THE FIRST OF THE WORLD'S AIR-SHIP STATIONS
Air-ship experimenters labour under one peculiar disadvantage, quite
apart from the proper difficulties of the problem. It is due to the
utter newness of travel in a third dimension, and consists in the
slowness with which our minds realise the necessity of providing for
the diagonal mountings and descents of the air-ships starting from and
returning to the ground.
When the Aéro Club of Paris laid out its grounds at St Cloud it was
with the sole idea of facilitating the vertical mounting of spherical
balloons. Indeed, no provisions were made even for the landing of
spherical balloons, because their captains never hoped to bring them
back to the St Cloud balloon park otherwise than by rail, packed in
their boxes. The spherical balloon lands where the wind takes it.
When I built my first air-ship house in the Club's grounds at St Cloud
I dare say that the then novel advantages of possessing my own gas
plant, workshop, and a shelter in which the inflated dirigibles could
be housed indefinitely withheld my attention from this other almost
vital problem of surroundings. It was already a great progress for
me not to be obliged to empty the balloon and waste its hydrogen at
the end of each trip. Thus I was content to build simply an air-ship
house with great sliding doors without even taking precautions to
guarantee a flat, open space in front, and, less still, on either side
of it. When, little by little, trenches something like a metre (yard)
deep--vague foundation outlines for constructions that were never
finished--began appearing here and there to the right of my open doors
and on beyond I realised that my aids might risk falling into them in
running to catch my guide rope when I should be returning from a trip.
And when the gigantic skeleton of M. Henry Deutsch's air-ship house,
designed to shelter the air-ship he built on the lines of my "No. 6,"
and called "La Ville de Paris," rose directly in front of my sliding
doors, scarcely two air-ships' lengths distant from them, it dawned on
me at last that here was something of a peril, and more than a simple
inconvenience due to natural crowding in a club's grounds. In spite of
the new peril the Deutsch prize was won. Returning from the Eiffel Tower
I passed high above the skeleton. I may say here, however, that the
foundation trenches innocently caused the painful controversy about my
time, to which I have made a brief allusion in the chapter. Seeing that
they might easily break their legs by stumbling into those foundation
trenches I had positively forbidden my men to run across that space to
catch my guide rope with their eyes and arms up in the air. Not dreaming
that such a point could be raised, my men obeyed the injunction.
Observing that I was quite master of my rudder, motor, and propeller,
able to turn and return to the spot where the judges stood, they let me
pass on over their heads without seeking to catch and run along with the
guide rope, a thing they might have done easily--at the risk of their
legs.
Again, at Monaco, after a well-planned air-ship house had been
erected in what seemed an ideal spot, we have seen what dangers were,
nevertheless, threatened by the sea wall, the Boulevard de la Condamine
with its poles, wires, and traffic, and the final disaster, due entirely
to the absence of a weighing ground beside the aerodrome. These are
dangers and inconveniences against which we come in time to be on our
guard by actual and often dire experience.
[Illustration: "SANTOS-DUMONT No. 5"
SHOWING HOW AËRO CLUB GROUNDS WERE CUT UP]
During the spring and summer of 1902 I took trips to England and the
United States, of which I shall have a word to say later. Returning
from those trips to Paris I at once set about selecting the site of an
aerodrome that should be all my own and in which the experience gained
at such cost should be taken advantage of. This time I resolved my
air-ship house should have an ample space around it. And, succeeding in
a way, I realised--if I may say it--the first of the air-ship stations
of the future.
After long search I came on a fair-sized lot of vacant ground surrounded
by a high stone wall, inside the police jurisdiction of the Bois de
Boulogne, but private property, situated on the Rue de Longchamps, in
Neuilly St James. First, I had to come to an understanding with its
owner; then I had to come to an understanding with the Bois authorities,
who took time to give a building permit to such an unusual construction
as a house from which air-ships would go and come.
The Rue de Longchamps is a narrow suburban street, little built on at
this end, that gives on the Bagatelle Gate to the Bois de Boulogne,
beside the training ground of the same name. To go and come in my
air-ships from this side is, however, inconvenient because of the walls
of the various properties, the trees that line the Bois so thickly, and
the great park gates. To the right and left of my little property are
other buildings. Behind me, across the Boulevard de la Seine, is the
river itself, with the Ile de Puteaux in it. It is from this side that
I must go and come in my air-ships. Mounting diagonally in the air from
my own open grounds I pass over my wall, the Boulevard de la Seine, and
turn when well above the river. Regularly I turn to the left and make my
way, in a great arc, to the Bois by way of the training ground, itself a
fairly open space.
