  If desire is sometimes the mother of invention, doubtless the wish to “mix with the clouds,” or “as smoke arise,” suggested to man his first means of aËrial locomotion. Indeed this is openly avowed by Joseph Montgolfier. “Smoke rises in the chimney; why not encage this smoke, and have an available force.” But before describing his fundamental experiments of 1783, let us notice the less conspicuous ones, though not less philosophical, of his immediate predecessors in the development of aËronautic science. It has been seen, that many years before 1783, inventors had clearly conceived the true principle of the balloon, and would be glad to avail themselves of an element of sufficiently low specific gravity for aËrial flotation. The desired opportunity came when, in 1766, Henry Cavendish published his experiments, proving that hydrogen is many times lighter than air. Immediately after this, Dr. Black, the famous chemist and natural philosopher of Edinburgh, conceived the idea that a thin light vessel filled Intermediate between Dr. Black, the pure scientist, and the Montgolfier brothers manufacturers, came Tiberius Cavallo, an Italian philosopher living in England, who made the first small hydrogen balloons. In a note presented to the Royal Society of London, June 20, 1782, he relates experiments that seem to entitle him to all the credit of inventing the balloon except success on a practical scale. He made hydrogen soap bubbles which rose beautifully in the air, an experiment that has been repeated throughout the world in every chemical laboratory since his day. He made a variety of gum bubbles and varnish bubbles inflated with hydrogen; but curiously enough these failed to rise, though it is known that such bubbles can be made to float handsomely.[5] He inflated carefully prepared gold-beater skin and failed, though gold-beater skin balloons, both large and small, are now a marketable commodity. Finally he constructed paper balloons which he tried to float by use of hydrogen, but without success, though a year later the Montgolfier brothers easily made paper bags arise with hot air, and Professor Charles ascended in a large silk balloon inflated with hydrogen. The cause of Cavallo’s interesting failures reveals itself in his own account of one of his pioneer experiments. In his History and Practice of AËrostation, he relates that he constructed, of fine Chinese paper, a cylindrical balloon having short conical ends and a calculated buoyancy of twenty-five grains, when properly inflated with hydrogen. This bag, carefully deflated of air by compression between the hands, he suspended above a large bottle connected with it by a glass tube, and supplied with materials for generating hydrogen; in this case a mixture of dilute sulphuric acid and iron filings. When the hydrogen was evolving quite rapidly, he expected to see the paper sac expand and fill out with proportionate speed; but to his surprise it remained perfectly flat, while the room filled with the strong and disagreeable odor of the “inflaminable air.” He then realized that the carefully made sac of paper, which could be so easily inflated with air, was very permeable to hydrogen, allowing it to escape instantly, as through porous cloth, or netting. Cavallo desisted when the goal was within reach. His plans were practicable, but he abandoned them too readily. Why did he not varnish his balloon when it leaked? He could thus so easily have inaugurated the art of aËrial navigation. But after salting the bird’s tail he let it escape. Various accounts have been given of the steps by which the Montgolfiers were led to their invention of the balloon. They are said to have studied and discussed projects for aËrial locomotion a decade before hitting upon their first successful device; at one time filling a paper bag with smoke ineffectually; again with steam, and again trying, but in vain, to employ hydrogen. The following apparently reliable account is given by a friend of the Montgolfiers, Baron Gernando, in his biographical notice of Joseph Joseph Montgolfier found himself at Abignon, and it was at the time when the combined armies held the siege of Gibraltar. Alone, in the chimney corner, dreaming, as usual, he was contemplating a sort of cut that represented the work of the siege; he grew impatient observing that one could not reach the body of the place either by land or sea. “But could not one arrive there through the air? Smoke rises in the chimney; why not store this smoke in such a manner as to form an available force?” His mind calculated instantly the weight of a given surface of paper, or taffeta; he constructed without delay his little balloon, and saw it rise from the floor, to the great surprise of his hostess, and with a peculiar joy. He wrote on the spot, to his brother then at Annonay: “Prepare immediately a supply of taffeta and cordage, and you shall see the most astonishing thing in the world.” A quainter story is told by Brisson in his Dictionary of Physics. He says: “I can only repeat what the citizen Montgolfier himself told me, when he came to Paris to announce his discovery; that the citizeness Montgolfier having placed a skirt on an open-wicker basket, such as women use to dry linen, the skirt was lifted to the ceiling. It is from this fact that the citizens Montgolfier started.” Whatever the preliminaries, the Montgolfier brothers finally made the experiment of holding a paper bag over a fire fed with wet straw and wool. It is doubtful whether they purposed to fill it with smoke, or with hot air or an electrical cloud. They knew that a cloud of some kind rises from such a fire, and they wanted to harness it. Their first balloon took fire and went up as smoke. But they were rich paper manufacturers, and soon had another balloon How fortuitous the primal steps of science! Galvanism from the twitch of a frog’s leg; aËrostation from the puff of a petticoat! There had been no year in thirty centuries when people could not easily have built a hot-air balloon. All the materials were available; only a little thought was wanting. A simple sketch sent to a Roman tailor, or tent-maker, could have furnished a woven bag competent to lift passengers from the heart of the Coliseum, to the wonder and delight of a hundred thousand spectators. Yet the genius that could design the Coliseum, or cover its vast enclosure with canvas, failed to think of the magic bag that would have enhanced so much the ingenious shows of a show-loving people. That device was an inspiration destined to a common Frenchman at no uncommon period of science. The hydrogen balloon arrived in the natural and logical order of scientific progression; but the hot-air bag might have presented itself at any time since the birth of weaving. It was a happy thought, like the ophthalmoscope, or jack-knife—quaint modern creations of constant use or comfort to mankind. The public inauguration of aËronautics occurred on June 5, 1783, at Annonay, the home of the Montgolfier family, 36 miles from Lyons. The states of Vivarais being assembled at that place, were invited to witness the ascension. The Deputies and many spectators found in the public square an enormous Fig. 5.—Montgolfier’s Experimental Balloon. When the French Academy learned of this event they desired to have an ascension in Paris, and at once started a public subscription to defray the expense of constructing and inflating a balloon. They placed the work in charge of the physicist Charles, after inviting the Montgolfiers to Paris, and finding they could not come immediately. Charles proved more than a substitute; he became a fertile inventor and a rival in the new field. Aided by the skill of the Robert brothers, he made a silk globe varnished with dissolved rubber, and filled it with hydrogen, which is many times lighter than hot air. The operation of filling occupied three days, consuming 500 pounds of sulphuric acid and half a ton of iron. The globe was 13 feet in diameter, and designated a “balloon,” or big ball. This had next to be moved from the place of filling, in the Place des Victoires, to the Champ de Mars, two miles distant, in order to have space enough to accommodate the increasing crowd of spectators. Accordingly, on the 26th it was conveyed thither, in the dead of night, preceded by lighted torches, surrounded by a cortege, and escorted by foot and horse guards. Impressive and weird, indeed, was this nocturnal caravan of troops and towering globe advancing slowly through the dark and silent streets. The astonished cab drivers knelt humbly, hat in hand, while the procession passed. The ascent of this, the first hydrogen balloon, was a popular and a memorable event. The field was lined with troops. The curious spectators had thronged every thoroughfare and darkened every housetop. It was an all day festival, inaugurating a peculiarly French science, with French animation. The booming of cannon announced to all Paris the Fig. 6.—Charles’ First Hydrogen Balloon. The landing of this little balloon did not leave it in a condition to exhibit proudly to future generations. After drifting three quarters of an hour, it fell in a field near Gonesse, a village fifteen miles from the place of ascension, apparently ruptured from overdistention. The villagers flocked about it with curiosity and trepidation, ignorant of its nature, whether of bird kind or monster; and doubtful of its origin, whether natural or satanic. They fell upon it with flails and pitchforks. When struck it smelt strongly of sulphur, indicating a diabolic source. They finally hitched it to the tail of a horse which galloping away in terror, badly damaged it. In the meantime Joseph Montgolfier, having reached Paris, had constructed a waterproof linen balloon 46 feet in diameter and ornamented in oil colors, which was to be publicly launched at Versailles. On September 19, 1783, the king and queen, the court and a vast throng of people of every rank and age, assembled to witness the ascension. Montgolfier explained to them every detail, and finally lit the fire, about one o’clock. The great bag gradually expanded, rounding out in eleven minutes to a beautiful globular form, tugging upward with a force of seven hundred pounds. Beneath was suspended a wicker cage containing the first aËrial passengers—a sheep, a rooster and a duck. The vessel rose majestically above the applauding multitude to a height of fourteen hundred feet, and drifted some two miles in eight minutes, descending gradually in the wood at Vaucresson. The animals were tipped out on landing; but, when found by two game-keepers, they were none the worse for their strange journey. The sheep was grazing and the cock crowing, says one report, while another relates that the sheep had trampled on the rooster and lamed him. Stephen Montgolfier now wishing to send up human passengers, made a balloon of 100,000 cubic feet capacity. It was shaped like a full lemon pointing upward, with a cylindrical neck below, 16 feet in diameter. Around this neck was a wicker balcony three feet wide, to carry the aËronauts, bundles of straw for fuel, pails of water and sponges to extinguish incipient conflagrations, here and there in the balloon, during a journey. Through stokeholes in The handsome vessel was now ready; but what daring captain should navigate her? King Louis proposed two prisoners who were under sentence of death, and had to be killed somehow. But the brave PilÂtre de Rozier protested indignantly: “Eh quoi! de vils criminels auraient les premiers la gloire de senlever dans les airs! Non, non, cela ne sera point.” He stirred up the city, and finally prevailed, through the entreaties of the Marquis d’Arlandes, who secured from the king permission to accompany his friend. After some days of preliminary practice in maneuvering the tethered balloon, these gentlemen were ready for an aËrial voyage. On November 21, 1783, the balloon was inflated in the garden of La Muette palace, and stocked with enough straw for an hour’s journey. When all was ready PilÂtre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes stepped with eager courage into the gallery taking opposite sides to ensure proper balance. At two o’clock they rose splendidly, amid the acclamations of a vast throng of spectators, and at the height of 280 feet, removing their hats, saluted the surprised multitude. Encountering a south blowing wind, they drifted five miles in some twenty minutes, and landed safely in a Fig. 7.—Montgolfier’s Passenger Balloon. While the foregoing experiment was in progress, plans were matured for the construction of a hydrogen balloon large enough to support two passengers and remain aloft many hours, without the need of carrying dangerous fuel. This type of balloon, called a CharliÈre, after its inventor, was destined largely to supersede the hot-air type, known as the MontgolfiÈre, and indeed, to replace it entirely for free voyages of considerable endurance and for most power voyages. The construction after the plan of Professor Charles was delegated to two very intelligent mechanics, the Robert brothers who also had succeeded in dissolving caoutchouc, and thus producing a very superior balloon varnish. The project was first announced in the Journal de Paris of the 19th of November 1783. As usual in those days of public enthusiasm, a subscription was opened to defray the expenses of the experiment, estimated to cost about ten thousand francs. Fig. 8.—Charles’ Passenger Balloon. This balloon was a truly scientific creation, which advanced aËrostation from tottering infancy almost to full prime. The bag was a sphere 27½ feet in diameter made of gores of varnished silk. A net covered the upper half and was fastened to a horizontal The inflation and ascension occurred in the Garden of the Tuileries, where the limp bag was initially suspended from a rope stretched between two trees. For three days and nights the hydrogen, drawn from twenty barrels containing iron and dilute sulphuric acid, poured upward through the silken neck into the distending globe, which swelled in volume to 1,400 cubic feet. Finally on a beautiful day, the first of December 1783, the Tuileries and all the neighborhood were crowded with spectators. A numerous guard of soldiers, stationed about the apparatus and grounds, preserved order. The fashion and nobility of Paris were there, in ample splendor, attracted by the novelty and importance of the experiment, and the fame of the inventor. Shortly before two o’clock Professor Charles presented to his friend, Montgolfier, a pilot balloon six feet in diameter, saying, “It is your prerogative to blaze the way through the sky.” The pilot balloon was released, showing to everyone the direction of the aËrial Immediately a cavalcade set out in hot pursuit of the venturesome sailors. It was the first chase after an air ship, and a most vigorous one. The balloon drifting northwestward at a speed of fifteen miles an hour, crossed the Seine, passed over several towns and villages, to the great astonishment of the inhabitants, and landed in a field near Nesle. Here it was securely held by friendly peasants, to await the advent of the official witnesses. Presently these arrived, drew up a certificate of descent and signed it. The Duke de Chartres, and the Duke de Fitz-James, who had followed less swiftly, now rode up and signed the formal document, to the great gratification of the aËronauts. The aËrial journey had been a most delightful one, lasting about two hours and covering nearly thirty miles. After receiving the felicitations of his friends, Charles determined to reascend, in order to obtain further scientific observations. Owing to leakage and loss of buoyancy, he must now leave behind his pleasant companion. He had proposed replacing with earth, or stones, a part of Mr. Robert’s weight, but, finding none at hand, he signaled the peasants to let go, whereupon he rose with unusual speed. The remainder of this first and very remarkable scientific voyage is well told by the navigator himself:
