AËRIAL NAVIGATION
A POPULAR TREATISE
ON THE GROWTH OF AIR CRAFT AND
ON AËRONAUTICAL METEOROLOGY
BY
ALBERT FRANCIS ZAHM, A.M., M.E., PH.D.
SECRETARY OF THE AËRO CLUB OF WASHINGTON; GOVERNOR OF THE AËRO
CLUB OF AMERICA; GENERAL SECRETARY OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES
ON AËRIAL NAVIGATION IN 1893 AND 1907; OFFICIAL
AMERICAN DELEGATE TO THE AËRONAUTIC CONGRESS OF 1900;
FORMERLY LECTURER ON MECHANICS IN THE UNITED
STATES BUREAU OF STANDARDS, AND PROFESSOR
OF MECHANICS IN THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY
OF AMERICA
[Illustration]
NEW YORK AND LONDON
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1911
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
_Published September, 1911_
Printed in the United States of America
PREFACE
The purpose of this work is to portray in popular terms the
substantial progress of aëronautics from its earliest beginning to
the present time. Beyond the introductory account, little note is
taken of experiments, however picturesque or clever, which constitute
no advance in the art, or lead to no useful result. At times some
minutiæ are presented to complete the story of an important series of
achievements; but the unproductive efforts of impractical zealots,
however prominent or widely known in their day, receive scant, if any,
attention. Failures and tragedies where introduced, are described for
the lessons involved rather than for any curious interest investing
them. The griefs and grotesque follies of aëronautic imbeciles form a
long story, but a futile and unprofitable one, of slight concern in the
evolutionary history of a veritable science.
A general history of aërial locomotion would naturally be divided
into four parts, treating respectively of passive balloons, power
balloons, passive flyers, and power flyers; but in this work a separate
treatment has not been allotted to passive flyers because of their too
backward state of development. Passive gliders which maneuver in the
air merely by virtue of gravitational force, or acquired momentum, are
familiar enough; but the much more interesting passive flyers of human
construction, adapted to rise without motive power considerably beyond
their initial level, or to soar far aloft, and sail long distances by
virtue of favorable winds, are still in their infancy. It may be hoped,
however, that the vulture’s art which now is well nigh overlooked,
because of the triumphant advance of dynamic flight, will soon receive
such attention that future treatises may relate human achievements
in soaring that shall rival the dexterous and marvelous feats of
the condor and albatross, even as the majestic sweep of the dynamic
aëroplane now rivals the powerful rowing flight of the strongest birds
of prey.
Following the story of the evolution of air ships, a brief account
of the medium they navigate has been added. In particular, the
circumstances which affect the density and motion of the air have been
studied; for the density of the air determines the static lift of air
ships; the density and speed of impact of the air together determine
the dynamic lift and the resistance to progression; while the velocity
of the air current conditions the possible speed of travel in any
direction. It is important, therefore, that the aëronautical student
should have some acquaintance with the general properties of the air
which affect its density, and some knowledge of the generation and
prevalence both of the great currents of the atmosphere, and of the
local winds and invisible turmoils which so nearly concern the safety
and effective progress of the aërial navigator.
The French units of measurement have been freely used, as well as the
English. This seems advisable because the official rules and records
of international aëronautic events are partly expressed in the metric
system. Moreover, the navigation of a universal medium seems to call
for such universal standards. Indeed a peculiar mission of world travel
is to eliminate provincialism, and to promote universalism of thought,
of sentiment, and of custom.
In order to lighten the book for the popular reader, some interesting
historical facts and much important quantitative data are placed in the
Appendices, where they may be available to the technical or special
student.
It is a pleasant duty to acknowledge here my obligations to the U.
S. Signal Corps, the Smithsonian Institution, and the U. S. Weather
Bureau, for much assistance in collecting the materials for this work.
Dr. W. J. Humphreys, of the U. S. Weather Bureau, has very kindly read
the manuscript for the chapters on the atmosphere.
My thanks are due also to the _Scientific American_ and to
_Aëronautics_ for the use of photographs for the illustrations, as also
to the manufacturers of various aircraft, and to Mr. W. J. Hammer, Mr.
Carl Dientsbach, and Mr. A. S. Levino.
