Carreidas 160 (French: Le Carreidas 160) is a fictional three-engine supersonic business jet appearing in The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. A significant piece of fictional technology, the plane exhibits advanced features not normally seen on business aircraft, yet are not outrageous in any significant way. The Carreidas 160 is a prototype jet and the private transportation of aircraft industrialist and eccentric millionaire Laszlo Carreidas in Flight 714. The aircraft was designed for the book by Roger Leloup, one of the artists at Studios Hergé. Leloup had previously designed all of the aircraft in recent Tintin albums.

In the Tintin adventure, the Carreidas 160 is the setting of a hijacking. Criminals kidnap Laszlo Carreidas and take control of his plane in order to extort his financial fortune. They nearly destroy the plane and everyone in it during a dramatic landing on a remote Sondonesian island. Tintin must outwit the criminals and return his friends to safety.

Creation

Hergé wanted the Carreidas 160 in Flight 714 (1968) to have at least the same detailed attention that he had put into all of his fictional vehicles, from the Unicorn ship in The Secret of the Unicorn (1943) to the moon rocket in Explorers on the Moon (1954).[1] The supersonic jet aircraft called for by the new Tintin adventure, while fanciful, could not be viewed as implausible and needed to meet the same exacting standards. Hergé, who had reached his sixtieth birthday and whose drawing hand had begun suffering from eczema, was happy to leave the drawing of the jet to Roger Leloup, his younger colleague at Studios Hergé.[2] Leloup, a technical artist and aviation expert, had drawn the moon rocket, the de Havilland Mosquito in The Red Sea Sharks (1958), and all aircraft in the recently redrawn The Black Island (1966).[3] Leloup was described by British Tintin expert Michael Farr as "the aeronautical expert in the Studios" and his design of the Carreidas 160 as "painstakingly executed and, of course, viable."[4]

In The Adventures of Tintin

Main article: Flight 714

Fictional technology

In the adventure, the Carreidas 160 is a prototype supersonic business jet, a three-engine private plane designed for ten passengers and four crew members.[1][lower-alpha 1] When it appeared on the pages of Flight 714, it rivaled all aircraft in existence. Its most remarkable feature, its "swing-wing" variable geometry allowing its wings to be moved to three positions, fascinated readers interested in aeronautics.[1] Laszlo Carreidas, the misanthropic aircraft industrialist[lower-alpha 2] and owner of the prototype, describes the workings of the swing-wing technology to Captain Haddock: "Well, the wings are pivoted at the leading edge. The pilot has to move them forward to give maximum lift for take-off or landing. As he goes through the sound barrier, he has them in mid-position. Then in supersonic flight, he swings them right back, and that's what's happening now."[6]

A detailed, cross-section design of an aircraft, the Carreidas 160, is shown
The Carreidas 160 cross-sectional view, as it appeared in Tintin magazine

A "meticulous design of the revolutionary Carreidas 160 jet" was prepared, according to entertainment producer and author Harry Thompson, "a fully working aircraft with technical plans drawn up by Roger Leloup."[7] Leloup's detailed cross-sectional design of the Carreidas 160 and its technical specifications were published in a double-page spread for Tintin magazine in 1966.[8] Beginning at the nose of the jet, Leloup's specification includes the meteorological radar, antennas and receiving equipment, batteries, emergency oxygen system, and ice protection system (for a triple-thick windscreen) in front of a forward pressure bulkhead. In the cockpit, the design depicts the rudder bar steering, the electronic equipment and radio apparatus, and seats for the pilot, co-pilot, and radio navigator, below which is the nose wheel.[9]

Past the forward baggage compartment and aircraft lavatory is the entry airlock accessed by the main passenger door with built-in boarding staircase. The forward bulkhead with two built-in extra seats begins the passenger compartment with eight passenger seats: two starboard seats facing a work table and six in three rows—the front port seat, Carreidas', with a work table and emergency exit. The portholes are triple thick and the cabin is thermally insulated and air conditioned; passengers may fully stand while inside. Below the deck, the design depicts the necessary command cables and electronic circuits. An aft bulkhead separates the passenger compartment from the galley and bar for the steward. Aft of this are the hygrometric regulators and the cables and pulleys for control of direction and height. Below this is the retractable undercarriage.[9]

