A GLANCE BACKWARD AND FORWARD
Just as I had not gone into air-ship constructing for the sake of
winning the Deutsch prize, so now I had no reason to stop experimenting
after I had won it. When I built and navigated my first air-ships
neither Aéro Club nor Deutsch prize were yet in existence. The two, by
their rapid rise and deserved prominence, had brought the problem of
aerial navigation suddenly before the public--so suddenly, indeed, that
I was really not prepared to enter into such a race with a time limit.
Naturally anxious to have the honour of winning such a competition,
I had been forced on rapidly in new constructions at both danger and
expense. Now I would take time to perfect myself systematically as an
aerial navigator.
Suppose you buy a new bicycle or automobile. You will have a perfect
machine to your hand without having had any of the labour, the
deceptions, the false starts and recommencements, of the inventor and
constructor. Yet with all these advantages you will soon find that
possession of the perfected machine does not necessarily mean that you
shall go spinning over the highways with it. You may be so unpractised
that you will fall off the bicycle or blow up the automobile. The
machine is all right, but you must learn to run it.
To bring the modern bicycle to its perfection thousands of amateurs,
inventors, engineers, and constructors laboured during more than
twenty-five years, trying endless innovations, one by one rejecting
the great mass of them, and, after endless failures by the way of half
successes, slowly nearing to the perfect organism.
So it is to-day with the automobile. Imagine the united labours and
financial sacrifices of the engineers and manufacturers that led,
step by step, up to the road-racing automobiles of the Paris-Berlin
competition in 1901--the year in which the only working dirigible
balloon then in existence won the Deutsch prize against a time limit
that was thought by many a complete bar to success. Yet of the 170
perfected automobiles registered for entry to the Paris-Berlin
competition only 109 completed the first day's run, and of these only 26
finally reached Berlin.
[Illustration: RETURNING TO AËRO CLUB GROUNDS ABOVE AQUEDUCT]
Out of 170 automobiles entered for the race only 26 reached the goal.
And of these 26 arriving at Berlin how many do you imagine made the trip
without serious accident? Perhaps none.
It is perfectly natural that this should be so. People think nothing of
it. Such is the natural development of a great invention. But if I break
down while in the air I cannot stop for repairs: I must go on, and the
whole world knows it.
Looking back, therefore, on my progress since the time I doubled up
above the Bagatelle grounds in 1898 I was surprised at the rapid pace at
which I had allowed the notice of the world and my own ardour to push me
on in what was in reality an arbitrary task. At the risk of my neck and
the needless sacrifice of a great deal of money I had won the Deutsch
prize. I might have arrived at the same point of progress by less forced
and more reasonable stages. Throughout I had been inventor, patron,
manufacturer, amateur, mechanician, and air-ship captain all united!
Yet any one of these qualities is thought to bring sufficient work and
credit to the individual in the world of automobiles.
With all these cares I often found myself criticised for choosing calm
days for my experiments. Yet who, experimenting over Paris--as I had to
do when trying for the Deutsch prize--would add to his natural risks
and expenses the vexations of who knows what prosecution for knocking
down the chimney-pots of a great capital on the heads of a population of
pedestrians?
One by one I tried the assurance companies. None would make a rate for
me against the damage I might do on a squally day. None would give me a
rate on my own air-ship to insure it against destruction.
To me it was now clear that what I most needed was navigation practice
pure and simple. I had been increasing the speed of my air-ships--that
is to say, I had been constructing at the expense of my education as an
air-ship captain.
The captain of a steamboat obtains his certificate only after years of
study and experience of navigation in inferior capacities. Even the
"chauffeur" on the public highway must pass his examination before the
authorities will give him his papers.
[Illustration: MEDAL AWARDED BY THE BRAZILIAN GOVERNMENT]
In the air, where all is new, the routine navigation of a dirigible
balloon, requiring for foundation the united experiences of the
spherical balloonist and the automobile "chauffeur," makes demands upon
the lone captain's coolness, ingenuity, quick reasoning, and a kind of
instinct that comes with long habit.
Urged on by these considerations, my great object in the autumn of 1901
was to find a favourable place for practice in aerial navigation.
My swiftest and best air-ship--"The Santos-Dumont No. 6"--was in perfect
condition. The day after winning the Deutsch prize in it my chief
mechanician asked me if he should tighten it up with hydrogen. I told
him yes. Then, seeking to let some more hydrogen into it, he discovered
something curious. The balloon would not take any more! It had not lost
a single cubic unit of hydrogen!
The actual winning of the Deutsch prize had cost only a few litres of
petroleum!
Just as the Paris winter of biting winds, cold rains, and lowering skies
was approaching I received an intimation that the Prince of Monaco,
himself a man of science celebrated for his personal investigations,
would be pleased to build a balloon house directly on the beach of La
Condamine, from which I might dart out on the Mediterranean, and so
continue my aerial practice through the winter.
The situation promised to be ideal. The little bay of Monaco, sheltered
from behind against the wind and cold by mountains, and from the wind
and sea on either side by the heights of Monte Carlo and Monaco town,
would make a well-protected manoeuvre ground.
The air-ship would be always ready, filled with hydrogen gas. It could
slip out of the balloon house to profit by good weather, and back again
for shelter at the approach of squalls. The balloon house would be
erected on the edge of the shore, and the whole Mediterranean would lie
before me for guide-roping.
[Illustration: "No. 9." SHOWING CAPTAIN LEAVING BASKET FOR MOTOR]