A. F. ZAHM.
COSMOS CLUB
WASHINGTON, D. C.,
January, 1911.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION 3
PART I
GROWTH OF AËROSTATION
I.—EARLY HISTORY OF PASSIVE BALLOONS 29
II.—PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PASSIVE BALLOONS 54
III.—EARLY HISTORY OF POWER BALLOONS 78
IV.—INTRODUCTION OF GASOLINE-DRIVEN DIRIGIBLES 101
V.—PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT OF NON-RIGID DIRIGIBLES 115
VI.—DEVELOPMENT OF RIGID DIRIGIBLES 145
PART II
GROWTH OF AVIATION
VII.—MODEL FLYING MACHINES 173
VIII.—NINETEENTH CENTURY MAN-FLYERS 202
IX.—AËROPLANES OF ADEQUATE STABILITY AND POWER 235
X.—ADVENT OF PUBLIC FLYING 256
XI.—STRENUOUS COMPETITIVE FLYING 283
XII.—FORCING THE ART 307
PART III
AËRONAUTIC METEOROLOGY
XIII.—GENERAL PROPERTIES OF FREE AIR 347
XIV.—GENERAL DISTRIBUTION OF HEAT AND PRESSURE 363
XV.—PERMANENT AND PERIODIC WINDS 376
XVI.—CYCLONES, TORNADOES, WATERSPOUTS 394
XVII.—THUNDERSTORMS, WIND GUSTS 422
APPENDICES
I.—STRESS IN A VACUUM BALLOON 443
II.—AËRONAUTIC LETTERS OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 446
III.—SUCCESSFUL MILITARY DIRIGIBLE BALLOONS 456
IV.—THE RELATIONS OF WEIGHT, SPEED, AND POWER OF FLYERS 478
V.—CURTISS’ HYDRO-AËROPLANE EXPERIMENTS 481
INDEX 487
LIST OF PLATES
FACING
PAGE
PLATE I 66
Glaisher and Coxwell.
Parseval Kite Balloon.
PLATE II 98
Haenlein’s Gas-driven Dirigible.
Wölfert’s Benzine-driven Dirigible.
Santos-Dumont’s Dirigible, _No. 16_.
PLATE III 116
The _Lebaudy_.
_La Patrie._
Lebaudy’s _Morning Post_.
PLATE IV 124
_La Ville de Paris._
_Colonel Renard._
PLATE V 128
_Zodiac III._
_Zodiac IV._
PLATE VI 130
_La Belgique._
Italian Military Dirigible _No. I bis_.
PLATE VII 132
_Clément-Bayard I._
_Clément-Bayard II._
PLATE VIII 138
_U. S. Signal Corps Dirigible I._
_Gross II._
PLATE IX 140
_Parseval I._
_Parseval II._
PLATE X 146
_Gross III._
Zeppelin Airship Structure.
PLATE XI 160
Zeppelin Dirigible Resting on the Water.
Zeppelin Dirigible over Zürich.
PLATE XII 182
Henson’s Aëroplane.
Ader’s Aëroplane.
PLATE XIII 186
Stringfellow’s Aëroplane (Front).
Stringfellow’s Aëroplane (Side).
PLATE XIV 192
Phillips’s Tethered Aëroplane.
Phillips’s Aëroplane.
PLATE XV 194
Langley’s Steam Model.
Langley’s Gasoline Model.
Langley’s Two Surface Gasoline Model.
PLATE XVI 212
Lilienthal’s Monoplane Glider.
Lilienthal’s Biplane Glider.
Pilcher’s Monoplane Glider.
PLATE XVII 218
Chanute’s Five-Deck Glider.
Herring in Chanute Biplane.
Herring’s Compressed-air Biplane.
PLATE XVIII 226
Maxim’s Aëroplane.
Langley’s Large Aëroplane.
PLATE XIX 246
First Wright Glider.
Second Wright Glider.
PLATE XX 248
First Wright Aëroplane (Rear).
First Wright Aëroplane (Side).
PLATE XXI 252
Montgomery’s Aëroplane.
PLATE XXII 258
Santos-Dumont’s Biplane.
Santos-Dumont’s _Demoiselle_.
PLATE XXIII 260
Farman Biplane, 1908.
Farman Biplane, 1909.
Harmon in Farman Biplane.
PLATE XXIV 264
The _Red Wing_.
Curtiss Biplane.
Curtiss Biplane with Pontoons.
PLATE XXV 268
Blériot Flying Over Toury-Artenay Circuit.
Blériot Monoplane _No. VIII_.
Blériot Monoplane _No. IX_.
PLATE XXVI 272
Wright Biplane of 1908.
Standard Wright Biplane of 1910.
Wright Racing Biplane of 1910.
PLATE XXVII 286
_Blériot XI_ With Moisant Aviator on Mexican Border.
_Blériot XII._
PLATE XXVIII 288
_Antoinette_ Monoplane of 1909.
_Antoinette_ Monoplane of 1910.
PLATE XXIX 302
Esnault-Pélterie Monoplane, Early Pattern.
Esnault-Pélterie Monoplane of 1910.
PLATE XXX 304
Grade Monoplane.
Cody Biplane.
PLATE XXXI 332
Fabre Hydro-aëroplane.
Paulhan Hydro-aëroplane.
Moisant Metal Monoplane.
PLATE XXXII 482
Curtiss Starting from the Water.
Curtiss Biplane for Land and Water.
