MONACO AND THE MARITIME GUIDE ROPE
When I arrived at Monte Carlo, in the latter part of January 1902, the
balloon house of the Prince of Monaco was already practically completed
from suggestions I had given.
The new aerodrome rose on the Boulevard de la Condamine, just across
the electric tramcar tracks from the sea wall. It was an immense empty
shell of wood and canvas over a stout iron skeleton 55 metres (180 feet)
long, 10 metres (33 feet) wide, and 15 metres (50 feet) high. It had to
be solidly constructed, not to risk the fate of the all-wood aerodrome
of the French Maritime Ballooning Station at Toulon, twice wrecked, and
once all but carried away, like a veritable wooden balloon, by tempests.
In spite of the aerodrome's risky form and curious construction its
sensational features were its doors. Tourists told each other (quite
correctly) that doors so great as these had never been before in
ancient times or modern. They had been made to slide open and shut,
above on wheels hanging from an iron construction that extended from the
façade on each side, and below on wheels that rolled over a rail. Each
door was 15 metres (50 feet) high by 5 metres (16-1/2 feet) wide, and
each weighed 4400 kilogrammes (9680 lbs.). Yet their equilibrium was so
well calculated that on the day of the inauguration of the aerodrome
these giant doors were rolled apart by two little boys of eight and ten
years respectively, the young Princes Ruspoli, grandsons of the Duc de
Dino, my host at Monte Carlo.
While the new situation attracted me by its promise of convenient and
protected winter practice the prospect of doing some oversea navigation
with my air-ship was even more alluring. Even to the spherical
balloonist the oversea problem has great temptations, concerning which
an expert of the French Navy has said:
"The balloon can render the navy immense services, _on condition that
its direction can be assured_.
"Floating over the sea, it can be at once scout and offensive auxiliary
of so delicate a character that the general service of the navy has
not yet allowed itself to pronounce on the matter. We can no longer
conceal it from ourselves, however, that the hour approaches when
balloons, now become military engines, will acquire, from the point of
view of battle results, a great and, perhaps, decisive influence in war."
[Illustration: IN THE BAY OF MONACO]
As for myself, I have never made it any secret that, to my mind,
the first practical use of the air-ship will be found in war, and
the far-seeing Henri Rochefort, who was in the habit of coming to
the aerodrome from his hotel at La Turbie, wrote a most significant
editorial in this sense after I had laid before him the speed
calculations of my "No. 7," then in course of building.
"The day when it shall be established that a man can make his air-ship
travel in a given direction and manoeuvre it at will during the four
hours which the young Santos demands to go from Monaco to Calvi," wrote
Henri Rochefort, "there will remain little more for the nations to do
than to throw down their arms....
"I am astonished that the capital importance of this matter has not yet
been grasped by all the professionals of aerostation. To mount in a
balloon that one has not constructed, and which one is not in a state
to guide, constitutes the easiest of performances. A little cat has done
it at the Folies-Bergère."
Now in war service overland the air-ship will, doubtless, have often to
mount to considerable heights to avoid the rifle fire of the enemy, but,
as the maritime auxiliary described by the expert of the French Navy,
its scouting _rôle_ will for the most part be performed at the end of
its guide rope, comparatively close to the waves, and yet high enough to
take in a wide view. Only when for easily-imagined reasons it is desired
to mount high for a short time will it quit the convenient contact of
its guide rope with the surface of the sea.
For these considerations--and particularly the last--I was anxious to
do a great deal of guide-roping over the Mediterranean. If the maritime
experiment promises so much to spherical ballooning it is doubly
promising to the air-ship, which, from the nature of its construction,
carries comparatively little ballast. This ballast ought not to be
currently sacrificed, as it is by the spherical balloonist, for the
remedying of every little vertical aberration. Its purpose is for use
in great emergencies. Nor ought the aerial navigator, particularly if
he be alone, be forced to rectify his altitude continually by means of
his propeller and shifting weights. He ought to be free to navigate
his air-ship; if on pleasure bent, with ease and leisure to enjoy his
flight; if on war service, with facility for his observations and
hostile manoeuvres. Therefore any _automatic_ guarantee of vertical
stability is peculiarly welcome to him.
You know already what the guide rope is. I have described it in my
first experience of spherical ballooning. Overland, where there are
level plains or roads or even streets, where there are not too many
troublesome trees, buildings, fences, telegraph and trolley poles and
wires and like irregularities, the guide rope is as great an aid to the
air-ship as to the spherical balloon. Indeed, I have made it more so,
for with me it is the central feature of my shifting weights (Figs. 8
and 9, page 148).