Further interesting details of the first balloon experiments at Paris are furnished by Dr. Benjamin Franklin, then American Minister to France, in his letters written to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society of London, and presented in Appendix II of this book. These quaint and substantial stories are well worth perusal as the expressions of a great diplomat and philosopher who, in the midst of social and political activities, found time for scientific correspondence with his friends in both hemispheres. AËrial navigation was now become a practical art which should advance rapidly in popularity, in both Europe and America. Very soon ascensions were made everywhere, for private amusement and for public exhibitions. Not a few were made for scientific, for military and for topographical purposes; thus giving the art a utilitarian as well as a sporting feature. It will be interesting to note some of the more conspicuous ascensions, voyages and improvements made in passive balloons subsequently to the invention of MontgolfiÈres and CharliÈres. The largest hot-air balloon ever constructed, La Flesselle, was launched from the suburbs of the city of Lyons on January 19, 1784, just two months after the ascent of the first human passengers. It was also one of the most troublesome to assemble and keep in repair. Day by day, for more than a week, the balloon was inflated for the purpose of attaching The ascension of this gigantic vessel was immensely spectacular; but it was also most adventurous and foolhardy. The great bag, which at best was made of poor materials, was in bad repair after its frequent inflations. But of the six passengers in the gallery not one could be induced to remain behind to lessen the risk to the others. Their pilot, M. de Rozier, remonstrated with them; the proprietor M. C. Flesselle wished them to cast lots; but no one would abandon the journey. So, with fear and reluctance, the pilot ordered the mooring ropes to be cut. Just as the ascent began, a seventh passenger, M. Fontaine, sprang into the gallery and sailed aloft with the others. By vigorous stoking the aËrial sailors urged their fiery vessel upward three thousand feet, whence, apparently without fear, they waved their hats to the vast throng below. Fig. 9.—La Flesselle. The spectators were now in a frenzy of excitement. For more than a week they had vacillated between The crossing of the English Channel by balloon had been contemplated many months by various adventurous spirits; and at length, on a fine day, the seventh of January, 1785, this feat was attempted by two intrepid men, the French aËronaut, M. Blanchard, and an American physician, Dr. Jeffries, who had graduated at Harvard in 1763, and was practicing medicine in England. Starting from the perpendicular cliff at Dover Castle, at one o’clock, they sailed in the direction of Calais, having with them only thirty pounds of sand ballast. This was too little for so long a voyage; but it would doubtless carry them a few miles, in the favorable breeze then blowing. To their surprise, the atmosphere seemed to grow lighter as they advanced over the water, letting This splendid achievement incited two Frenchmen to attempt a counter voyage which ended disastrously. On June 15, 1785, PilÂtre de Rozier and M. Romain set out from Boulogne on a voyage from France to England, in a compound balloon composed of a hydrogen balloon forty feet in diameter, below which was suspended a fire balloon ten feet in diameter. They hoped by judicious stoking of the lower balloon to obviate the sinking tendency suffered by Blanchard and Jeffries. But the smaller The next important advance in practical ballooning was made by the substitution of coal gas for hydrogen. This was England’s contribution to an art which previously had not greatly flourished west of the Channel. It was a contribution following the natural growth of science; for in 1814 coal gas began generally to be used for lighting London, and seven years later for inflating balloons. This valuable innovation was made by the famous aËronaut, Charles Green, on the occasion of his first ascension, made July 19, 1821, the coronation day of George IV. The new method largely superseded the old, extending throughout the world with the spread of gas lighting; and it gave a powerful stimulus to aËronautics by rendering inflation cheap and convenient. Mr. Green himself made 526 ascensions during his life, or at the rate of one cruise a month for nearly forty-four years. In due time, every country had its professional aËronauts, and finally its amateurs, who, forming themselves into aËro clubs, devoted themselves to racing in free balloons, inflated quite usually from a city gas supply. In 1836 Mr. Robert Holland organized an expedition designed to test the utmost capabilities of the balloon of his day, particularly in points of endurance and control. Engaging as pilot the first aËronaut of the age, Mr. Charles Green, and employing the largest gas balloon that ever had been constructed, Fig. 10.—The Great Balloon of Nassau. The vessel selected for that famous cruise was The Great Balloon of Nassau, then recently built by Mr. Green and representing all that his skill and experience could devise. It was of pear shape, formed The voyage proved well worthy of the elaborate preparations. At one-thirty o’clock on November 7th, the three navigators arose from London, in presence of a mighty multitude, and drifted in a southeasterly direction traversing the cultivated plains of Kent, and in two hours passed the environs of Canterbury. Here they dropped a parachute with a letter for the Mayor, which he duly received. Continuing their journey they floated leisurely above the tree tops, talking to the inhabitants of the country, startling the fleet-winged quail, terrifying a colony of rooks, and finally reaching Dover at sundown, where they again dropped a letter for the Mayor of the city, which also was duly delivered. Without a moment’s pause they drifted over the Channel into the gathering darkness. Before them Now came the preparations for a night voyage over an obscurely defined land route. A simple rope one thousand feet long without ballast was allowed to trail beneath them. A lamp was lit. Coffee was heated by the slacking of quicklime. An ample store of viands and wine was spread on the board in the middle of the car. The strenuous period of thought and labor was past, and now three hungry men sat leisurely at dinner, after a fast of twelve long hours. However sparing of bones and bottles, which later might serve as ballast, they were not economical of food and wine that evening. For the present they had only to live and be happy as bachelors. Muffled in soft garments, well fed, abundantly served with divine beverages, hot or cold; what finer picture of masculine comfort and delight? They were now floating tranquilly in the vast solitude of heaven, over a teeming continent mantled in night and mystery. Far along earth’s sable surface gleam the scattered fires of many villages; and above it the lovelier fires of a moonless sky. Unseen, unsuspected, they survey kingdoms and cities, trailing their long rope serpent-like over woodland, field and quiet homestead. Now on the horizon before them looms a greater fire, like a distant conflagration, widening as they approach. Gradually it expands into a model city, shooting out long lines of illuminated streets; here the public squares, markets and theatres; there the rumbling iron mills with blazing furnaces. They are above Liege at her festive hour, murmuring with animation and busy life. Again they drift into the dark regions of slumber, lapped in silence and deep tranquillity, where the lights of men are extinguished, and the stars, redoubling their lustre, gleam whitest silver in heaven’s jetty dome. Midnight involves the world; an abyss of darkness enfolds it; their solitary lamp seems to melt its way through solid space of blackest marble. For hours they undulate over the rolling hills, rising and falling a thousand cubits, held always to earth by the trailing rope. At times they are so near as to trace the landscape dimly; here a white tract covered lightly with snow, here a dark valley or forest, here a tortuous river, probably the Rhine, with its multitudinous thunder of waters. But in all that weird and obscure wandering no joyous note of human or animal life ascends ere dawn to cheer their solitary course in the sky. At last the paling of the morning star, and a faint tingeing of the eastern cumuli, announce the expected day. With sudden bound the great ship mounts aloft twelve thousand feet, into the glory of the blazing sun, new risen among clouds of amber At length through the clearing vapor they perceive the country well tilled and populous; a good place to land to shorten their route to Paris, and avoid the wide plains of Poland or Russia. They raise the guide-rope, lower the cable and anchor, open the valve, and descend in a grassy field near Weilburg, in the Duchy of Nassau. It is now seven-thirty o’clock, just eighteen hours since starting; and they have traveled five hundred miles, the longest aËrial voyage thus far recorded. Very soon they are surrounded by a wondering crowd of pipe-puffing, shaggy-headed, German peasants, by whose willing aid they finally deflate the balloon, pack it in the bottom of the car, and mount it on a one-horse cart for Weilburg. Thence the aËronauts, after a week of festivities in their honor, and distinguished attentions from the highest officials of the town, embarked with their balloon for Paris. This famous craft now bore its permanent title; for a few days previously the lovely daughter of the Baron de Bibra, with seven other young ladies and Mr. Green, had stood within the air-inflated vessel, poured a generous libation It was in truth a great balloon in various ways; in solidity and strength, in workmanship, in completeness of appointment, in endurance and control. Having accomplished that long journey without a sign of weakness or defect, it was still in prime condition, proudly heading for the farthest verge of Europe. It had not, of course, the instrumental equipment of a modern balloon; but it did possess the elements essential for a long and hard cruise. Since the day of its launching many additions have been added to the art, but these, for the most part, are special adjuncts. The more important features of a good balloon are practically the same to-day as when they were first introduced by Professor Charles and sturdy old Mr. Green. A still more elaborate and colossal air ship was the Geant, constructed in 1863, for A. Nadar of Paris. It was made of a double layer of white silk, had a volume of 215,000 cubic feet and a buoyancy of 4½ tons. The car was a wicker cabin 13 feet wide by 7 feet high, with a wicker balcony round the top so that the roof could be used as an observation deck—a delightful place to loll in the starlight, or watch the morning sun “flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye.” The closed car comprised two main rooms with a hallway between them, one containing the captain’s bed and baggage, the other having three superposed berths for passengers. Minor divisions of the car were reserved for provisions, a lavatory, photography and a printing press, the latter to be used for the dissemination of news from the sky, as the navigators floated from state to state. A compensator balloon of 3,500 cubic feet, just below the main bag and connected with it, received the escaping gas during expansion with increase of tempera Fig. 11.—Car of Nadar’s Balloon. The first ascension, made on Sunday, October 4, 1863, was one of magnificent promise. In the midst of a vast holiday throng on the Champ de Mars, the great globe towered aloft nearly two hundred feet, held to earth by one hundred men and twice as many The captain was now in supreme control, with the key to the victual and liquor room in his pocket, and his twelve commandments duly signed by all aboard. They had pledged themselves not to gamble, not to carry inflammable materials, not to smoke unduly, not to throw bottles overboard, not to quit the balloon without permission, but to descend if so ordered, etc. They had sailed at five o’clock in the evening and all was going merrily. But presently trouble came. The valve rope gave way, the vessel was sailing in the dark, and the Godards declared she was drifting to sea, whereas she was drifting in quite the opposite direction. To be on the safe side they threw out the anchors by permission of the commander. One anchor broke, but the other took hold and checked the balloon in spite of the strong wind blowing. At last after three violent bumps on the ground they landed near Meaux at nine o’clock in the evening, one passenger sustaining a broken knee, the others various bruises. It was a grand adventure and all were pleased. Two weeks later a second voyage was begun in similar style, and again from the Champ de Mars, this time in the presence of the King of France and the young King George of Greece; but now Nadar took along, not the Princess with the pretty hat, but Madame Nadar, his wife. To entertain the crowd before starting, thirty-two persons were first sent aloft 300 feet and drawn back to earth. Finally at five o’clock Sunday evening, October 18th, a party of They were now in great peril. If they went to sea they might all be drowned; if they came to earth at such horizontal speed they should be terribly pounded. Choosing the latter evil, they opened the valve and threw down the grappling irons. “To the ropes,” shouted the Godard brothers. Assembling on deck all clung to the suspension ropes to mitigate the shock of landing. Nadar put his arm about his wife to protect her. The anchors snatching a tree, uprooted and dragged it along; then caught and tore off the roof of a house; threshed into a telegraph line pulling down the wires and poles; struck into some firmer obstacle and broke off completely, leaving the huge monster to sweep unchecked in the violent ground current. Owing to trouble with the valve, the gas could not be liberated quickly; the great vessel again and again plunged to earth and rebounded high in air, its ponderous basket crashing through heavy timber, and breaking down whatever opposed its course. For nine miles they pounded over the plain by Nienburg toward the sea, dashing into pools, bogs and thickets, their limbs sprained or broken, their bodies bruised, their faces splashed with mud. Presently through loss of gas the rebounding Another valiant English leader in aËrostation was James Glaisher, member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. As one of a committee of twelve appointed by that body in 1861, to explore the higher strata of the atmosphere by means of the balloon, he volunteered his services as an observer, when no other capable man could offer to do so. With a professional aËronaut, Mr. Coxwell, and a new balloon specially constructed for the work, cubing 90,000 feet, he made eleven ascensions for the society, four from Wolverhampton, seven from Woolwich. Incidentally he made seventeen other ascents of various altitude; not at the expense of the committee, but as a scientific passenger in public balloon ascents advertised beforehand. The objects of the enterprise were first to study the physical conditions of the atmosphere; secondly to study the effect of the higher regions upon the passengers Mr. Glaisher’s most interesting voyage of that memorable series occurred on September 5, 1862. Starting from Wolverhampton at three minutes after one o’clock, they soared swiftly upward, passing through a cloud eleven hundred feet thick and emerging in a glorious field of sunlight with an amethystine sky above and a boundless sea of vapor beneath; a sea of rolling hills and mountain chains, with great snow-white masses steaming up from their surface. They had left the noisy bustle of earth in the comfortable temperature of 59°; in three quarters of an hour, they were five miles aloft in a deadly silent atmosphere, two degrees below zero, and approaching one third its usual density, the balloon neck white with hoar frost, the men gasping for breath. Here the observations became increasingly interesting but
PLATE I. GLAISHER AND COXWELL. PARSEVAL KITE BALLOON.