Curtiss Triplane Risen from the Water.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT
FIG. PAGE
1.—Da Vinci’s designs for human flying-gear 9
2.—A possible air-scout 12
3.—Blanchard’s flying-machine 17
4.—Lana’s proposed vacuum balloon 24
5.—Montgolfier’s experimental balloon 34
6.—Charles’ first hydrogen balloon 36
7.—Montgolfier’s passenger balloon 39
8.—Charles’ passenger balloon 43
9.—La Flesselle 50
10.—_The Great Balloon of Nassau_ 55
11.—Car of Nadar’s balloon 61
12.—Diagram of a modern spherical balloon with ripping panel 75
13.—Blanchard’s dirigible balloon, 1784 80
14.—Robert Brothers’ dirigible, 1784 82
15.—General Meusnier’s proposed dirigible, 1784 85
16.—Rufus Porter’s dirigible, 1820 87
17.—Jullien’s model dirigible, 1850 88
18.—Giffard’s steam dirigible, 1852 89
19.—Dupuy de Lome’s dirigible, 1872 92
20.—Renard’s dirigible, _La France_, 1884 94
21.—_La Ville de Paris_ 121
22.—_Le Petit Journal_, Zodiac type 128
23.—_Clément-Bayard II_, 1910 133
24.—_Morning Post_ dirigible, 1910 135
25.—Route of British military dirigibles from France to England,
1900 137
26.—Da Vinci’s helicopter 175
27.—Da Vinci’s parachute 176
28.—Veranzio’s parachute 178
29.—Lenormand’s parachute, 1784 179
30.—Paper traveling parachute 181
31.—Wenham’s aëroplane, 1866 185
32.—Penaud’s aëroplane toy, 1871 187
33.—Tatin’s aëroplane model, 1879 188
34.—Hargrave’s model screw monoplane, 1891 190
35.—Hargrave’s kite 191
36.—Launoy and Bienvenu’s helicopter, 1784 198
37.—Forlanini’s helicopter, 1878 200
38.—Le Bris’ aëroplane, 1855 204
39.—Mouillard’s aëroplane 208
40.—Blériot’s Toury-Artenay aëroplane circuit, 1908 269
41.—Map of the “Circuit de l’Est” 330
42.—Diagram of Curtiss hydro-aëroplane 333
43.—The Etrich monoplane of 1910 336
44.—Summer and winter average vertical temperature gradients 369
45.—General circulation of the atmosphere 378
46.—Normal Wind direction and velocity for January and February
(Köppen) 381
47.—Normal Wind direction and velocity for July and August
(Köppen) 383
48.—Trade and counter-trade winds 384
49.—Velocity diagram in horizontal section of a cyclone 398
50.—Funnel-like cloud sometimes observed in a tornado 409
51.—Vertical section of the St. Louis, Mo., tornado of May 27,
1896 411
52.—Horizontal section of St. Louis tornado of May 27, 1896 412
53.—Vertical section of short tornado 414
54.—Vertical section of a tall tornado 415
55.—Vertical section of a hail tornado 417
56.—Universal anemograph 428
57.—Records of wind variation in horizontal and vertical
direction 429
58.—Records of Wind speed obtained by Langley 433
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
FANCY AND FOLK-LORE
Of silver wings he took a shining pair,
Fringed with gold, unwearied, nimble, swift;
With these he parts the winds, the clouds, the air,
And over seas and earth himself doth lift.
Thus clad he cuts the spheres and circles fair,
And the pure skies with sacred feathers clift;
On Lebanon at first his feet he set
And shook his wings with rosy may-dews wet.
TASSO, CANTO I, XIV.
How beautiful! May we hope ever to journey thus, on wings actuated by
human power? It is an old question, once dear to the philosopher and
fool alike, but now important mainly to the fool. Or say more kindly it
is the affair of untechnical inventors—the amateur, the rustic, the man
of chimerical dreams. For the wise aëronaut now numbers that project
among the roseate illusions of his youth.[1]
Ovid relates a story, doubtless credible in his day, of a clever
craftsman who with his son flew bravely aloft, the very first time they
put on wings. Daedalus, a Greek architect, having fled from Athens for
murder, went with his son Icarus to the island of Crete, where he built
the celebrated labyrinth for Minos, the king. He offended that monarch
and was cast into prison. In order to escape he made wings for himself
and his son, with which they flew far over the sea. But Icarus, in his
elation, soared too near the sun, ruined his wings, fell into the sea
and was drowned. For proof of this we have the Icarian Sea, named after
the unfortunate boy. Also we have Ovid’s charming poem:
In tedious exile now too long detain’d
Daedalus languish’d for his native land;
The sea foreclosed his flight, yet thus he said;
“Though earth and water in subjection laid,
O cruel Minos, thy dominion be,
We’ll go through air; for sure the air is free.”
Then to new arts his cunning thought applies,
And to improve the work of nature tries.
A row of quills, in gradual order placed,
Rise by degrees in length from first to last;
As on a cliff the ascending thicket grows;
Or different reeds the rural pipe compose:
Along the middle runs a twine of flax,
The bottom stems are join’d by plaint wax;
Thus, well compact, a hollow bending brings
The fine composure into real wings.
