The Great Airport Mystery is Volume 9 in the original The Hardy Boys

The Hardy Boys

The Hardy Boys, Frank and Joe Hardy, are fictional teenage brothers and amateur detectives who appear in various mystery series for children and teens....

 Mystery Stories published by Grosset & Dunlap

Grosset & Dunlap

Grosset & Dunlap is a United States book publisher founded in 1898.The company was purchased by G. P. Putnam's Sons in 1982 and today is part of the British publishing conglomerate, Pearson PLC through its American subsidiary Penguin Group....

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This book was written for the Stratemeyer Syndicate

Stratemeyer Syndicate

The Stratemeyer Syndicate was the producer of a number of mystery series for children, including Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the various Tom Swift series, the Bobbsey Twins, the Rover Boys, and others.- History :...

 by Leslie McFarlane

Leslie McFarlane

Leslie McFarlane was a Canadian journalist, novelist, screenwriter and filmmaker. McFarlane is most famous for ghostwriting many of the early books in the very successful Hardy Boys series using the pseudonym Franklin W. Dixon.- Early life :The son of a school principal, McFarlane was raised in...

 in 1930. Between 1959 and 1973 the first 38 volumes of this series were systematically revised as part of a project directed by Harriet Adams, Edward Stratemeyer's daughter. The original version of this book was rewritten in 1965 by Tom Mulvey resulting in two different stories with the same title.

Plot summary (revised edition)

While driving home the Hardy boys take a shortcut which results in a strange car crash and an encounter with an unfriendly stranger. The next day they are hired by Mr. Allen, the president of Stanwide Mining Equipment Company, under the guise of being factory messengers when in fact they are working undercover

Undercover

Being undercover is disguising one's own identity or using an assumed identity for the purposes of gaining the trust of an individual or organization to learn secret information or to gain the trust of targeted individuals in order to gain information or evidence...

 to investigate missing shipments of expensive mining equipment containing platinum

Platinum

Platinum is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Pt and an atomic number of 78. Its name is derived from the Spanish term platina del Pinto, which is literally translated into "little silver of the Pinto River." It is a dense, malleable, ductile, precious, gray-white transition metal...

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The Hardy boys decide to quit their messenger jobs when it becomes clear that the gang is onto them. Instead they rent a plane and take aerial photographs

Aerial photography

Aerial photography is the taking of photographs of the ground from an elevated position. The term usually refers to images in which the camera is not supported by a ground-based structure. Cameras may be hand held or mounted, and photographs may be taken by a photographer, triggered remotely or...

 of the area where their car crash occurred, however, their camera and exposed film

Photographic film

Photographic film is a sheet of plastic coated with an emulsion containing light-sensitive silver halide salts with variable crystal sizes that determine the sensitivity, contrast and resolution of the film...

 are stolen before they have a chance to develop the pictures. Continuing to investigate the theft of their camera, as well as the theft of the mining equipment, they repeatedly see footprints and hear voices belonging to Clint Hill, an aircraft pilot who is presumed dead after his plane crashed into the ocean, causing them to wonder if his ghost is somehow involved in the thefts.

After recovering their pictures the Hardy boys rent a helicopter

Helicopter

A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...

 and return to the area of the car crash, finding a large hidden cave and recovering the stolen shipments of equipment. Next the Hardy boys fly to a small Caribbean island, and then to Montana in pursuit of the criminals. Eventually they manage to apprehend all of the criminals involved and return to Bayport gratified at solving yet another mystery.

Plot summary (original edition)

In the original version of this story, the criminals are local Bayport

Bayport

Bayport may refer to a place in the United States:*Bayport, Florida*Bayport, Minnesota*Bayport, New York*Bayport, Wisconsin, a former town*Bayport terminal of the Port of Houston*Bayport Industrial District near La Porte and Pasadena, TexasOther uses...

 hoods who team up with a former mail plane pilot

Aviator

An aviator is a person who flies an aircraft. The first recorded use of the term was in 1887, as a variation of 'aviation', from the Latin avis , coined in 1863 by G. de la Landelle in Aviation Ou Navigation Aérienne...

 in a plot to steal a large payroll

Payroll

In a company, payroll is the sum of all financial records of salaries for an employee, wages, bonuses and deductions. In accounting, payroll refers to the amount paid to employees for services they provided during a certain period of time. Payroll plays a major role in a company for several reasons...