This was the loftiest ascent ever made up to that time; and thus Glaisher, or rather Coxwell, who was in the ring above him, could be called the “highest man” of the first century of aËronautics. Their greatest elevation, however, is now generally estimated at much less than seven miles, and probably below six miles, due allowance being made for inaccuracies of estimate made by Mr. Glaisher. His results, nevertheless, were considered valuable, revealing as they did, that the balloon may be used safely up to the neighborhood of five miles; that the temperature of the atmosphere does not, as previously supposed, decline one degree for each 300 feet of ascent, but often declines more rapidly, and sometimes even increases with the elevation for considerable stretches; that the moisture percentage is extremely slight at an altitude beyond five miles; that at all elevations attainable by man the dry- and wet-bulb thermometers can be used effectively, etc. A still loftier ascent was made by Professor Berson of Germany, aided by the respiration of oxygen. On July 31, 1901, accompanied by Dr. SÜring, he ascended from Berlin in the balloon Preussen to an elevation of 10,800 meters, which at present constitutes the world’s record for altitude. The balloon had a capacity of 300,000 cubic feet, and left the ground two thirds filled with hydrogen, and carrying 8,000 pounds of ballast in the form of sand bags attached to the sides of the basket, so that they could be cut loose with the slightest physical effort. The Preussen was one of the largest passive balloons ever constructed. In cubic capacity it was comparable with the colossal MontgolfiÈre, La Flesselle, already described, and the huge free balloon No serious attempt has been made to surpass the altitude flight of Professor Berson and Dr. SÜring; for though it is easily possible to carry human beings to a greater height than seven miles, the results seem hardly to justify the cost. To ascend very much higher would require an enormous and costly balloon, and to ensure the comfort of the passenger might require an air-tight car, or armor supplied continuously with fresh air, or oxygen. Such a suit, or car, however, can be made very light, since its pressure must naturally be internal; and it would admit of an extremely rapid change of elevation without discomfort to the passenger. A steel bottle weighing fifty pounds, and filled with compressed air, or oxygen, would supply a passenger several hours, and allow him to breathe under normal pressure. The total weight of a bottle and air-tight car, or suit, need not exceed the weight of a man. Moreover, the ballast could be largely dispensed with, thus admitting of a very rapid ascent from the earth. A celluloid car would have the advantage of transparency, though it might become too brittle at very low temperatures. A suit, or car, with glass portholes would serve in lieu of a celluloid car for transparency. The usual balloon and basket, carrying a steel bottle, furnishing air at normal pressure to a man in a rubberized silk suit is a sufficiently simple and The French meteorologists have devised a much simpler and cheaper method of exploring the upper atmosphere, by use of small balloons carrying recording instruments. An ordinary silk or gold-beater skin balloon, partly inflated, ascends to a great height with the instruments, drifts away losing gas, and on landing is found by some one who returns it according to written directions accompanying the craft. Another method, introduced by Professor Assman, is to employ closed rubber balloons which at great altitudes burst by the expansion of the hydrogen within them, and allow the instruments to descend in parachutes softly to the ground. Instrument-carrying balloons of the above type are called “sounding balloons,” or balloons sondes, whereas if they carry no instruments, but merely show the course of the wind, they may be called “pilot balloons.” Such sounding balloons have been used to explore the temperature of the atmosphere to an altitude of 18 miles. In the preceding pages some extended balloon voyages have been described. These were considered very long in their day, but in recent years have been surpassed frequently, first by the professional aËronauts, then by the amateurs and members of various aËronautic clubs practicing aËrostation as a sport, and stimulated by attractive prizes. But the man who achieved the longest balloon flight Mr. Wise was a rare composite of showman, scientist, sport and dare-devil, who during the four decades succeeding his first ascension at Philadelphia in 1835, made no fewer than 440 voyages. At first the aËrial art captivated him by the beauty and sublimity of the natural panoramas witnessed from on high; then he amused himself by dropping things from the basket and hearing them whistle through space; and finally he coquetted with the balloon itself, in various ways to observe the result. On one occasion the neck was choked and the valve could not be operated, so that when the hydrogen expanded with increasing altitude, it overstretched the cover and started a rent in the side of the bag. The balloon descended rapidly, but landed without injurious shock. The audacious aËronaut then decided to make an ascension and deliberately burst the balloon, by confining the gas in it and throwing out ballast. But first he tried the experiment on a dog, taking him up 4,000 feet, dropping him in a small collapsed balloon and watching him settle slowly to earth. Then rising to an altitude of 13,000 feet he stood debating whether to follow the example of the dog. The balloon quickly ended the question by exploding at the top. The hydrogen rushed out with a tempestuous sound, and the great vessel sank swiftly with a moaning noise of the wind in her rigging. In a few seconds the bag was empty and collapsed on the top of the net thus forming an effective parachute. After an exciting fall of more than two miles, Mr. Wise landed on a farm, with a lively thump, which overturned the basket, and threw him sprawling on the ground. It was fine sport; he decided at once Mr. Wise firmly believed that a steady wind from west to east prevails at a height of two miles. He wished to use this for long voyages, and even contemplated crossing the Atlantic; for he trusted his varnish to hold hydrogen a fortnight if need be. Accordingly in 1873 the New York Daily Graphic paid the cost of a balloon to carry him and two others on that hazardous voyage. The bag had a capacity of 400,000 cubic feet, but was too frail in construction to receive Mr. Wise’s approval, and actually burst during inflation when slightly more than three fourths full. Fortunately, perhaps, for Mr. Wise, he never had an opportunity to attempt the trans-Atlantic voyage; but on one occasion he enjoyed a memorable cruise in the great west wind which so took his fancy. Rising from St. Louis on June 23, 1859, he sailed northeastwardly for twenty hours, and landed at Henderson, N. Y., having traversed a distance of 809 miles, measured directly. But in attempting another long voyage with two companions, in September, 1879, he passed over Lake Michigan, where all were drowned. In recent years Mr. Wise’s long voyage has been exceeded several times. In 1897 M. Godard sailed from Leipsic to Wilna, a distance of 1,032 miles in 24½ hours; but this was not an official flight nor in a direct course as the crow flies. In October, 1900, M. Balsan voyaged from Vincennes, France, to Rodom, Russia, a distance of 843 miles in 27 hours and 25 minutes, and De la Vaulx starting from the same point landed at Korosticheff, Russia, having traversed 1,193 miles in 35¾ hours. This latter is the Fig. 12.—Diagram of a Modern Spherical Balloon with Ripping Panel. Quite as eventful was the ocean voyage of Walter The recent advances in aËrostation, though not radically changing the balloon itself, contribute much to its usefulness and convenience. Improvements have occurred in the means of inflation and deflation, in devices for making topographical and meteorological observations, as also for transmitting and receiving signals. Hydrogen shipped in steel tubes is now available for easy and rapid inflation, the process of obtaining it on a large scale making it practically as cheap as illuminating gas. The ripping panel, invented in 1844 by America’s foremost pioneer aËronaut, John Wise, is a simple and an excellent practical device. This is a long patch running longitudinally above the equator[8] of the balloon, feebly sewed to the envelope, and having a cord, called the “ripping cord,” extending down to the car along the outside or inside of the bag, so that the pilot on coming to earth can let out the gas quickly by tearing a rent in the balloon, thus flattening it promptly on the earth’s surface, so as to avoid dragging and bumping if any wind prevails. During an ascension the rise or fall of the vessel may be instantly noted on the dial of the statoscope, the temperature, pressure and moisture of the atmosphere may be read on recording instruments, messages may be sent by tele Directly after the first launching of human passengers in a crude aËrostat, numerous schemes for controlling the course of a balloon were evolved. Apparently mere flotation afforded less contentment to the early pioneer aËronauts than to the free balloonists of the present hour. Many were eager to apply propelling mechanism to their gas bags, expecting thus to achieve practical locomotion through the air, even a generation before the advent of practical steam navigation. Magnificent dreams they had, indeed, but none the less futile. Few suspected the enormous power required to propel swift balloons of the very best shape and size; still fewer realized the impossibility of driving spherical bags at a practicable velocity. On the other hand, it must be said, to the credit of that era of investigators, that certain noted scientists, after computing the power required to drive a balloon at high speed, promptly recognized the inadequacy to that task, of any motors then available. In conjunction with favorable aËrial currents something might be effected; that they fully grasped; for they knew that the wind frequently has different directions at different levels. They believed, therefore, that by causing the craft to rise or fall to a suitable stratum, by use of various then known devices, it could be made to travel in any direction at the will of the pilot. Likewise Several devices for changing the altitude of the balloon were proposed or tried. If the vessel were a MontgolfiÈre, the mere increase or lessening of the fire would promptly cause it to rise or fall. If a gas bag were employed it could be sent up or down by casting out ballast or opening the valve; or again, as proposed by PilÂtre de Roziere, by having a MontgolfiÈre underneath the gas balloon, and lifting or depressing the whole by altering the intensity of the flame. Finally, an air balloon within a gas balloon was proposed by the Roberts, and a gas balloon within an air balloon was proposed by General Meusnier, in either of which combinations, a change of level could be effected by pumping air into, or letting it escape from, the air bag. All of these devices can be effected and practically operated by a competent balloon maker and pilot; and yet they have not enabled man to realize his dream of navigating the air in all directions without motive power. The first attempts at balloon propulsion could not be seriously regarded by trained engineers, even at the inception of aËronautics; but still, as infantile steps in the new art, they may deserve passing notice. Blanchard, on March 2, 1784, made the first real effort to steer a balloon, using for that purpose a spherical gas bag and car provided with aËrial oars and a rudder. As he was about to ascend, however, from the Champs de Mars, a young officer with drawn sword persisted in accompanying the pilot, thus compelling Blanchard to leave his wings on earth to allow sufficient buoyancy for himself and his obtrusive guest. His first trial was, therefore, frustrated; but subsequent ones made with that inadequate contrivance also proved futile under the best circumstances; for the scheme was evidently puerile, though tried by various grown-up men besides M. Blanchard. Fig. 13.—Blanchard’s Dirigible Balloon, 1784. A more reasonable plan for practical navigation was devised and tried by the Robert brothers. A melon-shaped balloon, fifty-two feet long by thirty-two feet in diameter, was made of silk and inflated with pure hydrogen. Beneath was suspended a longish car of light wood covered with sky-blue silk. This elegant ship was to be rowed through heaven by means of six silken oars actuated by sturdy sailors. A silken rudder should guide her at pleasure when the winds were asleep, or softly playing in the placid sky. She was a fairy bark, indeed, a soaring castle lovely to behold. After a preliminary trial, accompanied by their patron, the Duke de Chartres, they were ready for a substantial journey. On September 19, 1784, the vessel was inflated and taken to the Garden of the Tuileries, in front of the palace, where its cords were held by Marshall Richelieu and three other noblemen. At eleven forty-five the two Roberts and their brother-in-law arose and drifted beyond the Fig. 14.—Robert Brothers’ Dirigible, 1784. Simultaneously other inventors were evolving designs of no less importance in the ultimate perfection While Blanchard and other aËronauts were paddling their globose bags in search of favorable winds, vainly hoping thereby to direct their course in the air, General Meusnier of the French army, and member of the Academy of Sciences, made a systematic study of the requirements for practical air navigation. After some research on forms suitable for aËronautic hulls, he designed a power balloon having a pointed car suspended from a bag of goose-egg form, this latter embodying his idea of the best shape for a balloon that must cleave the air swiftly and resist deformation. The propulsion was to be effected by means of three coaxial screw propellers, supported on the rigging between car and bag, and actuated by eighty men, for lack of a Fig. 15.—Gen. Meusnier’s Proposed Dirigible, 1784. General Meusnier introduced important special features in the design of dirigibles for preserving their form and poise. He insisted that the bag and boat should be so rigidly connected that one could not swerve from alignment and relative position with the other. He also emphasized the necessity of preserving the vessel from deformation during flight, in order to diminish its resistance. To that end he proposed to provide the hull with a double Apparently General Meusnier and his colleagues were endowed with constructive genius sufficient to have developed a practical motor balloon, had they been able to secure a light engine. Lacking this the early aËronauts could do little more than describe their projects, and await the growth of the collateral arts and sciences. Accordingly no substantial advance in motor balloons beyond Meusnier’s designs was effected till after the middle of the nineteenth century; and until then the art of aËronautics remained in the hands of showmen. Hundreds of projects, indeed, were advanced, some exciting considerable interest and expectation, but nevertheless of such paltry value as hardly to deserve comment. One notable exception to these was the invention of Porter in America. In 1820 Rufus Porter, a Yankee inventor, and later the original founder of the Scientific American, patented an air ship of very promising appearance for that early day. Its hull was a long, finely tapering symmetrical spindle, suspending a car of Fig. 16.—Rufus Porter’s Dirigible, 1820. The inventor, being too poor to develop his air ship alone, did little with the patent during its life; but in 1850 he organized a stock company to realize the needed funds. From the sale of 300 five-dollar shares he expected to raise $1,500, and with this sum build an “aËroport,” 150 feet long, capable of carrying five persons sixty miles an hour, the whole to be completed in six weeks. Once this was in operation he would easily command funds sufficient to build a full-sized vessel adapted to regular passenger service. For, after careful calculation, he reported that: “It appears certain that a safe and durable aËrial ship (or aËroport) capable of carrying 150 passengers at a speed of ninety miles an hour, with more perfect safety than either steamboat or railroad cars, may be constructed for $15,000, and that the expense of running it would not exceed $25 per day.” The language and project seem very modern, even at the present time, and might well be copied now by a promoter of that identical project. But In 1850 a clockmaker and skillful workman, Jullien by name, exhibited in the Hippodrome, at Paris, a torpedo-shaped model balloon of gold-beater’s skin, provided with a screw propeller at either side of its bow, and a double rudder at its stern. It measured 23 feet in length and weighed 1,100 grammes complete. The propellers were actuated by spring power, and proved able to drive the tiny vessel against a moderate wind. The most suitable form for the bag was determined by towing models through water. Fig. 17.