His boy, young Icarus, that near him stood,
Unthinking of his fate, with smiles pursued
The floating feathers, which the moving air
Bore loosely from the ground, and wafted here and there:
Or with the wax impertinently play’d,
And with his childish tricks the great design delay’d.
The final masterstroke at last imposed,
And now, the great machine completely closed;
Fitting his pinions on, a flight he tries,
And hung self-balanced in the beaten skies.
Then thus instructs his child: “My boy, take care
To wing your course along the middle air:
If low, the surges wet your flagging plumes;
If high, the sun the melting wax consumes.
Steer between both: nor to the northern skies,
Nor South Orion, turn your giddy eyes,
But follow me; let me before you lay
Rules for the flight, and mark the pathless way.”
Thus teaching, with a fond concern, his son,
He took the untried wings, and fix’d them on:
But fix’d with trembling hands; and, as he speaks,
The tears roll gently down his aged cheeks;
Then kiss’d, and in his arms embraced him fast,
But knew not this embrace must be the last;
And mounting upward, as he wings his flight,
Back on his charge he turns his aching sight;
As parent birds, when first their callow care
Leave the high nest to tempt the liquid air;
Then cheers him on, and oft, with fatal art,
Reminds the stripling to perform his part.
These, as the angler at the silent brook,
Or mountain shepherd leaning on his crook,
Or gaping ploughman, from the vale descries,
They stare, and view them with religious eyes,
And straight conclude them gods; since none but they
Through their own azure skies could find a way.
Now Delos, Paros, on the left are seen,
And Samos, favour’d by Jove’s haughty queen;
Upon the right, the isle Lebynthos named,
And fair Calymne for its honey famed.
When now the boy, whose childish thoughts aspire
To loftier aims, and make him ramble higher,
Grown wild and wanton, more embolden’d flies
Far from his guide, and scars among the skies:
The softening wax, that felt a nearer sun,
Dissolved apace, and soon began to run:
The youth in vain his melting pinion shakes,
His feathers gone, no longer air he takes:
“Oh! father, father!” as he strove to cry,
Down to the sea he tumbled from on high,
And found his fate; yet still subsists by Fame,
Among those waters that retain his name.
The Father, now no more a father, cries:
“Ho, Icarus! where are you?” as he flies;
“Where shall I seek my boy?” he cries again,
And saw his feathers scatter’d on the main;
Then cursed his art; and funeral rites conferr’d
Naming the country from the youth interr’d.
How tender and apprehensive that gentleman’s farewell, compared with
the modern vogue in like circumstances! Of the two Americans at Berlin
who fell four thousand feet in a balloon, it is not recorded that they
either kissed or wept.[2] But some Teutonic Ovid may yet adorn the tale
with quaint embellishments.
Taking more serious note of Daedalus, it will be observed that he
has had few imitators. It is because he never really flew, and no
one else can fly, in such manner. That is to say, no man can achieve
practical flight on wings actuated by his own muscular power. It may be
physically possible for an athlete putting forth herculean energy for
a few seconds to sustain himself on wings of enormous spread; but in
every lightest zephyr he would be as helpless as a thistle seed.
The actual area of wing required for a man of given weight and power
may be roughly estimated; at least its lower limit of size can be
determined. Lord Rayleigh,[3] on purely theoretical ground, has
computed that a man operating a screw propeller 280 feet in diameter,
moving without frictional loss, could sustain his weight for a period
of eight hours a day at a comfortable rate of work. But that estimate
does not include the weight of the propeller. By exerting ten times his
normal power the man could support his weight with a 28-foot propeller.
The physical basis of the computation is the same for every type of
flyer, whether bird, man, or machine. Its weight must be sustained by
hurling the air downward. The humming bird in its aërial pause, the bee
floating beside a blossom, rests on a down-driven column of air. The
home-gliding eagle at dusk may encounter a medium in stillest repose,
but he leaves behind him a down-flowing wake, viewless, maybe, but none
the less real. In all cases the downward impulse per second given to
the air must equal the weight supported by its reaction. If the wings
be very extensive a proportionate mass of air may be struck down, and
yield support with so much the less exertion.
Horizontal flight promises little more than direct screw lift, with the
feeble energy of the human muscle. The best modern aëroplanes carry
less than 100 pounds per horse power, while an average man must weigh,
with a light machine, not less than 200 pounds, and must therefore
exert upwards of two horse power during flight. Such an output of
energy would exhaust a powerful athlete in a few seconds. Hence from
every point of view it appears that Daedalean flight, which still has
its devotees in some form, was and always will be utterly impracticable.
Ruskin finds another objection to the disciples of the winged arm.
