"It's the crack and crash of quick landings that break up so many planes." The boy spread his ideas gingerly before these two experienced old heads, fearing the laugh over some ridiculous flaw that his reasoning might have passed up. "Seems to me man hasn't got so far in what he lands on! Oh, of course he's gone a little way, passed from a sled base to wheels, then made the wheels larger and put pneumatic tires on 'em! But at that, any kind of speed landing bangs a fellow with a recoil like a rammed cannon. Now suppose between the ship and the landing gear we had a new kind of shock absorbers--sort of buffers made up of long cylinders with pistons in them, containing oil or glycerine, or some fluid like that, wouldn't they--"