WINNING THE DEUTSCH PRIZE
And now, 19th October 1901, the air-ship "Santos-Dumont No. 6," having
been repaired with great celerity, I tried again for the Deutsch prize
and won it.
On the day before the weather had been wretched. Nevertheless, I had
sent out the necessary telegrams convoking the Commission. Through
the night the weather had improved, but the atmospheric conditions at
2 o'clock in the afternoon--the hour announced for the trial--were,
nevertheless, so unfavourable that of the twenty-five members composing
the Commission only five made their appearance--MM. Deutsch (de la
Meurthe), de Dion, Fonvielle, Besançon, and Aimé.
The Central Meteorological Bureau, consulted at this hour by telephone,
reported a south-east wind blowing 6 metres per second at the altitude
of the Eiffel Tower. When I consider that I was content when my first
air-ship in 1898 had, in the opinion of myself and friends, been going
at the rate of 7 metres per second I am still surprised at the progress
realised in those three years, for I was now setting out to win a race
against a time limit in a wind blowing almost as fast as the highest
speed I had realised in my first air-ship.
[Illustration: SCIENTIFIC COMMISSION OF AËRO CLUB AT THE WINNING OF THE
DEUTSCH PRIZE]
The official start took place at 2.42 P.M. In spite of the wind striking
me sidewise, with a tendency to take me to the left of the Eiffel Tower,
I held my course straight to that goal. Gradually I drove the air-ship
onward and upward to a height of about 10 metres above its summit. In
doing this I lost some time, but secured myself against accidental
contact with the Tower as much as possible.
As I passed the Tower I turned with a sudden movement of the rudder,
bringing the air-ship round the Tower's lightning conductor at a
distance of about 50 metres from it. The Tower was thus turned at 2.51
P.M., the distance of 5-1/2 kilometres, _plus the turning_, being done
in nine minutes.
The return trip was longer, being in the teeth of this same wind. Also,
during the trip to the Tower the motor had worked fairly well. Now,
after I had left it some 500 metres behind me, the motor was actually on
the point of stopping. I had a moment of great uncertainty. I must make
a quick decision. It was to abandon the steering wheel for a moment, at
the risk of drifting from my course, in order to devote my attention to
the carburating lever and the lever controlling the electric spark.
The motor, which had almost stopped, began to work again. I had now
reached the Bois, where, by a phenomenon known to all aeronauts, the
cool air from the trees began making my balloon heavier and heavier--or
in true physics, smaller by condensation. By an unlucky coincidence
the motor at this moment began slowing again. Thus the air-ship was
descending, while its motive power was decreasing.
To correct the descent I had to throw back both guide rope and shifting
weights. This caused the air-ship to point diagonally upward, so that
what propeller-force remained caused it to remount continually in the
air.
[Illustration: "No. 6." MAKING FOR EIFFEL TOWER; ALTITUDE 1000 FEET]
I was now over the crowd of the Auteuil racetrack, already with a sharp
pointing upward. I heard the applause of the mighty throng, when
suddenly my capricious motor started working at full speed again. The
suddenly-accelerated propeller being almost under the high-pointed
air-ship exaggerated the inclination, so that the applause of the crowd
changed to cries of alarm. As for myself, I had no fear, being over the
trees of the Bois, whose soft greenery, as I have already stated, always
reassured me.
All this happened very quickly--before I had a chance to shift my
weights and guide rope back to the normal horizontal positions. I was
now at an altitude of 150 metres. Of course, I might have checked the
diagonal mounting of the air-ship by the simple means of slowing the
motor that was driving it upward; but I was racing against a time limit,
and so I just went on.
I soon righted myself by shifting the guide rope and the weights
forward. I mention this in detail because at the time many of my friends
imagined something terrible was happening. All the same, I did not have
time to bring the air-ship to a lower altitude before reaching the
timekeepers in the Aéro Club's grounds--a thing I might easily have done
by slowing the motor. This is why I passed so high over the judges'
heads.
On my way to the Tower I never looked down on the house-tops of Paris:
I navigated in a sea of white and azure, seeing nothing but the goal. On
the return trip I had kept my eyes fixed on the verdure of the Bois de
Boulogne and the silver streak of river where I had to cross it. Now, at
my high altitude of 150 metres and with the propeller working at full
power, I passed above Longchamps, crossed the Seine, and continued on at
full speed over the heads of the Commission and the spectators gathered
in the Aéro Club's grounds. At that moment it was eleven minutes and
thirty seconds past three o'clock, making the time exactly twenty-nine
minutes and thirty-one seconds.
The air-ship, carried by the impetus of its great speed, passed on as
a racehorse passes the winning-post, as a sailing yacht passes the
winning-line, as a road racing automobile continues flying past the
judges who have snapped its time. Like the jockey of the racehorse, I
then turned and drove myself back to the aerodrome to have my guide rope
caught and be drawn down at twelve minutes forty and four-fifths seconds
past three, or thirty minutes and forty seconds from the start.
I did not yet know my exact time.
I cried: "Have I won?"
And the crowd of spectators cried back to me: "Yes!"
[Illustration: ROUND EIFFEL TOWER]
* * * * *
For a while there were those who argued that my time ought to be
calculated up to the moment of my second return to the aerodrome instead
of to the moment when I first passed over it, returning from the Eiffel
Tower. For a while, indeed, it seemed that it might be more difficult
to have the prize awarded to me than it had been to win it. In the end,
however, common-sense prevailed. The money of the prize, amounting in
all to 125,000 francs, I did not desire to keep. I, therefore, divided
it into unequal parts. The greater sum, of 75,000 francs, I handed over
to the Prefect of Police of Paris to be used for the deserving poor. The
balance I distributed among my employees, who had been so long with me
and to whose devotion I was glad to pay this tribute.
At this same time I received another grand prize, as gratifying as it
was unexpected. This was a sum of 100 contos (125,000 francs), voted to
me by the Government of my own country, and accompanied by a gold medal
of large size and great beauty, designed, engraved, and struck off in
Brazil. Its obverse shows my humble self led by Victory and crowned
with laurel by a flying figure of Renown. Above a rising sun there is
engraved the line of Camoëns, altered by one word, as I adopted it to
float on the long streamer of my air-ship: "Por _ceos_ nunca d'antes
navegados!"[B] The reverse bears these words: "Being President of the
Republic of the United States of Brazil, the Doctor Manoel Ferraz de
Campos Salles has given order to engrave and strike this medal in homage
to Alberto Santos-Dumont. 19th October 1901."
[B] "Through _heavens_ hereto unsailed," instead of
"_Por mares nunca d'antes navegados_"--
"O'er _seas_ hereto unsailed."
[Illustration: ROUNDING EIFFEL TOWER]