—Jullien’s Model Dirigible, 1850. AËrodynamically considered, this tiny motor balloon was by far the best in design of any that appeared during the first century of aËronautics. It may be regarded as the harbinger of the swiftest modern French balloons. It was also an inspiration to Henri Giffard who assisted Jullien in constructing his clever model, and shortly afterwards built the first dirigible ever driven by a heat engine. The illustrious Henri Giffard was perhaps the first aËronautical engineer adequately endowed and Fig. 18.—Giffard’s Steam Dirigible, 1852. Giffard’s first dirigible was successful in both design and operation. It consisted of a spindle-shaped This vessel was but a prelude to mightier projects. After some further experience with dirigibles of moderate size, Giffard designed a colossal air ship calculated for a speed of forty-four miles an hour. Its hull was to be of torpedo shape, measuring 2,000 feet in length, 100 feet in diameter, and 7,000,000 cubic feet in volume. It was a most audacious project, one worthy of the genius and energy of that illustrious engineer, the most original and Stimulated by this huge enterprise, Giffard’s first step was to pay his debts and make a fortune. He soon acquired a hundred thousand francs from the sale of small high-speed engines of his own construction, and with this, settled his account with David and Sciama. Next he realized several million francs from his world-famous injector, a device by which steam flowing from a boiler is made to drive in feed-water against the same pressure. He now made definite plans to build a motor balloon of one and a half million cubic feet capacity, driven by a condensing engine drawing steam from two boilers, one fired with oil, the other with gas from the balloon, so as to keep the vessel from rising with loss of weight. His designs were complete, and everything was provided for. He had deposited a million francs in the Bank of Paris to defray the estimated cost. But, in the words of Tissandier,[10] “above the human will and foresight are the fatal laws of destiny to which the strongest must submit.” The great inventor was visited with a painful affliction of the eyes; his sight waned, unfitting him for work; he became disconsolate, pined away with pain and grief, and in 1882 ended his life by taking chloroform. Giffard was succeeded in France, first by Dupuy de Lome; then by Gaston Tissandier, well-meaning projectors of steerable balloons, but too cautious to effect an important advance in the art. The first of these gentlemen, an eminent marine engineer, in 1872, completed a gas balloon for the French government, resembling the one designed by General Meusnier in 1784, and like that also driven by mus Fig. 19.—Dupuy de Lome’s Dirigible, 1872. The two vessels were safe but of no practical value, for lack of sufficient power to cope with the wind. Their motors were fundamentally unadapted to the purpose of swift propulsion, and incapable of development to very great lightness and strength. Furthermore, the vessels themselves were unsuitably designed for speed; their shape being one of too much resistance, and their dynamic balance Captain Charles Renard proved to be a worthy inheritor of the dreams, experience and inventions of the first century of aËronautical votaries. He did not, indeed, have the picturesque madness displayed by some of his predecessors; he did not project schemes of marvelous originality or boldness; but he manifested uncommonly good judgment and excellent scientific method in combining the researches and contrivances of others with those of himself and his collaborator, Captain Krebs. As a consequence they produced the first man-carrying dirigible that ever returned against the wind to its starting point, and the first aËrial vessel whose shape and dynamic adjustment even approximated the requirements of steady and swift navigation in a surrounding medium presenting various conditions of turbulence or calm. Captain Renard had been studying and designing dirigibles since 1878 in coÖperation with Captain La Haye and Colonel Laussedat, president of an aËronautic commission appointed by the Minister of War; and had endeavored to secure from the latter an appropriation sufficient to construct a dirigible; but his request Fig. 20.—Renard’s Dirigible, La France, 1884. These officers first worked out the separate elements in the design of their motor balloon before proceeding to build on a practical scale. They chose the torpedo form for their gas bag, thereby ensuring in the hull itself, projectile stability, and diminution of resistance. They placed the car near the envelope, thus minimizing the disturbing moment of the screw thrust, and the resistance of the suspension cords. They employed an extraordinarily powerful electric motor actuating a large screw so as to obtain a strong thrust with the least effort. In addition they adopted the best ideas of their predecessors in aËronautical design; the internal Further details of this successful ship are of interest. Its hull was 165 feet long, 27.5 feet in greatest diameter, at one fourth the distance from its front end, and cubed 66,000 feet, thus having a buoyancy of two long tons. It was kept rigid under varying conditions, by means of a ballonet filled with air driven in by a common fan blower coupled to the motor. Beneath the envelope, a long narrow rectangular car made of bamboo, covered with silk, was suspended from the cords of the balloon cover which embraced the hull throughout nearly its entire length. The car was 108 feet long and 6 to 7 feet across, carried at its forward end the propeller, at its rear a rectangular rudder, and between them the aËronauts and the batteries and electric motor. A sliding weight was used to alter the poise of the ship, and a guide-rope to soften its descent. The electric motor and battery which furnished the propulsive power were designed expressly for such use, and were considered at the time to be remarkably light and effective. The motor, which was designed with the assistance of M. Gramme, weighed 220.5 pounds, and developed nine horse power. The battery, composed of chlorochromic cells, was the result of the researches of Renard himself. Having made a careful study of the best geometrical arrangement of the parts of the cell, Renard found that this battery would deliver to the shaft one horse power for each eighty-eight pounds The trials of La France in 1884–85 were most successful and encouraging; not that they represented or pointed to the complete mastery of aËrial navigation, but because they so far surpassed all previous achievements. The vessel moved through the air as steadily as a boat on the water, and obeyed her rudder perfectly, heading against the wind, or at any angle to it, or turning entirely about, at the will of the aËronauts. On her first voyage from Chalais, August 9, 1884, she traversed a distance of four and one half miles in twenty minutes, made various evolutions in the air with the greatest ease, and returned to her point of departure. The following account of this voyage is given by Renard:
Six other similar voyages were made within the two years following, and we have as a result, that in five out of the seven trials, the balloon returned to its point of departure. Its failure to return in the other two trials was due, in the one case, to the breaking down of the motor; in the other, to the resistance of a strong wind which made it necessary to land at a distance from the starting point. The last of these remarkable voyages was performed in presence of the Minister of War, on September 23, 1885. The balloon started from Calais and sailed against the wind directly to Paris, passed over the fortifications, described a graceful curve and returned to its place of departure, recording an average speed of 14.5 miles an hour. The torpedo form of hull, chosen by Renard and Krebs, has two important advantages; one is projectile stability, the other is economy of propulsive power. Owing to the blunt bow and long tapering stern, the center of mass is well forward, while the center of side wind pressure is more to the rear. As a consequence, if the vessel should encounter a quartering wind-gust, or have her nose slightly turned from the course, she would promptly right herself like a dart or an arrow. If on the contrary, the hull were a symmetrical spindle, the vessel would move forward in unstable equilibrium, and, once slightly diverted from her course, would tend to deviate further, like an arrow with unloaded head. The second advantage mentioned is also worth attention, viz.: that at ordinary transportation speeds a longish spindle has less resistance with a blunt bow than with a very sharp one. Renard and Krebs did not account for this fact; but the present writer, While the successors of Giffard in France were thus engaged in developing dirigibles driven by muscular or electric power, a few German experimenters were applying gas and benzine engines to such vessels, with better promise of ultimate practical success and usefulness. The first of these was HÄnlein, who in 1872 advanced the meritorious project of driving a well shaped balloon by means of a gas engine taking its fuel from inside the balloon, and making good the loss by pumping air into the ballonet. This balloon was of far better design for swiftness and kinetic stability than the contemporary one of Dupuy de Lome. Its hull was a well pointed cylinder 164 feet long, 30 feet in diameter and of 85,000 cubic feet capacity, made air-tight by a thick coating of rubber inside, and a thin one outside. The car was rigidly suspended near the envelope and carried a 6 horse-power Lenoir gas engine actuating a large screw. Notwithstanding that the buoyancy was small, owing to the use of coal gas, this air ship attained a speed of 15 feet per second. By employing hydrogen, a much larger engine could have been carried, entailing a much swifter speed. During its trial the balloon was kept near the earth’s surface, held loosely by ropes in the hands of soldiers. The air ship was remarkably successful for that early date, and had the potency of greater achievement than its contemporaries in France; but owing to lack of funds its capabilities were not fully PLATE II. HAENLEIN’S GAS-DRIVEN DIRIGIBLE. WÖLFERT’S BENZINE-DRIVEN DIRIGIBLE. SANTOS-DUMONT’S DIRIGIBLE, NO. 16. Photo E. Levick, N. Y. In 1879, Baumgarten and WÖlfert in Germany built a dirigible equipped with a Daimler benzine motor, but otherwise not possessing any special merit. An ascension was made at Leipsic in 1880, but owing to improper load distribution the vessel reared on end and crashed to earth. After further experiments, an ascension was made on the Templehofer field, near Berlin, in 1897, but this ended disastrously; for the benzine vapor ignited; the fire spread to the balloon, and the vessel fell flaming to the earth, killing WÖlfert and his assistant. Baumgarten had died some years before. In 1897, an aluminum air ship invented by an Austrian engineer, named Schwartz, was launched on the Templehofer field. Its hull was of cylindrical form with conical ends, made of sheets 0.008 thick, and stiffened with an internal frame of aluminum tubes. Being leaky and inadequately driven, it voyaged but four miles, drifting with the wind, then fell to earth with considerable shock. The pilot, a soldier of the Balloon Corps, escaped by jumping, before the vessel struck ground, but the frail unbending hull was soon demolished by the buffeting of the winds as it lay stranded on the unyielding earth. This was the second air ship built after the plans of poor Schwartz, the first having collapsed on inflation. He had, however, the credit of being the first to drive a rigid air ship with a petrol motor, and thus to inaugurate a system of aËrial navigation capable of immense development, in the hands of sufficient capital and constructive skill. Thus the rigid type, The process of inflating with hydrogen such a rigid hull is interesting. Schwartz’s plan, carried out by Captain Von Sigsfeld, was to place the hydrogen in one or more sacs inside the hull, thus expelling the air and filling the space, then withdrawing the sacs and leaving the hydrogen within. A better plan is to have a single sac inflated with air just filling the hull like the lining of an egg, then to force the gas between the lining and metal wall of the hull, thus expelling the air from the sac, which when completely collapsed can be removed. Practically the same result can be obtained by use of a thin fabric covering one half the inner wall, like the lining of an egg. Further provision can easily be made for manipulating the ballonet in such a case. We have now traced the art of balloon guidance and propulsion from its earliest inception to the close of the nineteenth century. It was a period of extravagant hope and chimerical scheming, but withal a period fruitful in devices of fundamental value. The best experiments paid no dividends, but they prepared the way for really useful vessels. The methods of manipulation and control had been sufficiently developed to answer immediate needs. The air ship was at least dirigible, if not practical. It kept its shape, obeyed its rudder, rose and fell according to the operator’s will. It was, however, a fair-weather machine, beautiful in appearance, but helpless in any considerable wind. Speed was now the desideratum, and the attainment of this involved new difficulties. The storm-proof balloon was still a dream. Naturally one inquires what velocity makes a dirigible air ship really practical, assuming all other requirements satisfied. The minimum allowable speed depends largely upon the locality and season. On Long Island an assured velocity of forty to fifty miles an hour would seem desirable; for there the winds are swift and the water near. In Washington, or Berlin, thirty miles an hour is enough, though each additional mile per hour must be regarded as a considerable gain on a small margin of progress in facing a stiff breeze. Colonel Renard has estimated, Renard’s own graceful ship attained a speed of but half that much. In order, therefore, to give his vessel the desired usefulness its speed must be doubled. This would require an eightfold[11] increase of motive power without increase of weight. Evidently then the cardinal requisite was a light durable motor of extraordinary output. Such motors fortunately were now coming into the market, owing to the development of gasoline engines for automobile racing. The year 1898 witnessed the commencement of two famous systems of navigation by the lighter than air, one in France, the other in Germany, destined quickly to revolutionize the art, and to establish it on a practical basis. The leading exponents of these two systems were SeÑor Don Alberto Santos-Dumont, a rich young Brazilian living in Paris, and Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, Germany’s stanch old admiral of the air. Both achieved success by applying the gasoline engine to the propulsion of elongated balloons, but by very different methods. Santos-Dumont, apparently ignoring, or fearing to adopt, the excellent hull and car designed and used by Renard, began where Tissandier left off, with a symmetrical hull and low-hung car, thus producing a safe aËrial pendulum, if not a racing machine; then by degrees he gradually felt his way to something more efficient. Zeppelin began with a long cylindrical hull pointed at the ends, rigidly framed Santos-Dumont, who spent his early years on his father’s large coffee plantation in Brazil, had, during boyhood, dreamed of navigating the air, and in 1897, at the age of twenty-four, made in France his first ascension in a spherical balloon. While living at Paris during that year he gave much time to motorcycling, automobiling and operating spherical balloons, of which he possessed two constructed after his own ideas; one, the smallest in the world, designed for solitary voyages, the other large enough for more than one person, intended for social excursions. Thus by way of amusement, and probably by impulse rather than deliberate purpose, he was equipping himself to become both the designer and the pilot of his future dirigibles. Having acquired experience and skill in operating both balloons and engines, the young enthusiast set about realizing his boyhood dream of navigating the air independently of the course of the wind. His first dirigible was designed to carry his weight of 110 pounds and a 3½ horse-power petroleum engine taken from his tricycle, and reduced in weight to 66 pounds. The hull was a cylinder of varnished Japanese silk, 82½ feet long including its pointed ends, After some preliminary tests, the little air ship and pilot soared away from the ZoÖlogical Garden in Paris, on September 20, 1898, rising in the face of a gentle wind, to the wonder and delight of a large crowd of witnesses, some of them professional aËronauts and very skeptical as to the