[Illustration: FIRST OF THE WORLD'S AIRSHIP STATIONS (NEUILLY ST JAMES)]
There it stands in its grounds, the first of the air-ship stations of
the future, capable of housing seven air-ships all inflated and prepared
to navigate at an instant's notice! But in spite of all the needs that
I attempted to provide for in it what a small and hampered place it is
compared with the great, highly-organised stations which the future must
produce for itself, with their high-placed and spacious landing-stages,
to which air-ships will descend with complete safety and convenience,
like great birds that seek nests on flat rocks! Such stations may
have little car tracks running out from their interior to the wide
landing-spaces. The cars that run over them will pull the air-ships
in and out by their guide ropes, without loss of time or the aid of a
dozen or more men. Their observation towers will serve for judges timing
stations in aerial races; fitted with wireless telegraph apparatus
they may be able to communicate with distant goals and, perhaps, even
with the air-ships in motion. Attached to their air-ship stations
there will be gas-generating plants. There may be a casemated workshop
for the testing of motors. There will certainly be sleeping-rooms for
experimenters who desire to make an early start and profit by the calm
of the dawn. It is quite probable that there will also be balloon
envelope workshops for repairs and changes, a carpenter shop, and a
machine shop, with intelligent and experienced workmen ready and able to
seize an idea and execute it.
Meanwhile my air-ship station of the present is said to resemble a great
square tent, striped red and white, set in the midst of a vacant lot
surrounded by a high stone wall. Its tent-like appearance is due to the
fact that, being in a hurry to utilise it, I saw no reason to construct
its walls or roof of wood. The framework consists of long rows of
parallel wooden pillars. Across their tops is stretched a canvas roof,
and the four sides are made of the same striped canvas. This makes a
construction stronger than it at first appears, the outside tent stuff
weighing some 2600 kilogrammes (5720 lbs.), and being sustained between
the pillars by metallic cordage.
Inside, the central stalls are 9-1/2 metres (31 feet) wide, 50 metres
(165 feet) long, and 13-1/2 metres (44-1/2 feet) high, affording room
for the largest dirigibles without permitting them to come into contact
with each other. The great sliding doors are but a repetition of those
of Monaco.
When in the spring of 1903 I found my air-ship station completed I had
three new air-ships ready to house in it. They were:
[Illustration: "No. 7"]
My "No. 7." This I call my racing air-ship. It is designed and reserved
for important competitions, the mere cost of filling it with hydrogen
being more than 3000 francs (£120). It is true that, once filled, it
may be kept inflated for a month at the expense of 50 francs (£2)
per day for hydrogen to replace what is lost by the daily play of
condensation and dilatation. Having a gas capacity of 1257 cubic metres
(nearly 45,000 cubic feet) it possesses twice the lifting power of my
"No. 6," in which the Deutsch prize was won; and such is the necessary
weight of its 60 horse-power, water-cooled, four-cylinder motor and its
proportionally strong machinery that I shall probably take up no more
ballast in it than I took up in the "No. 6." Comparing their sizes and
lifting powers, it would make five of
My "No. 9," the novel little "runabout," which I shall describe in the
succeeding chapter. The third of the new air-ships is
My "No. 10," which has been called "The Omnibus." Its gas capacity of
2010 cubic metres (nearly 80,000 cubic feet) makes its balloon greater
in size and lifting power than even the racing "No. 7"; and should
I, indeed, desire at any time to shift to it the latter's keel, all
furnished with the racing motor and machinery, I might combine a very
swift air craft capable of carrying myself, several aids and a large
supply of both petroleum and ballast--not to speak of war munitions were
the sudden need of a belligerent character.
The prime purpose of my "No. 10," however, is well indicated in its
name: "The Omnibus." Its keel, or, rather, keels, as I have fashioned
them, are double--that is to say, hanging underneath its usual keel, in
which my basket is situated, there is a passenger keel that holds three
similar baskets and a smaller basket for my aid. Each passenger basket
is large enough to contain four passengers; and it is to carry such
passengers that "The Omnibus" has been constructed.
[Illustration: Fig. 13.--"No. 10" rising]
[Illustration: "No. 10"
WITHOUT PASSENGER KEEL]
Indeed, after mature reflection, it seemed to me that this must be the
most practical and rapid way to popularise aerial navigation. In my
other air-ships I have shown that it is possible to mount and travel
through the air on a prescribed course with no greater danger than one
risks in any racing automobile. In "The Omnibus" I shall demonstrate
to the world that there are very many men--and women--possessed of
sufficient confidence in the aerial idea to mount with me as passengers
in the first of the air omnibuses of the future.
[Illustration: Fig. 14.--"No. 10" descending]