In his disquisition on the equilibrium of angels he complains that
those of the traditional two-wing type are devoid of gravitational
balance. Such creatures vex the imagination with apprehensions for
their stability; hence they cannot be entirely beautiful. The centroid
of an angel is in the small of its back, whereas the center of wing
support is well forward; therefore the horizontal poise is absurd and
unæsthetic. The scientific artist, consequently, views with pain the
picture of a fair lady floating level through space supported only at
her front end.
Milton adroitly forestalls this censure. In the conception of his
glorious Raphael, he provides consummately for uniform and adequate
support:
Six wings he wore, to shade
His lineaments divine; the pair that clad
Each shoulder broad, came mantling o’er his breast
With regal ornament; the middle pair
Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round
Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold,
And colors dipped in Heaven; the third his feet
Shadowed from either heel with feathered mail,
Sky-tinctured grain. Like Maia’s son he stood,
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance filled
The circuit wide.
Leonardo da Vinci, who was a gifted engineer as well as an artist,
devised a flying gear for man which shows some dynamic improvement over
the mechanism of the old-time angels, flying gods, and hobgoblins. As
shown in the accompanying sketch, it provided for gravitational balance
by use of an expanding tail projecting well to the rear. Moreover, the
propulsion was to employ both arms and legs. This design is considered
very remarkable for the time in which it was produced, probably a few
years before the discovery of America; and yet it is but one of Da
Vinci’s quaint aëronautical inventions, as will appear later.
A less futile scheme of aviation may be to saddle the birds. If one
eagle can float a child, a few may possibly carry a man. They are
physically able; they are inexpensive; they are unwearied, nimble,
swift. Some harness, some tuition may be required; but these come
to the industrious. Apparently, such locomotion is a sport worth
developing; a royal art, if you please; for who would not course the
sky in a purple palanquin borne by imperial eagles?
Kai Kaoos, the King of Persia, is credited with a voyage of this kind,
as described in the _Shah-Nemeh_, or _King-Book_, written in the tenth
century:
“To the king it became a matter of great concern how he might
be enabled to ascend the heavens, without wings; and for that
purpose he consulted the astrologers, who presently suggested a
way in which his desires might be successfully accomplished.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.—DA VINCI’S DESIGNS FOR HUMAN FLYING-GEAR.]
“They contrived to rob an eagle’s nest of its young, which they
reared with great care, supplying them with invigorating food.
“A frame of aloes-wood was then prepared, and at each of the
four corners was fixed perpendicularly a javelin surmounted
on the point with the flesh of a goat. At each corner again
one of the eagles was bound, and in the middle the king was
seated with a goblet of wine before him. As soon as the eagles
became hungry they endeavored to get at the goat’s flesh upon
the javelins, and by flapping their wings, and flying upwards
they quickly raised the throne from the ground. Hunger still
pressing on them, and still being distant from their prey,
they ascended higher and higher in the clouds, conveying the
astonished king far beyond his own country. But after a long
and fruitless exertion, their strength failed them, and, unable
to keep their way, the whole fabric came tumbling down from the
sky, and fell upon a dreary solitude in the Kingdom of Chin,
where Kai Kaoos was left a prey to hunger, alone, and in utter
despair.”
One might prefer a single bird, which could be ridden bareback by a man
or woman of common equestrian skill. The early philosophers, therefore,
sought with some care for such a creature. The following is related by
Bishop Wilkins:
“Cardan and Scaliger doe unanimously affirm, that there is
a bird amongst the Indians of so great a bignesse, that his
beak is often used to make a sheath or scabbard for a sword.
And Acosta tells us of a fowl in Peru called Condores, which
will of themselves kill and eat up a whole calf at a time. Nor
is there any reason why any other body may not be supported
and carried in the air, though it should as much exceed the
quantity of these fowls as they do the quantity of a flie.
Marcus Polus mentions a fowl in Madagascar which he cals a
Ruck, the feathers of whose wings are 12 paces, or threescore
foot long, which can with as much ease scoop up an elephant as
our kites do a mouse. If this relation was anything credible,
it might serve as an abundant proof for the present quaere.”
As the roc has proved a myth, one questions whether a saddle bird
may not be evolved by judicious breeding. But opposed to this is the
square-cube law of the Greek geometer, by which a learned geologist
demonstrated that nature has reached the limit of her resources in the
production of large flyers, the ostrich, for example, being too bulky
to navigate at all. As a last resource, then, the human dwarf may
breed his weight downward to accommodate the bird. Assuredly, the most
powerful flyer can carry the lightest human dwarf without difficulty.
Such aërial cavalry has been projected occasionally, and if fairly
developed might have interesting employment. Its military value, to
say nothing of its civil uses, would be considerable. An aërial scout
that could hide in a tree top, or small cloud, then flit home with full
intelligence of the enemy, would be effective and unique. In aggressive
warfare it would serve the plan of that ingenious Englishman who
proposes to repel a German invasion by dispatching birds to peck holes
in the enemy’s war balloons. But here the dwarf might be omitted, if
the birds were taught to have a definite interest in attacking aërial
cruisers with their beaks, or with steel-armed spurs like those of the
Spanish fighting cock, or with talons treated chemically to strike
fire. Sparrows with sulphur-pointed toes could easily annihilate an
aërial squadron at all combustible.