outcome of this venturesome experiment. The ship maneuvered round and round overhead of the applauding throng, steering readily in all directions. Then the green navigator ascended a quarter of a mile and merrily continued his evolutions in the direction of the Longchamps race course. But when he wished to descend he observed the envelope contracting in volume, and was appalled to find that he could not pump air into the ballonet fast enough to keep the hull distended. It became swaybacked, and “all at once began to fold in the middle like a pocket-knife; the tension cords became unequal and the balloon envelope was on the point of being torn by them.” As he was falling swiftly toward the grassy turf at Bagatelle, he called to some boys who were flying kites, to grasp his guide-rope and run against the wind. Except for the doubling of his long balloon, Santos-Dumont’s first voyage was satisfactory, and he returned to Paris elated. He had found it easy to steer in all directions. He could change his level hundreds of feet without discharge of gas or ballast, by merely canting his balloon, and allowing it to run obliquely up or down grade. He had stemmed the wind and gone whither he pleased, at such speed as to make his clothes flutter. And best of all he had found no danger in using a gasoline motor near an inflammable gas bag. The mere buckling of the long bag was a trifle, to be remedied by using an air pump adequate to maintain the flabby thing well inflated. He felt, therefore, that he had the conquest of the air well in hand, and that he was drifting into air ship construction as a life work. Small wonder that he continued his conquests till he had built, in less than one decade, fourteen motor balloons. Santos-Dumont No. 2 was closely patterned after its predecessor, but was a little larger and carried a rotary fan worked by the motor, to keep the balloon plump by filling the air pocket, or ballonet. On May 11, 1899, an ascension was made from the old starting place, but in rainy weather. As the vessel rose its hull contracted faster than air could be pumped into the ballonet, the long bag doubled worse than before, and dropped into the trees with its chagrined but fearless rider. The No. 3, which followed, was a short, thick vessel, 66 feet long by 25 feet in diameter, having in outward appearance the features of Dupuy de Lome’s very stable and very slow dirigible. It was apparently a safety ship for a scared young man The No. 4 was a compromise between the better features of No. 3 and its predecessors. The elongated hull and ballonet were resumed, and the stiffening pole was elaborated into a longish car resembling Renard’s, but of triangular cross section. On this long trussed frame were placed the motor, propeller, rudder and the rider in his basket. A seven horse-power engine turning, at one hundred revolutions per minute, a screw propeller having two blades, each 13 feet across, gave a thrust of 66 pounds. Frequent trials of the ship during the summer of 1900, in presence of the Exposition crowds, brought the inventor into extraordinary prominence, and secured for him the “Encouragement Prize” of the Paris AËro Club, consisting of the yearly interest on one hundred thousand francs, this being one of M. Deutsch’s numerous foundations for the promotion of aËronautics. In the spring of 1900, M. Deutsch de la Meurthe had established another prize which Santos-Dumont now greatly coveted, and hoped ere long to win. This was a cash sum of one hundred thousand francs to be awarded by the Scientific Commission of the AËro Club of France to the first dirigible that, between As Santos-Dumont thought his No. 4 scarcely swift enough to win the Deutsch prize, he enlarged it by inserting an additional length of sixteen feet at its middle, supplied it with a stronger car, and applied a larger engine, naming the new vessel so formed, his No. 5. Its hull was 109 feet long, 17 feet in largest diameter and cubed nearly 20,000 feet. A four cylinder air-cooled petroleum motor driving a screw propeller having two blades, each 13 feet across, gave a thrust of 120 pounds, at 140 revolutions per minute, and produced such draft as to give the inventor pneumonia. Among other novelties water ballast was used, and piano wires replaced the old-time suspension cords. The No. 5 proved so powerful and swift that on July 13, 1901, Santos-Dumont attempted to win the Deutsch prize. Starting from the AËro Club grounds at Saint-Cloud in presence of official witnesses, at half past six in the morning, when the air is usually stillest, he turned the Eiffel Tower in the tenth minute, thus gaining twenty minutes for the home stretch. But on his return he encountered an unexpected head wind, and after a terrific struggle reached the timekeepers at Saint-Cloud in the fortieth minute. To add to the romance of this voyage, the genii of the upper elements stopped his motor, shortly after his return, and the bold sailor in his shining ship landed in a stately chestnut tree very near the On August 8, 1901, the dauntless aËronaut again sailed for the coveted prize, at the same still morning hour, sacred to duels and aËrial contests. In nine minutes he turned the tower and headed bravely for home. But soon a leaky valve let the balloon shrink and the wires sag into the whirring propeller, which therefore had to be stopped. Santos-Dumont now had the choice of drifting back against the tower and destroying his vessel high in air, or of descending at once, by allowing the balloon to sink without discharge of ballast. He chose the latter course, hoping to land on the Seine embankment; but instead his balloon struck the top of the Trocadero hotel, exploded and fell in fluttering shreds into the courtyard. Some firemen who had been watching the flight from a distance, came with a rope and found the long car leaning like a ladder against the wall of the court, the balloon shreds hanging from it in graceful folds, and Captain Santos-Dumont perched aloft in his wicker basket wearily waiting for St. Benedict’s further aid. As usual, he was rescued intact. On the evening of his fall on the roof of the hotel The day of triumph followed quickly. On October 19, 1901, at 2.45 P. M., Santos-Dumont again headed for the Eiffel Tower in presence of the official witnesses. In spite of a wind of six meters per second striking him sidewise, he held his course straight for the goal, and turned it in the ninth minute, as in his preceding attempt. On the return he had to struggle against a quartering wind and the caprice of his motor, which sometimes threatened to stop, and again spurted so actively as to turn the ship upward His unmercenary disposal of the two rich awards which he had won seemed no less commendable than the dauntless industry which achieved such rapid success. The Deutsch prize amounting in all to one hundred and twenty-five thousand francs he divided into two unequal parts. The greater sum of seventy-five thousand francs he gave to the prefect of police of Paris, to be used for the deserving poor; the remainder he distributed among his employÉs. The Encouragement Prize of four thousand francs a year, mentioned before, he also declined to retain, but instead he founded with the money a new prize at the disposal of the AËro Club. As a second reward for his triumphal voyage around the Eiffel Tower, he received from the Brazilian government one hundred and twenty-five thousand francs and a beautiful gold medal bearing appropriate and very complimentary inscriptions. Now that the stimulus and excitement of striving for the Deutsch prize was over, the ardent inventor was free to develop and test his air ships in a deliberate and scientific manner. He therefore set about building specialized types of motor balloons, and practicing with them over all kinds of territory, smooth and rough. Within the next six years he constructed eight more air ships making altogether fourteen, besides his various free balloons, to say nothing of the aËroplanes and hydroplanes which he When the cold weather set in, following his victorious flight about the Eiffel Tower, Santos-Dumont went with his No. 6 to Monaco, to practice air cruising over the Mediterranean. The Prince of Monaco had erected for him an “aËrodrome,” or balloon shed, facing the sea and very near shore. On pleasant days the daring pilot would cruise up and down the bay, not far from shore, trailing his guide-rope over the waves with the greatest ease, and to the applause of thousands of spectators. But on February 14, 1902, he set forth on a pleasure cruise over the bay with insufficient gas pressure, and thus came to grief. The bag grew flabby; the hydrogen poured to its higher end; the vessel reared up so steeply that the propeller had to be stopped to avoid its cutting the envelope. Rather than drift at the mercy of the wind, the pilot opened the valve and sank slowly to the water where he was rescued by a boat. On the following day the parts of his No. 6 were fished out of the sea and sent back to Paris. His few days’ practice had taught him the delights of guide-roping over the waters, and his accident induced him in future to sew unvarnished silk partitions across his balloons, to prevent the hydrogen passing too suddenly from one end to the other. Returning to Paris he built for himself an “aËrodrome,” provided with great sliding doors like the one at Monaco, and equipped with a hydrogen plant, constructive appliances, and everything needed for the rapid rebuilding or repair of air ships. It stood in a vacant lot surrounded by a high stone wall and was made of posts covered with red and white canvas, so that it looked like a great striped tent. Inside, the central stalls were 31 feet wide, 165 feet long, and The No. 7, which excelled its predecessors in length and bulk, was intended greatly to outstrip the best of them in velocity. The first air ship had attained fourteen miles per hour, the No. 6, nearly twenty miles an hour in winning the Deutsch prize, and over twenty miles per hour on subsequent occasions, though provided with a motor rated at only 12 horse power. The new vessel which had little greater resistance than No. 6, was to carry four times the internal pressure, or about 12 centimeters of water, and to be propelled by an engine of 60 horse power. The inventor expected therefore to attain a speed of between forty and fifty miles per hour. A very lofty expectation for that day, and one still unrealized for many years. The racing air ship, or No. 7, was of cigar form, supporting a long car beneath, and generally resembling the No. 6, but slightly more tapering. Her length was six times her major diameter, and her volume 45,000 cubic feet. The envelope was made of two layers of the strongest French silk, four times varnished, and was built exceptionally thick at the stern, where the differential outward pressure is greatest in flight. The propulsion was effected by a 60 horse-power water-cooled four-cylinder ClÉment engine actuating two screw propellers 16½ feet in The No. 9 was a thick torpedo-shaped air ship originally cubing only 7,770 feet, though later enlarged to 9,218 feet. It was so thick as to appear nearly egg-shaped. In order to make it respond promptly to the rudder Santos-Dumont drove it through the air blunt end foremost, but with apparent regrets, thinking that it would cleave the air more easily than sharp end foremost. In this he was mistaken; for the writer has shown that a body of such shape encounters much more resistance—roughly one hundred per cent more—when driven sharp end foremost than when driven blunt end forward. This fact furnishes one reason why most whales and swift fishes have blunt bows and long tapering sterns. However this be, the practical man felt his way to success, whether right or wrong in his theory of resistance. When actuated by a three horse-power ClÉment motor, weighing 26½ pounds, the little air ship carried its jaunty pilot twelve to fifteen miles an hour on many a merry trip about Paris and its environs. The No. 10, or Omnibus, was a well shaped vessel of nearly eighty thousand cubic feet capacity, and amply provided with steering devices. Its hull Its arrow-like appearance was suggestive of some of the greatest German balloons of the decade. Indeed, the Omnibus, if well powered, might have proved a very swift vessel, in addition to a powerful carrier. But she was designed merely for easy going passenger service, for the purpose of popularizing aËronautics and stimulating its growth. Santos-Dumont now had three typical air ships, a spacious and well equipped “aËrodrome,” and ample facilities for advancing the science of motor balloons on a moderate scale. He could not, however, maintain the ascendency in this branch of science in France; for he encountered the rivalry of great wealth employing highly trained engineering and constructive talent. He could, however, still promote the art as a pioneer and a popularizer. This he continued to do. With his little Runabout he would one day guide-rope along the boulevard, another day take up a little boy, another day send up a beautiful young lady to navigate the air alone for a short distance, another day voyage over the military parade grounds and with his revolver fire a salute of twenty-one shots to the President of France, and give exhibitions to arouse the interest of the War Department. But he could not keep pace with the new giants in aËronautics, and he did not attempt it. Nor did he ever build a vessel of sufficient power, speed and durability to be purchased by the French nation. That honor went to his opulent contemporaries who had not failed to take cognizance of his contributions to the aËrial art. In 1899 the Lebaudy brothers, wealthy sugar refiners in Paris, commissioned their able engineer, Julliot, to make investigations and develop plans for a large and swift air ship. This he did with the assistance of Surcouf, a well-known manufacturer of balloons at Billancourt, Paris. Emulating the example of Santos-Dumont and certain German aËronauts in making their plan, they adopted the light petroleum engine for motive power, but experimented on a larger scale, thus creating a new era in military aËronautics in France. Their first vessel was the Jaune whose bag was built at Surcouf’s place, and its mechanical part at the Lebaudy Sugar Refinery. When launched, in 1902, it so pleased the owners that they determined to continue the experiments on a larger scale. Their second air ship, called the Lebaudy, after fulfilling various tests, was accepted by the French government and formed the beginning of its modern aËrial fleet. Moisson, near Paris, where the balloons were kept, now became quite an aËronautical center. Here, under military supervision and the skillful management of the aËronaut Juchmes, other dirigibles were built in rapid succession. Of these the Patrie was launched in 1906, and the RÉpublique in 1908, both fine swift vessels capable of voyaging many hours and carrying many passengers. The Lebaudy vessels were the first air ships of the The first Lebaudy air ship, called the Yellow, because of its color, had an envelope constructed of a rubber-treated cotton fabric, made in Hanover and covered with a yellow coating of lead chromate, to ward off the sun’s actinic rays from the rubber, and thus prevent deterioration. Her hull, which was cigar shaped and inflated with hydrogen, measured 183 feet in length, 32 feet in diameter, and 80,000 cubic feet in volume. She was propelled by a 40-horse-power Daimler motor actuating twin screws, and attained a maximum speed of twenty-six miles an hour. During her first year’s service she made many ascensions, returning to her starting point twenty-eight times out of twenty-nine. Her longest voyage, made at Moisson, June 24, 1904, was sixty-two miles in two hours and three quarters, with an average speed of twenty-two miles an hours. But in November, 1902, while landing in a high wind at the end of her voyage from Paris to Chalais-Meudon, she was wrecked by colliding with a tree. Her motor, however, was uninjured, and a new envelope was at once prepared. The second vessel, called the Lebaudy, and brought out in 1904, though resembling her predecessor, had a number of improvements in detail. Her hull was somewhat larger than the Jaune, and no longer pointed at the stern, but rounded off to an ellipsoidal shape, and provided, like the rear of an arrow, with guiding, or steadying planes. It meas PLATE III. THE LEBAUDY. Photo E. Levick, N. Y. LA PATRIE. (Courtesy E. L. Jones.) LEBAUDY’S MORNING POST. The Lebaudy, with these various improvements, gave much satisfaction to her owners, and received favorable recognition from the French War Department. During the thirty ascensions and voyages of her first year’s service, she proved herself a swift vessel, easy to control, very stable, and safe to land on solid ground. The Minister of War, who had followed her developments with much interest, appointed a commission to test her value for military service, with a view to her adoption by the government. The test required that the balloon remain in active service