.The boys are framed for stealing the mail and get bailed out of jail by Mr Applegate from Tower Treasure and Mr Jefferson from Cabin Island. They also graduate from high school.

Hardy family and friends

Frank Hardy

Frank Hardy

Francis Joseph Hardy, or Frank, was an Australian left-wing novelist and writer best known for his controversial novel Power Without Glory. He also was a political activist bringing the plight of Aboriginal Australians to international attention with the publication of his book, The Unlucky...

Joe Hardy

Mrs. Laura Hardy

Laura Hardy (Hardy Boys)

Laura Hardy is the pretty and petite stay-at-home mother of Frank and Joe in the Hardy Boys novels . She is married to Fenton Hardy the private investigator and they all live in Bayport, New York with Fenton's sister, Aunt Gertrude...

Miss Gertrude Hardy

Mr. Fenton Hardy

• Chet Morton
• Jerry Madden: Jerry Madden is a wiry, good-looking youth whose brother was a teammate of the Hardys on their school's varsity football squad. He is a pilot for the Stanwide Company. Jerry helps the Hardys several times on their case, including flying them to a Caribbean island near the end of the mystery. In the other books of this series his name is given as Jerry Gilroy
• Iola Morton
• Callie Shaw
• Mrs. Morton
• Biff Hooper
• Bill Vogel
• Kurt Lerner
• Kyle Rodney
• Clint Hill

Criminals

• Bush Barney: Bush Barney first appears right before a plane almost runs down the Hardy Boys. He has a card in Mr. Hardy's identification files as an ex-convict, which is where Frank Hardy finds out who Bush Barney is.
• Art Rodax: Art Rodax is the boss of the Hardy Boys when they take "summer jobs" (working undercover on a mystery) at the Stanwide Mining Equipment Company. Rodax is a heavy-set man with thinning hair, and a sour, belligerent expression.
• Lance Peterson: Lance Peterson is a man of average height, with sandy-colored hair and a hard, weathered face. He was the copilot on the plane that crashed with Clint Hill. Peterson was supposedly the only survivor. When he starts hearing Clint Hill's voice on the radio, he pleads the Hardys to find out who is doing it.
• Mike Zimm and Mrs. Zimm: Mike Zimm is a mechanic for the Stanwide Company. He plays a part in stealing platinum from the Stanwide Company. Mrs. Zimm is the wife of Mike Zimm.
• Aaron Lieber and Mrs. Lieber: Aaron Lieber is a copilot mechanic and a special pal of Lance Peterson. He is a bony-faced man with beady eyes. Later in the story, he and Peterson fly a Stanwide cargo plane without orders with intent to steal the cargo, but are apprehended. Mrs. Lieber, his wife, is a stocky, handsome woman with a tremendous amount of blonde hair.
• John Unger: A shipping clerk and accomplice of Peterson and Lieber.
• Mack Carney: Crony of thieves.
• Anchor: Accomplice.

Allies

• Mr. Albert Allen: The owner of Stanwide who hires the Hardys to investigate.
• Lou Diamond: Lou Diamond is the tower chief at Bayport Airport. He is a stocky, good-natured man, with crew-cut red hair, but nevertheless has an air of authority. The Hardys consult him for information about a low-flying plane.
• Randy Watson: Randy Watson is a tall, lean man who pilots the Hardys when they go up in an airplane to take photos of a suspicious area.
• Mr. Freeman: Mr. Freeman is the owner of “Freeman’s Camera House”. He is a man of medium height with dark hair.
• Richard Tyson and Mrs. Tyson: Richard Tyson is a large, burly man who uses the name of “Mr. R. C. Williams” when he goes to pick up photos that are originally the Hardys. When scared by the mention of the police, he tells them his real name and that his neighbor, the real Mr. Williams, told him to pick up the pictures under his name.