Over the uninterrupted stretches of the sea my first Monaco flight
proved it to be a true _stabilisateur_. Its very slight dragging
resistance through the water is out of all proportion to the
considerable weight of its floating extremity. According to its greater
or less immersion, therefore, it ballasts or unballasts the air-ship
(Fig. 11). The balloon is held by the weight of the guide rope down to
a fixed level over the waves without danger of being drawn into contact
with them. For the moment that the air-ship descends the slightest
distance nearer to them that very moment it becomes relieved of just so
much weight, and must naturally rise again by that amount of momentary
unballasting. In this way an incessant little tugging toward and away
from the waves is produced, infinitely gentle, an automatic ballasting
and unballasting of the air-ship without loss of ballast.
[Illustration: Fig. 11]
My first flight over the Mediterranean, which was made on the morning
of 29th January 1902, proved more than this, unfortunately. It was
seen that a miscalculation had been made with respect to the site of
the aerodrome itself. In the navigation of the air, where all is new,
such surprises meet the experimenter at every turn. This ought to be
remembered when one takes account of progress. In the Paris-Madrid
automobile race of 1903 what minute precautions were not taken to
secure the competitors against the perils of quick turnings and grade
crossings? And yet how notably insufficient did they not turn out to be.
As the air-ship was being taken out from its house for its first flight
on the morning of 29th January 1902 the spectators could see that
nothing equivalent to the landing-stages which the air-ships of the
future must have built for them existed in front of the building. The
air-ship, loaded with ballast until it was a trifle heavier than the
surrounding atmosphere, had to be towed, or helped, out of the aerodrome
and across the Boulevard de la Condamine before it could be launched
into the air over the sea wall.
Now that sea wall proved to be a dangerous obstruction. From the side
walk it was only waist high, but on the other side of it the surf
rolled over pebbles from four to five metres below.
The air-ship had to be lifted over the sea wall more than waist high;
also, not to risk damaging the arms of its propeller, and when half
over, there was no one to sustain it from the other side. Its stem
pointed obliquely downward, while its stern threatened to grind on the
wall. Scuffling among the pebbles below, on the sea side, half-a-dozen
workmen held their arms high toward the descending keel as it was let
down and pushed on toward them by the workmen in charge of it on the
boulevard in front of the wall, and they were at last able to catch and
right it only in time to prevent me from being precipitated from the
basket.
[Illustration: FROM THE BALLOON HOUSE OF LA CONDAMINE AT MONACO, FEB.
12, 1902]
For this reason my return to the aerodrome after this first flight
became the occasion of a real triumph, for the crowd promptly took
cognisance of the perils of the situation and foresaw difficulties
for me when I should attempt to re-enter the balloon house. As there
was no wind, however, and as I steered boldly, I was able to make a
sensational entry without damage--and without aid. Straight as a dart
the air-ship sped to the balloon house. The police of the prince had
with difficulty cleared the boulevard between the sea wall and the
wide-open doors. Assistants and supernumeraries leaned over the wall
with outstretched arms waiting for me; below on the beach were others,
but this time I did not need them. I slowed the speed of the propeller
as I came to them. Just as I was half way over the sea wall, well above
them all, I stopped the motor. Carried onward by the dying momentum,
the air-ship glided over their heads on toward the open door. They
had grasped my guide rope to draw me down, but as I had been coming
diagonally there was no need of it. Now they walked beside the air-ship
into the balloon house, as its trainer or the stable-boys grasp the
bridle of their racehorse after the course and lead him back in honour
to the stable with his jockey in the saddle.
It was admitted, nevertheless, that I ought not to be obliged to steer
so closely on returning from my flights--to enter the aerodrome as a
needle is threaded by a steady hand--because a side gust of wind might
catch me at the critical moment and dash me against a tree or lamp-post,
or telegraph or telephone pole, not to speak of the sharp-cornered
buildings on either side of the aerodrome. When I went out again for a
short spin that same afternoon of 29th January 1902 the obstruction of
the sea wall made itself only too evident. The prince offered to tear
down the wall.
"I will not ask you to do so much," I said. "It will be enough to
build a landing-stage on the sea side of the wall at the level of the
boulevard."
This was done after twelve days of work, interrupted by persistent
rain, and the air-ship, when it issued for its third flight, 10th
February 1902, had simply to be lifted a few feet by men on each side
of the wall. They drew it gently on until its whole length floated in
equilibrium over the new platform that extended so far out into the surf
that its farthermost piles were always in six feet of water.
Standing on this platform they steadied the air-ship while its motor
was beings started, while I let out the overplus of water ballast and
shifted my guide rope so as to point for an oblique drive upward. The
motor began spitting and rumbling. The propeller began turning.
"Let go all!" I cried, for the third time at Monaco.
Lightly the air-ship slid along its oblique course, onward and upward.
Then as the propeller gathered force a mighty push sent me flying over
the bay. I shifted forward the guide rope again to make a level course.
And out to sea the air-ship darted, its scarlet pennant fluttering
symbolic letters as upon a streak of flame. They were the initial
letters of the first line of Camoëns' "Lusiad," the epic poet of my race:
Por mares nunca d'antes navegados!
(O'er seas hereto unsailed.)