three months, always being anchored in the open, and that it perform certain prescribed maneuvers and voyages. In one of these it sailed with three persons on July 3, 1905, from Moisson to Meaux, an air-line distance of 57 miles in two hours and thirty-five minutes, at an average speed of 22 The Patrie and the RÉpublique, planned on the general lines of the Lebaudy, but in ascending scale of magnitude, were built expressly for the French government, and experienced brilliant if ill-fated careers. Both vessels had whale-shaped hulls, with rather sharp-pointed noses and rounding sterns. The original volume of the Patrie was 111,250 cubic feet, which was later increased to 128,910, by the insertion of a cylindrical section at the major diameter of the hull. The RÉpublique had a volume of 2,000 cubic feet more than the Patrie, and a length of 200 feet, or a little less than the enlarged Patrie. She also had a diameter of 35½ feet as against 33¾ in the sister vessel. As the technical reader may like more complete details of these two noted air ships, a fuller account is given in Appendix III. The Patrie was a swift and graceful ship which, The RÉpublique also had a brilliant but ephemeral career, from July, 1908, to September, 1909. She surpassed the Patrie not only in bulk and buoyancy, but also in power and speed. She had an 80-horse-power motor as against the Patrie’s motor of 60 to 70 horse power. She could carry eight to nine men, had a speed of about thirty miles an hour, and a radius of action of 500 miles. She made a number of long flights and manifested satisfactory steadiness and stability. But on September 25, 1909, while maneuvering near Paris, one of her propellers broke and tore a great gash in her envelope. At once, with outrushing gas and collapsing hull, the great ship fell 500 feet crashing to the earth, a total wreck, and killing her crew of four officers. The famous firm that produced the RÉpublique brought forth, in 1909, two other fine vessels patterned after it, the Russie and La LibertÉ, built respectively for Russia and France. The Russie made her first voyage on May 29th, ascending 600 feet with eight passengers, and maneuvering under perfect control. After her official trial, in June, she was sent to St. Petersburg, being the first dirigible furnished to a foreign government by a private concern. The LibertÉ was launched the last week in August and, after various practice and official tests, was accepted by the French government two months later. On a notable voyage, made on September 20th, she sailed ten hours with her Panhard motor constantly working. The escape of the Patrie was a loss keenly felt by the French people, but soon compensated by the generosity of M. Deutsch de la Meurthe. This liberal patron of aËronautics had a dirigible of excellent design, whose hull, based on the plans of Colonel Renard, was contrived and built by E. Surcouf, director of the Astra aËronautic establishment, along with H. Kapferer, while its other parts were built by Voisin, both of Billancourt. In September preceding the accident to the Patrie, he had offered the use of his air ship, the Ville de Paris, to his government, which accepted the gift with the understanding that it was not to be delivered except in case of war or emergency. When, therefore, in November, 1907, the disaster occurred to the Patrie, M. Deutsch at once placed his dirigible in the hands of the military authorities. Fig. 21.—La Ville de Paris. We now have had examples of the three leading types of motor balloons; the rigid, the semirigid, the flexible. The rigid type, as exemplified in the Schwartz and Zeppelin air ships, is characterized by its solidly trussed hull of invariable size and form to which all other parts are directly attached. The semirigid type, exemplified in the Lebaudy vessels, has a flexible hull, generally of woven fabric, with a trussed floor or platform for its ventral part, from The Ville de Paris was followed, in 1909, by the ClÉment-Bayard, a slightly larger vessel of very similar pattern, constructed for the Russian government for $40,000. It also, like the Ville de Paris, was built by the Astra Society. The most striking feature of this new balloon was its curious stern with its bulblike steadying surfaces. These fin surfaces were not flat, as in the Patrie, nor cylindrical, as in the Ville de Paris, but of pear form, with the blunt ends pointing rearward and inflated like the rest of the hull. Apparently these tail bags were not economical of power, since, as is well known, a pear shape encounters greater resistance when moving sharp end forward than when moving blunt end forward. However this be, the stabilizing force proved very effective. The vessel was driven by a ClÉment-Bayard motor of 100 horse power actuating a wooden screw placed in front of the long car, Other vessels presently built by the Astra Society may be listed, together with their size in cubic meters, as follows: Ville de Bordeaux, 3,300 m3;[13] Ville de Nancy, 3,300 m3; Colonel Renard, 4,000 m3; EspaÑa, 4,000 m3; ClÉment-Bayard II, 6,500 m3; Transaerienne I, 6,500 m3; Flandre, 6,500 m3 (228,579 cubic feet). These were among the most noted air ships produced in France toward the close of the first decade of the twentieth century. On the whole they proved to be swift and stable ships adapted either for military use, or for exhibitions and sport, and even for regular transportation of passengers. The Ville de Nancy was one of the conspicuous dirigibles of the summer of 1909. It was constructed primarily for use at the Exposition at Nancy, and was owned by the Compagnie GÉnÉrale Transaerienne, an aËrial passenger transportation PLATE IV. LA VILLE DE PARIS. Photo E. Levick, N. Y. COLONEL RENARD. Photo E. Levick, N. Y. The Ville de Nancy was slightly smaller and slightly more powerful than the ClÉment-Bayard I, besides differing in minor details. It measured 55 meters in length, 10 meters in greatest diameter, and cubed 33,000 meters, as against the 35,000 meters of its predecessor. It was driven by a 100-horse-power Bayard-ClÉment motor actuating a ChauviÈre screw propeller at the front of the car. The car itself was made of steel tubes covered with fabric, and near the engine with sheet aluminum. The tail bags were an evident improvement on those of the previous air ships, being less blunt at the rear, and therefore less adapted to generate a retarding suction. They were still rather bulbous, however. This splendid vessel made various interesting voyages during the summer of 1909, the first on June 27th, piloted by Surcouf and Kapferer, directors of the Astra Society. On July 14th, she maneuvered at Longchamps, side by side with the RÉpublique, thus contrasting nicely with the ship designed by Julliot. It was the first time two dirigibles navigated together in regular maneuver. The Ville de Nancy was naturally the swifter, having greater power and less bulk than the other. About the middle of July she sailed from Sartrouville to Nancy, where she was to sail about the Exposition grounds and make daily excursions, carrying passengers for 100 francs per trip. These voyages proved very popular, being the first of their kind, The Colonel Renard was closely patterned after the Ville de Nancy, but was larger and more powerful. She measured 212 feet in length, 140,000 cubic feet in volume and carried an engine of 120 horse power, driving a ChauviÈre propeller. On July 13th she made her first trip, cruising one hour with notable facility, then reËntered the hangar[14] of the Astra Society, at Beauval near Meaux. Thence, on August 23d, she sailed for Rheims to compete in the aËronautical races, arriving after a very successful cruise. On August 29th, she circled the ten kilometer rectangular course at Betheny, near Rheims, five times in 1 hour, 19 minutes, 40 seconds, thus winning the Prix des AËronats,[15] of 10,000 francs offered for the vessel that should accomplish, in the least time, those five rounds, aggregating 50 kilometers. The showing was not remarkable, but the vessel could sail much faster in a straightaway voyage. The prize-winning Renard was quickly followed by the EspaÑa, a vessel of the same size and pattern, built for the Spanish government by the same capable firm. During October this fine air ship made several trial trips, carrying seven men. On November 2d she made a splendid official test voyage of five hours, sailing from the Astra aËrodrome, at Beauval, to Paris and return, a distance of 250 kilometers in 5 hours and 10 minutes, or at the Besides the great auto balloons designed by Julliot and Surcouf, of which the RÉpublique and Colonel Renard are examples, a number of convenient cruisers were brought forth in 1909 by the Zodiac Company. One of the leading spirits in this enterprise was the famous Count de la Vaulx, well known for his auto balloon designs and his long voyages in sphericles. The chief merit of these modest air ships, which ranged in volume from 25,000 cubic feet upwards, was cheapness and facility of demounting and shipment. They were intended to popularize the art among the masses, by giving everyone a chance to make a voyage at no great expense. Besides their applicability to sport, touring, and public uses, some were designed for considerable speed and endurance; which qualities, together with their demountability and partial independence of hangars, were expected to give them military value. They were of the flexible type, so arranged that the various parts were easily detachable, so as to be packed for transportation, by wagon or car. The smaller ones might be called semi-navigables, since they had the organs of a swift motor balloon, but, like the common sphericles, could easily be demounted and hauled home—a likely issue on a day of any considerable wind. The first one cost $5,000, cubed 25,000 feet and, with its 16-horse-power engine, traveled 13 miles per hour. Its hull had the form of a whale with docked and rounded tail. From this body hung an elongated car with a screw at the rear and elevating planes Fig. 22.—Le Petit Journal, Zodiac Type. PLATE V. ZODIAC III. ZODIAC IV. A very handsome dirigible, named the Belgique, was constructed early in 1909, by the skillful aËronautical engineer, Louis Godard, of Paris, in collaboration with the prominent Belgian engineer and sportsman, Robert Goldschmidt. It was a flexible balloon of elegant torpedo form, measuring 175 feet long, 30 feet in major diameter, and 106,000 cubic feet in volume. It was propelled by two 60-horse-power Vivinus engines actuating two screws, made of fabric stretched over radial sticks, and placed at either end of the spindle-shaped car. The control was provided for by ample keel surface, an elevating plane in front, and ingeniously designed fins on the rear of the hull to steady the motion. The entire structure showed much originality and skill. When The Italian government brought forth, in the summer of 1909, a swift and elegant auto balloon showing considerable originality of design. It has a porpoise-shaped hull of 2,500 cubic meters capacity, divided into seven compartments, so as to obviate the accident which wrecked the RÉpublique. An ample keel along the rear bottom, and large aËroplane surfaces at the stern, serve to guide and steady the vessel. Propelled by twin screws well above a short car, she readily attained thirty miles an hour, carrying four persons. On October 31st, starting on her seventeenth voyage, she cruised from the aËronautic park, Vigna de Vale, near Rome, to Naples and back to Rome by ten o’clock at night, having sailed over the edge of the Mediterranean Sea and over the French squadron in the bay, remaining fourteen hours in the air and traversing 520 kilometers, or 323 miles. It was one of the finest voyages of the year. Further details of this Italian military dirigible No. I bis, together with illustrations, are given in AËrophile for January 15, 1910, together with its prototype the dirigible No. I, which maneuvered so successfully in 1908. England and America all along had pursued an oriental, or semicivilized, policy toward the auto balloon, languidly watching the progress elsewhere, and hoping some time to enjoy the fruition, if not the glory, of the costly and successful experiments made in other countries. In 1909, however, the British government appropriated nearly $400,000 for aËronautics, and the United States House of Representatives voted $500,000, but promptly re PLATE VI. LA BELGIQUE. ITALIAN MILITARY DIRIGIBLE NO. I BIS.
The non-rigid auto balloon ordered from ClÉment, and afterwards known as the ClÉment-Bayard II, was the masterpiece of that skilful designer, and occupied his best thought and energy for eighteen months, aided by his devoted and capable engineer, Sabathier. She was completed in the ClÉment-Bayard factory at Lamotte-Breuil in April, 1910, and during the next five months made thirty-two test ascensions and practice voyages. In particular she took a conspicuous part in the military maneuvers at Picardie during the early half of September, where with wonderful precision and airworthiness she made forced voyages in fair weather and foul, remaining, when so desired, in continuous communication with the land office by means of wireless telegraphy. Finally, on a fair day, September 16th, the tried and perfected vessel was brought forth from her hangar for the long contemplated voyage The voyage was a glorious achievement for aËronautics, and for the enthusiastic constructor and his devoted aids. Starting at seven o’clock in the morning, with seven men aboard, including happy ClÉment, Sabathier, and an English delegate, the whalelike cruiser sailed directly to London with admirable regularity, covering the entire distance of 242 miles in six hours, or at the rate of forty miles an hour, which is better time than could be made by land and water. Enthusiastic cheers from the English spectators greeted the arrival of this French dirigible, built for the English government. Then quietly the English soldiers took the vessel in hand, as if performing a familiar duty, and housed her in the Daily Mail hangar, at Wormwood Scrubs. Thus simply and without unusual incident terminated the first motor-balloon cruise between the two countries, and one of the finest voyages in the history of aËronautics. In outward appearance the ClÉment-Bayard II closely resembled her predecessor, except for the absence of empennage on her envelope. In the whalelike elegance of her hull she was, in fact, a reversion to the trim and efficient model of Renard’s dirigible of 1884, which in turn was a fair copy of Jullien’s model of 1850, all having excellent forms for speed and stability. But the new vessel was of greater size and power than her predecessor. Her net buoyancy was sufficient to carry twenty passengers. Her average speed tested in a round-trip voyage was about 50 kilometers or 31 miles per hour when her two motors developed 200 horse power, and 55 kilometers or 34 miles per hour when PLATE VII. CLÉMENT-BAYARD I. (Courtesy E. L. Jones.) CLÉMENT-BAYARD II. Photo E. Levick, N. Y. Fig. 23.—ClÉment-Bayard II, 1910. The general features of this great military dirigible resemble those of her prototype, the Patrie, differing chiefly in the shape of her hull and the method of stiffening. The hull itself was more longish than the Patrie’s, but had the same sharp prow and blunt stern; for a blunt stern offers better support to the empennage planes, though it increases the resistance more than a tapering stern. The trussed framing to stiffen the ship was no longer a platform inserted in the base of the hull, but a long trussed beam of cruciform cross section, made of steel tubing and suspended intermediately between the hull and car. The hull was of excellent workmanship and bold design. The envelope was of rubberized tissue, measured 338 feet in length, 39.4 feet in diameter Fig. 24.—Morning Post Dirigible, 1910. The controlling surfaces were adequate and skillfully arranged. To maintain steadiness and directness of flight, fixed empennage planes, both horizontal and vertical, were provided, some attached to the stern of the hull, others at the rear of the trussed suspension beam. To direct the up and down movement, ailerons placed well to the front and rear of the long framing, were turned about conjunctively in opposite directions, thus causing the vessel to raise or lower her bow. Needless to say, all these navigation appliances worked with ample force and effectiveness from the beginning of the earliest tests. After four preliminary ascensions the great air ship started from Moisson to her destination at Farnborough, having on board Henri Julliot, Louis Capazza, the pilot, Alexander Bannerman, director of the aËronautic military school at Aldershot, and five other men. It was a triumphant and glorious voyage, one of the most splendid in the history of aËrostation. Piloted by aid of chart and compass, and by signal fires and captive balloons arranged along her route, the vessel followed a direct course, without check or hindrance, crossing a wide part of 15 Novembre 1910 Fig. 25.