The three Rolls-Royce Turbomeca RB272 afterburning turbofan engines with sharp, squared-off intakes power the Carreidas 160, one centrally located and two on either side. The wing design includes the mechanism for altering the swinging wings from maximum deployment position to maximum swept back position, as well as including the usual wing flaps, ailerons, and air brakes. The sharply swept T-tail includes the elevators, rudder, altitude steering gear, and a mechanism to control incidence variation.[9]

Plot role

While in the Kemayoran Airport in Jakarta, Tintin, his dog Snowy, and his friends Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus prepare to transfer to Qantas Flight 714 to Sydney. They bump into their friend Piotr Skut who pilots a private jet belonging to Laszlo Carreidas, the "millionaire who never laughs". Carreidas insists on giving Tintin and his friends a lift and introduces them to his "newest brain-child: The Carreidas 160. A triple-jet executive aircraft" with "Rolls-Royce Turbomeca turbojets" that "deliver in total 18,500 pounds of thrust" ("It's magnificent!", says Tintin). Kemayoran tower radios to Gulf Tango Fox (the Carreidas 160) that it is cleared for take-off; it accelerates down the runway and lifts into the air. Carreidas suggests a friendly game of Battleships to Captain Haddock, who is unaware that closed-circuit television installed on the plane allows the millionaire to see his board. While cruising at 40,000 feet at Mach 2 over the Indian Ocean, the jet is hijacked at gunpoint by the co-pilot, radio navigator, and Carreidas' secretary. The friends and the plane's steward are locked into the plane's galley and bar while the navigator radios the jet's position as having just flown over islands of Lombok and Sumbawa, then shuts down communication. The copilot drops the plane's altitude to sea level to avoid radar contact then flies to the remote island Pulau-Pulau Bompa, where he must land the supersonic jet on a temporary landing strip one-quarter of the necessary size. As the jet races down the runway, the nose-wheel bursts and the parachute shreds, but the jet is safely caught by an enormous net placed at the runway's end. Disembarking, Tintin learns that the island is controlled by Sondonesian nationalist guerrillas led by Rastapopoulos, his longtime nemesis. Rastapopoulos informs Tintin that he should have stayed on Flight 714 and promises Carreidas that soon all traces of his plane will vanish. As the Sondonesians disassemble the runway and camouflage the plane, which is not seen again, Rastapopoulos attempts to extort a Swiss bank account number from Carreidas while Tintin and his friends are taken prisoner and must plot their escape.[10]

References

Notes

  1. ↑ The name "Carreidas" is a pun: carré d'as means "four aces" in French. Accordingly, the logo on the jet's tail consists of four aces.
  2. ↑ Hergé based Laszlo Carreidas on the similarly dressed and similarly behaved French aerospace magnate Marcel Dassault, manufacturer of the Mirage Delta wing and the Dassault Mystère military aircraft.[5]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Goddin 2011, p. 150.
  2. ↑ Assouline 2009, pp. 200–201; Farr 2001, p. 184; Thompson 1991, p. 190.
  3. ↑ Assouline 2009, pp. 200–202; Farr 2001, pp. 75, 78, 157, 184; Lambiek Comiclopedia 2011; Dupuis 2011.
  4. ↑ Farr 2001, pp. 184–185.
  5. ↑ Assouline 2009, pp. 200–202; Farr 2001, pp. 180–181; Peeters 1989, p. 120.
  6. ↑ Hergé 1968, p. 11; Farr 2001, p. 184.
  7. ↑ Thompson 1991, p. 190.
  8. ↑ Farr 2001, pp. 184–185; Tintin magazine 1966.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Peeters 1989, pp. 122–123; Tintin magazine 1966.
  10. ↑ Hergé 1968, pp. 1–20; Assouline 2009, pp. 199–200; Thompson 1991, p. 188.

Bibliography

External links