Recurring to the geologist, it may be added that, having discovered the
major limit of feathered navigators, he concluded, as a corollary, that
human flight is forever impossible. That was in the latter eighties.
In 1901 a versatile astronomer adduced the same law to prove that an
aëroplane could not be made to carry a man. Presently, learning that
this had been achieved, he proved, in a second mellifluous paper, that
an aëroplane could not carry, several men.[4] Having erred twice, he
wrote a final article announcing that a flyer is fatuous, anyhow,
because she cannot repair her engines in the sky!
[Illustration: FIG. 2.—A POSSIBLE AIR-SCOUT.]
Of the numerous daring and industrious inventors who, during remote
generations, have launched themselves in the air on some species of
rigid or vibrant wings, a few were men of considerable equipment in
philosophy, or mechanics, and enjoyed a sufficient measure of success
to deserve passing notice; though it seems that no man before the
middle of the eighteenth century made a permanent contribution to the
real art of mechanical flight, if we except the ingenious suggestive
devices of Leonardo da Vinci. However skilfully their flying apparatus
may have been planned, or operated, the results were lost to the world,
due to inaccurate or inadequate description. Such inventors were J. B.
Dante, in the fifteenth century, and the Marquis de Bacqueville, in the
seventeenth. Each of these made one, or more, considerable flights, if
we may credit the unwavering testimony of their contemporaries; but
neither has left a sketch of his device, nor a school of followers to
continue his spectacular practice.
Jean-Baptiste Dante, a shrewd observer and profound mathematician, who
flourished toward the end of the fifteenth century, a contemporary of
Da Vinci and Columbus, is reported by the historians of that day to
have sailed successfully through the air on nonvibrant wings designed
by himself after a careful study of the great soaring birds. Perching
above a steep crag on the shore of Lake Trasimene, he set his wings
to the wind at a nice angle, as one sets the sails of a vessel; then,
lifted by the swelling breeze, he rose grandly aloft and floated far
over the waters. Again and again he repeated the experiment, until
the fame thereof secured for him a request to make the demonstration
at the marriage fêtes of the illustrious general, Barthelmi Alviano.
He accepted the invitation, and, starting from the top of the highest
tower in the city of Perugia, he sailed over the public square,
and balanced himself for a long time in space, amid the shouts and
acclamations of the multitude, attracted to Perugia by the novelty of
his performance. But, sad to relate, the very first time he performed
these wonderful maneuvers above the solid ground instead of the lake,
one of the levers used to alter the impact angle of his wings gave way,
disturbing his aërial poise, and causing him to pitch down upon Notre
Dame church, breaking one of his legs. After this he taught mathematics
at Venice, where he died of fever at the age of forty years.
In 1742, the Marquis de Bacqueville, at the age of sixty-two years,
announced that on a certain day he would fly from his house on the
Seine, traverse the river, and land in the Garden of the Tuileries. A
great multitude assembled, crowding both shores and the two bridges.
At the appointed moment the Marquis appeared with his pinions, and
launched himself from the terrace. He sailed forth in majestic and
serene poise, on graceful wings not unlike those of the traditional
angels. He was gliding directly toward the Tuileries, and he enjoyed a
happy cruise quite to the middle of the river. Then something happened;
his movements became fitful and uncertain; he plunged downward and
broke his leg on a laundry boat. The reason for his stopping there can
only be surmised, for he had nothing to report. He did not quite fulfil
his program, but he flew nine hundred feet delightfully, and he landed
without getting wet.
Commentators have marveled as to the nature of the mechanism used by
Dante and by De Bacqueville. Historians have strongly attested the
fact of the flights, but have overlooked the means. The inventors must
have employed aërial gliders of some kind, for adequate motive power
was not available before the end of the nineteenth century. Even as
an experiment in gliding, or soaring, the achievement of Dante was
most daring and wonderful, eclipsing the best performances up to the
twentieth century. It is strange that in that period of science the
survivor of such an experience, and a college professor, should not
have left to the world a careful account of such an extraordinary
performance. The alleged flights, however, were unquestionably
feasible, even in that remote period, for the construction of an
aërial glider is a simple task not beyond the capacity of craftsmen
in the fifteenth century A.D., or even the fifteenth century
B.C., directed by a skilful designer.
Besides the wing-armed scheme of flight credited to Daedalus, and
contemplated by Da Vinci, various other plans were evolved in
succeeding years. Aërial chariots and flying machines were devised for
the more advantageous use of muscular energy. In all these, of course,
the passenger could be both power plant and captain of the ship.