—Route of British Military Dirigibles from France to England, 1910. Santos-Dumont’s most strenuous disciples outside of France were found among the German military officers. These advocated and promoted both the semirigid and the flexible types of auto balloon, with such ability as to match the best productions of the foremost French designers. The most successful pioneers of these two types in Germany were respectively, Major von Gross, commander of the balloon battalion at Tegel, near Berlin, and Major Von Parseval of the Bavarian army, and director of the Society for the Study of Motor Air Ships. Beginning in 1907, a number of Gross auto balloons were built in succession, for the German AËronautical Battalion, by Master Engineer Basenach, under the supervision of its commander, Major Gross. The first was intended only as a model, PLATE VIII. U. S. SIGNAL CORPS DIRIGIBLE I. (Courtesy U. S. Signal Corps.) GROSS II. (Courtesy E. L. Jones.) The second Gross air ship, built in 1908, cubed 176,000 feet, and attained a speed of 27 miles per hour, driven by two 75-horse-power Daimler motors. On September 11th of that year, with four persons aboard, she made a round trip from Berlin lasting 13 hours, covering 176 miles, and attaining altitudes up to 4,000 feet. This was one of the finest voyages known at the time. This air ship was purchased by the German government, named Gross I, and sent to Metz. A detailed description is given in Appendix III. The Gross II, brought forth in April, 1909, resembled her predecessor in build, but had greater power and speed. Her hull cubed 176,000 cubic feet, had a blunt bow, full body and sharp stern, was provided with horizontal and vertical keels, a sliding weight, and a ballonet at either end. She was propelled by two KÖrting engines of 75 horse power each, actuating two three-blade propellers. Under the action of her keels and stabilizing planes and rudder, her motion was steady and precise. A special feature of this air ship was the wireless telegraph equipment by which she could send messages in all directions over a range of 300 miles or more. She made many practice voyages during the season of 1909, sometimes alone, again in concert with other auto balloons and with troops. In August she made a fine voyage of sixteen hours, from Tegel to Apolda and return, traversing 470 kilometers. The above described vessel was followed by Various auto balloons of the Parseval type were designed by Major Von Parseval of the Bavarian army, who also was one of the inventors of the kite balloon. Satisfactory experiments with his air ship were made as early as 1906. These formed the basis of larger vessels, subsequently constructed in the same factory of August Riedinger of Augsburg, for the Motor Air Ship Study Society, of which Parseval was general manager. This society, organized practically at the command of the Emperor, purchased the Parseval patents and began the development of auto balloons as a business enterprise, soon furnishing a series of its flexible air ships to the German army. After the experiments of 1906, the Parseval air ship was enlarged from 2,500 to 2,800 cubic meters, its length becoming 52 meters and its major diameter 8.7 meters. Its hull was of cylindric form, with rounded bow and egg-shaped stern; had two air bags—one fore, the other aft—and at the stern carried two fixed horizontal planes and a vertical rudder. From this envelope the car, made largely of aluminum, was hung by steel cables, and on its bottom had trolley wheels resting on suspension cables joining the front and rear parts of the hull. The vessel was propelled by a 50-horse-power Mercedes motor actuating a four-blade screw propeller 13 feet in diameter, mounted between the car and hull. This screw was made of thin steel tubes covered with shirting. Among the merits of Parseval’s air ship may be mentioned its lightness and demountability, and its kite-like effect on the air, got by canting the PLATE IX. PARSEVAL I. (Courtesy W. J. Hammer.) PARSEVAL II. (Courtesy E. L. Jones.) The second Parseval was of greater bulk and power than her predecessor. Her hull which was of cylindric form, with round prow and pointed stern, measured 190 feet long, 30.5 feet in diameter, and 113,000 cubic feet in volume. She resembled her predecessor in the arrangement of the two ballonets, and in the “loose,” or trolley, system of suspension of the car. The propeller was a unique patented device of Von Parseval’s. It had four cloth blades so weighted with lead as to stand out firmly under centrifugal force, assuming an effective shape for propulsion, though limp and deformed when at rest. Various interesting evolutions were performed by this vessel in the autumn of 1908, including tests imposed by the military authorities, as a condition of purchase by the government, one requirement being a voyage of one hour at an altitude of 1,500 meters; another requirement being a continuous cruise of twelve hours. These tests completed, the Motor-Luftschiff-Studien-Gesellschaft sold its proud ship to the Vaterland for 210,000 marks. About the same time the War Department purchased the Gross I, already described, and Zeppelin’s third great ship, naming it Zeppelin I. Germany thus began her program of developing a great aËrial fleet, by acquiring three powerful and well tried ships, each capable of remaining all day in the air, and having a radius of action of several hundred miles. They were frequently called upon to make test voyages in all kinds of weather, to maneuver with the troops, to pass in review before the Emperor, The third Parseval air ship was brought forth on February 18, 1909, by the Luftfahrzeug-Gesellschaft, an aËronautical firm founded by merging the Motor-Luftschiff-Studien-Gesellschaft with the A. E. G. This vessel closely resembled her predecessor, but possessed greater size, power, and perfection of detail. Her hull at first measured 224 feet long, 47 feet in diameter, and 198,000 cubic feet in volume, but later was enlarged to 235,000 cubic feet by increasing its diameter. Her car, which could accommodate twelve passengers, was framed of steel tubing covered with canvas, and was divided into two parts, separated by the big gasoline cylinder running athwart ship, the passenger cabin being to the fore, the engine room aft. Here were stationed the two engines, of 120 horse power each, actuating reversible right and left Parseval screws 13 feet in diameter, located to the rear, well aloft and outward on either side. In the forepart of the passenger cabin was space for the pilot and his navigating appliances; his chart desk, his valve controls, his statoscope, manometers, etc. The great ship with her nine tons burden was to have sailed from Bitterfeld to Frankfort, for the AËronautical Exposition, but owing to excessive The fourth Parseval, a smaller vessel, was built for the Deutscher AËro Club early in 1909. Her hull cubed 113,000 feet, and her framing was made of the strongest materials, carefully hollowed, to eliminate undue weight. At the rear of the car, on either side, were two 100-horse engines, driving two Parseval propellers at a common speed, whether both engines were in operation, or only one. In many respects she resembled her immediate predecessors, and her little successor Parseval V of 1,200 cubic meters capacity and 30 meters length, built for the Imperial Automobile Club. The maneuvers at Cologne constituted the first grand demonstration of the new fleet of military dirigibles, and proved a severe test of the powers of the air ships, even when manned by experienced crews and commanded by regular military officers. Two companies of the balloon corps battalion were in attendance. Large provisions of hydrogen loaded on wagons, each carrying 100,000 cubic feet, were kept in readiness to be attached to an express train and rushed at the first alarm to any balloon in need of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the famous cavalry general of WÜrtemburg, and hero of the Franco-Prussian war, after retiring from the army, organized, in 1898, a limited liability company for the purpose of developing a new type of dirigible which he had long contemplated. It was to be a vessel far larger and swifter than any the world had yet seen. In the summer of 1900, after two years of industrious experimental research and active construction, he brought forth from his floating laboratory on Lake Constance, near Manzell, the first of those wonderful air ships which have aroused such expectation and enthusiasm in Germany. In outward appearance and in its chief features of design it typified the whole series of motor balloons thus far developed and navigated by that illustrious inventor. Many valuable improvements were added, as a result of trial and the advance of the collateral sciences; but the fundamental plans seem to have proved as practical as they were bold and original. One by one were surmounted the greatest obstacles, physical, financial and finally political; for the Prussian Ministry did not favor his project at first, and many aËronautical adepts were adverse to it. Those huge ships faced the fury of many a tempest; their dauntless builder endured the storm of hostile criticism; but in the end, builder and ships alike won the Outwardly a Zeppelin balloon may be described as a long cylinder with ogival ends and a V-shaped keel running the length of its bottom. From afar the cylinder and pointed ends appear circular in cross section, but they are sixteen-sided. About one-third the distance from either end of the great ship a small boat is suspended from the hull so closely that at those places the keel is omitted to make room. These two boats are rigidly connected with the hull and support it when the vessel rests on, or is towed along the water. Within them are the crew and petroleum engines, while above them and outward on each side of the hull, and fastened to it by outriggers, are two pairs of screw propellers, so placed as to exert their united thrust along the line of resistance. In some cases the crew can walk through the V-shaped keel from one boat to another, the passageway being illuminated here and there, by transparent covering, or windows of celluloid, along the sides and floor. Again an observer may climb up through the hull and take observations of the sky from above. Telephones, electric bells, and speaking tubes serve to transmit intelligence from one part of the vessel to another. The frame of the hull is formed of sixteen longitudinal beams, or girders, of trellised metal work running from prow to stern and riveted at regular intervals to cross bridges of similar trellised metal work, each cross bridge being a sixteen-sided wheel with trellised rims strengthened by radial rods running inward to a central flange of sheet aluminum. Thus the body of the vessel is divided into many compartments, each bounded by two wheels, and the surrounding longitudinal beams. Each compartment contains a hydrogen balloon, or sac, which PLATE X. GROSS III. ZEPPELIN AIRSHIP STRUCTURE. Obviously there is a material advantage in having many gas cells and two propelling plants; for if one fails it may not prevent navigation. The tandem arrangement of bags separated by the wheel-like cross bridges also allows the balloon to rear any amount without material displacement of the gas, or dangerous increase of pressure; for it must be remembered that a single hydrogen sac extending the full length of an up-ended balloon of such length, would have an outward pressure of about thirty pounds per square foot greater at the top than at the bottom. The poise of the vessel is maintained by shifting weights, and also by use of fins, or rudders, when driving through the air; but those arrangements vary in the different machines. So much for the general features of these wonderful ships, of which four were built during the decade from 1898 to 1908, and several more since that period. The construction and trial of Count Zeppelin’s first air ship proved a formidable task, requiring all his resources of money and mechanical skill. As it Finally, the first launching was officially set for June 30, 1900. The lake was thronged with people massed along the shores, and dotting its surface with every kind of craft, from the fisherman’s primitive boat to the handsomest private yacht, or launch. All day the expectant multitude waited, only to learn at dusk, that the inflation was not completed. Next day they tarried again till evening, and merely saw the raft on which the balloon rested, towed out of the floating house. On the third day, July 2d, those who waited were rewarded with an interesting spectacle. The long stiff air ship was drawn forth from its shed, like a ram rod from a gun. Count Zeppelin, with two men, occupied the front boat, while two others took the rear one. After careful adjustment the vessel was liberated, at eight o’clock, rose slowly and advanced over the water, accompanied by the droning of its propellers and the shouts of the delighted spectators, who realized that they might be witnessing the commencement of a new epoch in aËrial navigation. But the voyage was not an unqualified success. The controlling mechanism became deranged, the framework was bent, and the propellers could not be worked properly. A gentle wind was blowing and the vessel drifted At that date the Zeppelin I was by far the largest and most elaborate air ship ever constructed. Her hull measured 416 feet long, 38 feet across, cubed nearly 400,000 feet, weighed 9 tons, and had a displacement of 10 tons. The trellised frame was made of aluminum, and its body comprised seventeen compartments, of which fifteen were 26 feet long, and the other two 13 feet long. The outer cover was of linen treated with pegamoid and tightly stretched. The hydrogen sacs were of thin fabric. The propulsion was effected by two benzine motors, one in either boat, which together developed 32 horse power, each driving, by means of bevel gears and shafting, a pair of four-blade propellers 3.77 feet in diameter, at 1,100 revolutions per minute. Steering sidewise was effected by means of vertical rudders, while the trim was controlled by horizontal rudders at either side of the vessel, as also by means of a sliding weight which could be drawn fore and aft by means of a winch. Naturally some of these details were superseded ere long by better devices suggested by subsequent experience. On October 17, 1900, Zeppelin I made her second voyage, and with much better result. Starting from the same balloon house at Manzell, at four-forty-five, she promptly rose a thousand feet, and maneuvered in a seven-mile wind, steering in great curves at the will of the pilot. At times the speed was nearly twenty miles an hour, as determined by continuous observations of the balloon’s position, taken from three points of a triangle, together with the This last demonstration left the Count triumphant in other respects, but without sufficient funds to bring his invention into practical use. He must, therefore, look for additional money for the proper continuation of his great work. The financial task thus ensuing occupied much of his time during the next five years, but he finally secured capital enough to continue his experiments and to build a second airship. This was completed and ready for trial in the latter part of 1905. Zeppelin II resembled its predecessor in appearance, but embodied many improvements suggested by the former trials. Its hull was 414 feet long, 38 feet in diameter, held 367,000 cubic feet of hydrogen in its sixteen gas bags, and weighed with all appliances and cargo, about nine tons. It was, therefore, about ten per cent smaller than its predecessor; but at the same time it was far better powered than the earlier one, and more effectively controlled. Each boat carried an 85-horse-power Daimler benzine motor, actuating two enlarged propellers. Ample steering surfaces, operated by the helmsman in the front boat, served to turn the great ship about either of three axes and, at the same time, to displace her bodily up and down in the air, either by direct lift or by canting her hull so that her screw thrust and the pressure on her sides would produce the desired translation. Two trials of Zeppelin’s second air ship were made on the Borden-See, one on November 30, 1906, the other on January 17, 1907; but both met with serious accident. In the first trial the balloon was towed by a motor boat some distance, then cut loose in the wind, which was carrying it forward faster The loss of two mammoth air ships after such brief trial seemed enough to appall even a sturdy general of the Prussian army; but Count Zeppelin was too resolute to waste time in futile tears and hopeless dejection. Strong natures are usually stimulated by disaster, and aroused to fuller energy, to grimmer determination, if not to desperate hazard. However, not desperation, but buoyant hope and high expectation, based on ample experience, were now his ruling motive. Had not his ship attained thirty feet per second with less than one fourth her motive power? The year began with disaster indeed, but he intended it to