Book #3 in the Tom Swift 100th Anniversary Project. With both a motor cycle and a speedy motorboat to his credit, and after rescuing balloonist John Sharp, the two of them, with some help from Tom's best friend, Ned Newton, construct a radically different airship. Part airplane and part dirigible, the Red Cloud is a work of wonder. Tom, John and Mr. Wakefield Damon set out on a flying adventure covering much of the East Coast and the South of the United States as they seek fun and excitement. They get it aplenty if the form of townspeople trying to shoot them down, sheriffs trying to arrest them, and they nearly lose their lives when a gigantic forest fire sucks the Red Cloud downward toward the searing flames. Little do they know that many of their troubles are based on a false accusation against Tom by his old nemesis Andy Foger. It is a race against time for them to get back to try to clear Tom's name. ------------------------- This book has been substantially rewritten to remove outright racism and to enhance the mechanical and technical interests. Many books of this era used sentence structures, certain words and even punctuation in ways that can be confusing to younger readers today. So, every effort has been made to alleviate this issue while retaining the flavor of a story first told more than a century before.