One of the earliest authenticated devices of this kind was the
invention of Blanchard, described by him in the _Journal de Paris_,
August 28, 1781, nearly two years before the invention of the hot-air
balloon, of which he became later an enthusiastic votary. As his device
is but one of a large number that appeared before the close of the
nineteenth century, and the advent of light motors, the reader who
wishes fuller acquaintance with man-driven airships may be referred
to Mr. Chanute’s book, entitled _Progress in Flying-Machines_, which
describes a large variety of such inventions, and discusses the merit
and weakness of each.
Blanchard prefaces the description of his machine by answering some
criticisms of his project, apparently ventured by his neighbors. “They
object to me,” he writes, “that flying is not the business of man, but
rather of the feathered birds. I reply that feathers are not at all
necessary to the bird for flight; any fabric suffices. The fly, the
butterfly, the bat, etc., fly without feathers and with fanlike wings
of material resembling horn. It is, then, neither the material nor
the form that causes flight, but the volume and the celerity of the
movement, which should be as lively as possible.
“They object, moreover, that a man is too heavy to lift himself alone
with wings, much less in a vessel which of itself presents enormous
weight. I reply that my ship is extremely light; as to the man’s
weight, I pray that attention be given to that which M. de Buffon says
in his _Histoire Naturelle_, on the subject of the condor; this bird,
though of enormous weight, easily lifts a two-year-old heifer weighing
at least a hundred pounds, the whole with wings of about thirty to
thirty-six feet expanse.”
He then describes the vessel as a little ship four feet long by two
feet wide, having on either side two posts, each supporting a wing ten
feet long, the whole forming a parasol twenty feet in diameter. The
construction was illustrated by an engraver, who had seen the vessel
and was convinced of its practicability. In conclusion, the inventor
writes that people shall see him cleave the air with more speed than
the crow, and that without losing his breath, being protected by a
pointed mask of peculiar construction. But, as he failed to make good
his promises, he was subjected to ridicule, as well as praise, by the
local press, one of the caricatures portraying him in the act of making
an ascension before a concourse of bulging-eyed savants and long-eared
jackasses, wearing spectacles to accentuate the appearance of wisdom
and solemnity.
The scientific coterie of Paris were apparently impatient of the
attention shown Blanchard by the press and people. Accordingly, in May,
1782, the distinguished astronomer, De Laland, of the French Academy,
administered a mild rebuke to the editors of the _Paris Journal_.
“Gentlemen,” he wrote, “you have given so much time to air ships and
divination rods that one might eventually think that you believe in
these follies, or that the scientists who coöperate with your journal
have nothing to say to dispel these absurd pretensions. Permit me,
therefore, gentlemen, to occupy some lines in your journal to assure
your readers that if the savants are silent it is only because of their
contempt.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.—BLANCHARD’S FLYING-MACHINE.]
“It has been demonstrated to be impossible for a man in any manner
whatever to raise himself, or even to sustain himself, in the air. M.
Coulomb, of the Academy of Sciences, at one of our meetings a year ago,
read a paper in which he showed clearly, by calculating the power of
a man, determined by experiments, that he would require wings two or
three thousand feet long moved three feet per second; hence no one but
an ignoramus would make an attempt of this kind.”
Not many months after this lofty deliverance, Blanchard took De Lalande
up in a balloon—“the dead borne by the dumb.”
Coulomb’s calculation that a man’s pinions should be half a mile long
must have been discouraging to those inventors who believed in him;
for, granting that such wings could lift a man, who could lift the
wings? And at that date the steam engine was only beginning to develop;
the petroleum engine was hardly thought of. No wonder that people
turned eagerly to the balloon when it finally appeared.
There has been some controversy as to what person first clearly
conceived a feasible design for a balloon. The conception was
certainly not new to the world in 1783, when Joseph Montgolfier made
his classical experiment. Indeed, prior to that date three distinct
principles of aërial flotation had been entertained by natural
philosophers; first, that a boat could be so formed of heavy material
as to ride on the upper surface of the atmosphere, as a metallic vessel
floats on the water; second, that a closed hull, comprising a partial,
or complete, vacuum, could be made light enough to rise; third, that
a bag could be made buoyant by filling it with material lighter than
air. Of course, it is now clear to men versed in mathematics that only
the light-gas principle is mechanically applicable. But the vacuum
principle still has adherents among inventors who are too “practical”
to understand, or trust, exact computation; and the first principle,
though now discarded by everyone, was plausible enough, even to
accomplished scientific men, before the experiments of Torricelli, and
his invention of the barometer, made in 1643. It may, therefore, be
interesting to notice some of the proposed, or reported, air ships
based upon these various principles. The following is from _Mendoza,
Viridario, libri III, probl. 47_:
“Any brass vessel full of air, which otherwise would sink, is
sustained on the surface of the water, though naturally of
much greater specific gravity; consequently a wooden ship, or
one of any other material, placed on the summit of an aërial
superficies and filled with elementary fire, will be sustained
in that position till the gravity of the vessel becomes greater
than the sustaining power of the fire it contains.”
