THE DEUTSCH PRIZE AND ITS PROBLEMS
This brings me to the Deutsch prize of aerial navigation, offered in the
spring of 1900, while I was navigating my "No. 3," and after I had on at
least one occasion--all unknowing--steered over what was to be its exact
course from the Eiffel Tower to the Seine at Bagatelle (see page 127).
This prize of 100,000 francs, founded by M. Deutsch (de la Meurthe),
a member of the Paris Aéro Club, was to be awarded by the Scientific
Commission of that organisation to the first dirigible balloon or
air-ship that between 1st May and 1st October 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903,
and 1904 should rise from the Parc d'Aerostation of the Aéro Club at St
Cloud and, without touching ground and by its own self-contained means
on board alone, describe a closed curve in such a way that the axis
of the Eiffel Tower should be within the interior of the circuit, and
return to the point of departure in the maximum time of half-an-hour.
Should more than one accomplish the task in the same year the 100,000
francs were to be divided in proportion to the respective times.
The Aéro Club's Scientific Commission had been named expressly for the
purpose of formulating these and such other conditions of the foundation
as it might deem proper, and by reason of certain of them I had made no
attempt to win the prize with my "Santos-Dumont, No. 4." The course from
the Aéro Club's Parc d'Aerostation to the Eiffel Tower and return was 11
kilometres (nearly 7 miles), and this distance, _plus the turning round
the Tower_, must be accomplished in thirty minutes. This meant in a
perfect calm a necessary speed of 25 kilometres (15-1/2 miles) per hour
for the straight stretches--a speed I could not be sure to maintain all
the way in my "No. 4."
Another condition formulated by the Scientific Commission was that its
members, who were to be the judges of all trials, must be notified
twenty-four hours in advance of each attempt. Naturally, the operation
of such a condition would be to nullify as much as possible all minute
time calculations based either on a given rate of speed through perfect
calm or such air current as might be prevailing twenty-four hours
previous to the hour of trial. Though Paris is situated in a basin,
surrounded on all sides by hills, its air currents are peculiarly
variable, and brusque meteorological changes are extremely common.
I foresaw also that when a competitor had once committed the formal act
of assembling a Scientific Commission on a slope of the River Seine
so far away from Paris as St Cloud he would be under a kind of moral
pressure to go on with his trial, no matter how the air currents might
have increased, and no matter in what kind of weather--wet, dry, or
simply humid--he might find himself.
Again, this moral pressure to go on with the trial against the
aeronaut's better judgment must extend even to the event of an unlucky
change in the state of the air-ship itself. One does not convoke a body
of prominent personages to a distant riverside for nothing, yet in the
twenty-four hours between notification and trial even a well-watched
elongated balloon might well lose a little of its tautness unperceived.
A previous day's preliminary trial might easily derange so uncertain
an engine as the petroleum motor of the year 1900. And, finally, I saw
that the competitor would be barred by common courtesy from convoking
the Commission at the very hour most favourable for dirigible balloon
experiments over Paris--the calm of the dawn. The duellist may call out
his friends at that sacred hour, but not the air-ship captain.
In founding the Santos-Dumont prize with the 4000 francs awarded to me
by the Aéro Club for my work in the year 1900 it will be observed that
I made no such conditions by the way. I did not wish to complicate the
trial by imposing a minimum velocity, the check of a special committee,
or any limitation of time of trial during the day. I was sure that even
under the widest conditions it would be a great deal to come back to
the starting-point after having reached a post publicly pointed out in
advance--a thing that was unheard of before the year 1901.
The conditions of the Santos-Dumont prize, therefore, left competitors
free to choose the state of the air least unfavourable to them, as the
calm of late evening or early morning. Nor would I inflict on them
the possible surprises of a period of waiting between the convocation
and the meeting of a Scientific Commission, itself in my eyes quite
unnecessary in these days, when the army of newspaper reporters of a
great capital is always ready to mobilise without notice, at any hour
and spot, on the bare prospect of news. The newspaper men of Paris would
be my Scientific Commission.
[Illustration: "No. 5." LEAVING AËRO CLUB GROUNDS, JULY 12, 1901]
As I had excluded myself from trying for the Santos-Dumont prize I
naturally wished to show that it would not be impossible to fulfil its
conditions. My "No. 5"--composed of the enlarged balloon of the "No. 4"
and the new keel, motor, and propeller already described--was now ready
for trial. In it, on the first attempt, I fulfilled the conditions of my
own prize foundation.
This was on July 12th, 1901, after a practice flight the day before.
At 4.30 A.M. I steered my air-ship from the park of the Aéro Club at
St Cloud to the Longchamps racecourse. I did not at that moment take
time to ask permission of the Jockey Club, which, however, a few days
later placed that admirable open space at my disposition. Ten times in
succession I made the circuit of Longchamps, stopping each time at a
point designed beforehand.
After these first evolutions, which altogether made up a distance of
about 35 kilometres (22 miles), I set out for Puteaux, and after an
excursion of about 3 kilometres (2 miles), done in nine minutes, I
steered back again to Longchamps.
I was by this time so well satisfied with the dirigibility of my "No.
5" that I began looking for the Eiffel Tower. It had disappeared in
the mists of the morning, but its direction was well known to me, so I
steered for it as well as I might.
In ten minutes I had come within 200 metres (40 rods) of the Champ
de Mars. At this moment one of the cords managing my rudder broke.
It was absolutely necessary to repair it at once, and to repair it I
must descend to earth. With perfect ease I pulled forward the guide
rope, shifted my centre of gravity, and drove the air-ship diagonally
downward, landing gently in the Trocadero Gardens. Good-natured workmen
ran to me from all directions.
Did I need anything? they asked.
Yes; I needed a ladder. And in less time than it takes to write it a
ladder was found and placed in position. While two of these discreet and
intelligent volunteers held it I climbed some twenty rounds to its top,
and was able to repair the damaged rudder connection.
[Illustration: "No. 5." RETURNING FROM THE EIFFEL TOWER]
I started off again, mounting diagonally to my chosen altitude, turned
the Eiffel Tower in a wide curve, and returned to Longchamps in a
straight course without further incident after a trip which, including
the stop for repairs, had lasted one hour and six minutes. Then after
a few minutes' conversation I took my flight back to the St Cloud
Aerodrome, passing the Seine at an altitude of 200 metres (over 600
feet), and housing the still perfectly-inflated air-ship in its shed as
though it were a simple automobile.