terminate in glorious victory. And such, indeed, was the happy issue. October, 1907, witnessed the launching of Zeppelin III. She had the same length as her immediate predecessor, but she was a luckier vessel and better powered. On her official trial she voyaged at the height of half a mile, carrying eleven persons sixty-seven miles in two hours and seventeen minutes, or at more than twenty-nine miles per hour. This was a record velocity exceeding that of the best military balloon in France. At times she attained a velocity of fifty feet per second, thus considerably outspeeding the swiftest ocean liner. Moreover, her stability and steering qualities were With this assistance the industrious aËronaut erected a new floating house on the Borden-See at Friedrichshafen, and began the construction of a still larger air ship embodying further improvements in various details. Zeppelin IV was 446 feet long, 42.5 in diameter, held 460,000 cubic feet of hydrogen in her sixteen compartments, and had a total buoyancy of sixteen tons. She had a surplus buoyancy of over two tons, carried a crew of 18 men, and had an estimated range of action of eighteen hundred miles. When drawn from her shed in the autumn of 1907, her great buoyant hull resting lightly on the water supported by her two floating cars, she had all the appearance of a royal passenger express ready for important service. In general features the vessel was like her three predecessors, but in the center of the keel, with transparent floors and windowed sides, was a special stateroom designed for passengers only. This seemed very suggestive, if not prophetic, of the future trend of aËrial navigation. Moreover, the mechanism of propulsion and control were increased in power and effectiveness. In each boat-like car was a 110-horse-power Daimler benzine engine, actuating a pair of three-blade propellers about 15 feet in diameter. A large vertical rudder, mounted on the extreme end of the stern, and supplemented by a pair of smaller vertical rudders at either side of the stern, served to steer the vessel right and left. For steering up and down, as also for exerting a direct lift up or down, four superposed planes like a Venetian blind were placed at either side of the Several trials of this leviathan were made preliminary to her official government test which, if satisfactory, assured her purchase by the German government for $500,000. At the builder’s suggestion this test should include a voyage of 24 hours duration, a safe descent on land or water, an ascent to 4,000 feet, and the fulfillment of various secret requirements. In the autumn of 1907 a successful voyage of eight hours was easily accomplished. In the early part of the next summer, 1908, a series of voyages were made which aroused intense interest throughout the civilized world. On June 13th the great ship, starting from her harbor at Friedrichshafen, sailed over the Alps to Lucerne, steering in among the mountains; here buffeted by eddies, and cross currents, there stemming such stiff head winds that her shadow could hardly creep forward over the ground, again driving through a dark lowering hailstorm which pelted with ominous thunder on her resounding hull; but at length reaching Lucerne safely, then returning in triumph to her harbor at Friedrichshafen. For twelve hours the stanch vessel endured the elements, by no means hospitable, and in that period voyaged 270 miles at an average speed of 22 miles an hour. It was a record journey and a triumph in the art. The following picturesque account of a flight in Count von Zeppelin’s gigantic air ship, written by Emil Sandt, appeared in the Scientific American Supplement of August 15, 1908:
Two attempts were made in July, 1908, to complete the government test; but they proved abortive, and in the second one the hull was damaged by the wind pushing it sidewise against the shed, as it was being towed out by motor boat. This accident caused a delay of two weeks, much to the disappointment On Tuesday, August 4th, at six forty-five in the morning, the great twenty-four hour test for the government began, without previous announcement, but with fairest prospect of success. Sailing from Friedrichshafen, Zeppelin purposed to follow the Rhine as far down as Mayence, then return in a direct line to his starting point. All went splendidly at first. He passed Constance at seven o’clock in the morning, Basle at nine-thirty, Strassburg about noon, then with slower speed passed Mannheim at two-fifty and Darmstadt at four-thirty. At about six o’clock a descent was made at Oppenheim, eleven and a quarter hours after starting. The air ship had voyaged 270 miles at the average speed of 22 miles an hour. A wonderful demonstration it was for the inhabitants of that historic valley, and a glorious tour for the brave old sailor and his crew. Resuming the voyage, Mayence, the turning point, was reached at eleven o’clock at night, and the vessel was headed for home. But now the engines, being overworked, could not maintain the usual speed, which therefore was lowered to twelve miles an hour. Next morning at eight o’clock, after Stuttgart had been passed, a descent had to be made at the village of Echterdingen, to adjust and overhaul the machinery. Ninety-five miles of the return had been made in nine hours. It was most unfortunate that a landing had to be made without a harbor, particularly as a gale was in pursuit of the vessel. Ere long she was torn from her moorings by a squall, carried into the air, and set on fire, probably by an electric discharge. Immediately the great hull was enveloped in flame and completely The hardy and venerable hero of so many voyages and long continued experiments quite broke down at the sight of his grandest vessel in ruin. But an unlooked for and a sudden turn of events brought him the greatest triumph in his darkest hour. While the world expressed its grief and sympathy his loyal countrymen hastened to his relief in an admirable burst of enthusiasm. Within twenty-four hours the government had made him a grant of $125,000, and subscriptions offered in all parts of Germany brought the sum to over $500,000. By October, 1908, the total gift amounted to $1,500,000, which was paid to the Zeppelin Air Ship Company, formed for developing and building air ships on a large scale. A tract of 300 acres was secured at Friedrichshafen for an air ship factory. Here was erected the necessary shops, hydrogen plant, balloon harbor, and everything necessary to enable the company to construct several mammoth air ships each year. To these new grounds the Count’s former interests were gradually conveyed, while his old station, with its air ship dock on Lake Constance, was converted into a military post by the German government. After the destruction of Zeppelin IV, its predecessor, the Count’s third air ship, was again prepared for service and for new triumphs. Her hull was lengthened by the addition of a cylindrical section having the length of one compartment, or about 26 feet. This alteration gave a considerable increase of net buoyancy with but slight increase of resistance. Beginning with March 9, 1909, the military Zeppelin I was kept in active operation by the officers, and subjected to a wide variety of tests day by day. She was driven through rain and snowstorms, at all elevations up to a mile; she was anchored over land and over water, sometimes exposed for hours to a gale; she was steered in and out of her shed without the aid of her floating raft; she was sent on long trips, landed in the open country, by day and by night, and returned to harbor in safety. On one occasion she carried twenty-six passengers for over an hour and a half; again she made an endurance flight of thirteen hours. These maneuvers exhibited for the first time many capabilities of the ship, which all along had been stoutly affirmed by the inventor, but questioned by his critics. On April 1, 1909, at four o’clock in the morning, The crucial hour had come for this stanch vessel and her audacious captain. They wrestled with the storm bravely and obstinately, but were beaten back steadily, with no port in view. The Count determined to weather the gale till it should spend its fury. He coolly sent an aËrogram to Munich, saying that all was well and that he might reach the city late in the day. Observing a suitable place to land, near the village of Loiching, he pointed the prow of his ship downward, approached the earth and cast anchor. As the front car touched the ground it was grasped by the willing hands of thronging peasants and vil PLATE XI. ZEPPELIN DIRIGIBLE RESTING ON THE WATER. Photo E. Levick, N. Y. ZEPPELIN DIRIGIBLE OVER ZÜRICH. Photo E. Levick, N. Y. Next morning the vessel was well replenished and headed for home, by way of Munich. The return was easy, for the wind had nearly reversed its course. Sailing at 32 miles an hour, with a quartering current, the stormbeaten ship soon reached Munich, where she was hailed with boundless enthusiasm. The Prince Regent entertained the Count during his sojourn of three hours, and decorated him with a gold medal. The ship then sailed for Friedrichshafen, with the full speed of the wind and of her propellers, at one time attaining 68 miles an hour. At nightfall she landed gently on the lake near Manzell, having weathered that tempestuous voyage without serious mishap. This was a splendid proof of her stanchness; but a few days later she was put through other tests quite as severe, one being a night voyage of thirteen and a third hours, after a day of busy maneuvering. Following this came her still longer voyage, to Metz, where she was stationed as a frontier war vessel, and one of a considerable fleet contemplated by the German government. In the meantime the energetic Count had started his fifth vessel, or military Zeppelin II, which now was nearing completion at the works of the Zeppelin Air Ship Construction Company. Her hull measured 446 feet in length, had a diameter of 42½ feet, Without previous notice this new air ship set forth in a rain on the evening of May 29, 1909, headed toward Berlin, having on board the Count and seven other men. The purpose of the voyage was merely to exercise the ship; not to reach any definite goal; but by mistake she was reported on her way to Berlin, so that the Kaiser and his retinue waited some hours in vain to receive her. She voyaged bravely past Nuremberg and Leipsic to Bitterfeld, within 85 miles of the capital; then turned for home, the Count being unaware of the hopes he was disappointing. She returned successfully past Weimar and Stuttgart, then, near Goeppingen, descended on an open plain to take on gasoline from a neighboring petroleum refinery. As they were nearing the ground in a heavy rain, Count Zeppelin, who was acting as pilot, suddenly beheld, just before them, a half dead pear tree, with gaunt bare limbs. He gave a sharp order to starboard the helm; but his aËronaut, worn by too long service, thrust the helm to port, and the ship, impelled by a sudden gust, plunged head on against the tree. Her prow was wrecked, the frame and envelope being wrenched and torn for a distance of 100 feet. The disaster seemed complete, but the dauntless Count was equal to the emergency. Twenty workmen were summoned from Friedrichshafen, sixty miles away, and sped to the rescue in automobiles. Electric wires from a nearby plant were stretched to furnish light for night repairs. The grounds were guarded by police and troops. The hull was detached from the tree; furnished with a temporary Slowly the crippled air ship sailed for Friedrichshafen, followed by the white-haired inventor in an automobile, unmoved and triumphant. A mighty shout ascended from the immense crowd of witnesses who had assembled from many quarters. All Germany was elated and jubilant. The great voyage and the prompt recovery from apparent disaster were a triumph of the whole people, for they had helped their hero to build this ship, and now participated in his victory over the spite of fortune and the elements. The Emperor telegraphed his congratulations, affirming his renewed confidence in the rigid system. Without further difficulty the vessel reached her port at an easy gait of ten miles an hour, thus completing a memorable voyage of seven hundred miles—one of the most glorious in the history of aËronautics. If the citizens of Berlin were disappointed on this occasion, they had not long to wait for an aËrial visit from the wizard of Friedrichshafen. On August 27th, at 4.45 a.m., his crew of five men sailed for Berlin via Nuremberg and Leipsic in his sixth air ship, his latest and largest, hurriedly finished for the Berlin voyage. It cubed 533,000 feet, and was driven by two Daimler engines of 150 nominal horse power each. In the afternoon they reached Nuremberg, circled over the city and landed for the night. Starting at 2.15 next morning they battled their way toward Leipsic against a strong wind, and at 6.45 p.m. landed for the night at Bitterfeld, where they arrived with a broken propeller. Here Count Zeppelin joined them. The next morning, In some respects this was Von Zeppelin’s crowning voyage of the year, though effected with a hurriedly finished vessel, not yet thoroughly adjusted. In mechanical execution this journey was equaled on many other occasions; for those great air ships were kept in active service and were everywhere hailed with enthusiasm. Both the Emperor and his people were proud to number those grand cruisers among the nation’s aËrial warships. With general commendation, therefore, was received the announcement that four large Zeppelins were ordered for the use of the German navy. And not surprising was the announcement that other inventors were at work on designs for dirigibles of the rigid type. The projects of these new rivals, who began to appear in 1909, are set forth in the following account:[17]
In keeping with the lively growth of these great ships was the formation of the German aËrial transportation company, with a capital stock of $750,000, reported in l’AÉrophile for December, 1909. A line of large Zeppelins was to connect Baden-Baden, Mannheim, Munich, Leipsic, Cologne, DÜsseldorf, Berlin, Dresden, Essen and Frankfort. The first two auto balloons of this line were to be the Zeppelin IV and Zeppelin V, to be put in commission in the spring of 1910. The Zeppelin IV was to cube 706,000 cubic feet, and carry twenty passengers in three cars, each containing a motor. The Zeppelin V was to be constructed of a remarkably light rigid alloy “electrometal,” and was to carry at least thirty passengers. This enterprise certainly formed an appropriate termination to the first decade of practical auto ballooning. The projected passenger line of the German Air Ship Society was inaugurated the following summer with serene audacity and fairy-like magnificence. The first ship employed, Zeppelin VII, was a huge vessel of unusual power, speed and elegance of appointment. She was 485 feet long by 46 in diameter, cubed 690,000 feet, and carried three engines totaling 420 horse power and competent to drive her 35 miles per hour. Midway beneath her hull and rigidly joined to it, was a passenger car thirty-five feet long, having a vestibule at one end, a lavatory at the other, and five compartments between them, with seats for twenty persons. Beyond the ends of the car were open decks leading to the boats fore and aft containing the machinery. At three o’clock on the morning of June 22, 1910, with Count Zeppelin in charge, and a dozen passengers aboard, this majestic auto balloon sailed from Friedrichshafen up the Rhine Valley for DÜsseldorf, three hundred miles, and after a prosperous voyage of nine hours, made an easy landing. Next morning at eight thirty she voyaged from DÜsseldorf to Dortmund, thirty-seven miles north, sailing at a general height of one thousand feet, over some of the finest industrial parts of Germany. Then she returned to DÜsseldorf with her delighted passengers who were all enthusiasm for the new mode of travel so auspiciously begun. Of the thirty-two persons aboard, the majority were regular public passengers who had paid fifty dollars each for the trip, several of them tourists from various countries, and ten of them women. The maiden voyage of this first air liner was a marvel and dream of delight to the fortunate few traveling in such celestial style. The comforts and splendors of the service quite surpassed their expectations. Seated in that fairy car of aluminum framing Encouraged by these trials the company announced, and hoped to make, voyages at frequent intervals. But in this they promptly encountered difficulties. On June 28th the Deutschland started from DÜsseldorf on a four-hour cruise, with nearly a score of passengers, mostly newspaper representatives. But she remained in the air longer than intended. Passing Solingen she tried to reach Eberfeld, but Thus in both civil and military aËronautics the pioneers had to endure many losses and grievous hardships; but the direst disasters often mark the way to the greatest victories. |
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