This is a clear scientific exposition of a plan for navigating the
atmosphere on its upper surface, assuming a distinct upper surface
to exist. In commenting on this passage, the Jesuit Schottus, in his
_Magia Universalis_, uses an expression which indicates his belief that
a vessel can be made to _float in the air_ by filling it with ether, or
the element of fire. He says:
“In such terms has this matter been treated by Mendoza (died
1626); nor is there any improbability involved in his view,
whether the element of fire be placed above the air, or, what
is still more credible, the ether—that is, the purest air.
Although any wood, iron, copper, lead, and such like metals are
weightier than an equal volume of water, and for that reason
will sink in water when placed there alone, yet if fabricated
into hollow shapes, and filled with our impure and heavy air,
they swim upon waters, and are adapted to the construction of
ships, and are sustained by water without danger of immersion;
thus, although these bodies are of greater specific gravity
than our air, nevertheless, when shaped into a boat and filled
with that very light material, they can _float in the air_,
and are suitable material for the construction of small ships,
because the entire work composed of the little ship and the
ether can be made lighter than an equal volume of our impure
air, even in the highest region.”
As Roger Bacon proposed a similar device in 1542, Mendoza’s was not
entirely new and may not have been original. Bacon, describing his
aërial vessel, says: “It must be a large, hollow globe of copper, or
other suitable metal, wrought extremely thin, in order to have it
as light as possible. It must then be filled with ‘ethereal air or
liquid fire,’ and then be launched from some elevated point into the
atmosphere, where it will float like a vessel on water.”
In the year 1646 another learned Jesuit published a book, _Ars Magna
Lucis et Umbræ in Mundo_, in which he relates an episode indicating
that one of his order had made use of a hot-air balloon to intimidate
some ignorant pagans. The following demonstration, if reported by a
modern missionary, would be accepted as a matter of course; why, then,
should we gravely question the story, since it describes an achievement
quite possible at the time, assuming that the necessary materials were
available? And even assuming the report to be fictitious, still it is a
scientific description of a practicable hot-air balloon, presented and
credited by a learned scholar and accomplished mathematician more than
a century before the balloon was publicly exhibited by the illustrious
Frenchmen. He writes:
“I know that many of our fathers have been rescued from the
most imminent dangers amongst the barbarians of India by such
inventions. These were cast into prison, and whilst they
continued ignorant of any means of effecting their liberation,
some one, more cunning than the rest, invented an extraordinary
machine, and then threatened the barbarians, unless they
liberated his companions, that they would behold in a short
time some extraordinary portents, and experience the visible
anger of the Gods. The barbarians laughed at the threat. He
then had constructed a dragon of the most volatile paper, and
in this he enclosed a mixture of sulphur, pitch, wax, and so
artistically prepared all his materials, that, when ignited, it
would illumine the machine, and exhibit the following legend
in their vernacular idiom, _The Anger of God_. The body being
formed and the ingredients prepared, he then affixed a long
tail, and committed the machine to the heavens, and, favored
by the wind, it soared aloft towards the clouds. The spectacle
of the dragon so brilliantly lit was terrific. The barbarians,
beholding the unusual motion of the apparition, were smitten
with the greatest astonishment, and now, remembering the
threatened anger of Deity and the words of the father, they
were in fear of expiating the punishment he had prognosticated
for them. Therefore, without delay, they threw open the gates,
they suffered their prisoners to go forth in peace and enjoy
their freedom. In the meantime the fire seized on the machine
and set it in a blaze, and with an explosion, which was
interpreted as an expiring declaration of satisfaction, it,
apparently of its own accord, vanished from sight, as if it
had accomplished its supernatural mission. Thus the fathers,
through the apprehension which this natural manifestation
inspired, obtained that which could not be purchased with a
large amount of gold.”
Perhaps the reader will permit another anecdote, not entirely for its
scientific value, but because he may like to compare the attitude of
people toward aërial navigation in the dark ages with the attitude of
his neighbors at the opening of the twentieth century. In two histories
by Jef le Ministre and De Colonia, of the town of Lyons, the following
account is given:
“Toward the end of Charlemagne’s reign, persons who lived
near Mount Pilate in Switzerland, knowing by what means
pretended sorcerers traveled through the air, resolved to try
the experiment, and compelled some poor people to ascend in an
aërostal. This descended in the town of Lyons, where they were
immediately hurried to prison, and the mob desired their death
as sorcerers. The judges condemned them to be burned; but the
Bishop Agobard suspended the execution, and sent for them to
his palace, that he might question them. They answered: ‘Qu’ils
sont du pays meme, que des personnes de consideration les ont
forcés de se laisser conduire, leur promettent qu’ils verroient
des chose merveilleuses; et qu’ils sont veritablement descendu
par l’air.’ Agobard, though he could not believe this fact,
gave credence to their innocence, and allowed them to escape.
On this occasion he wrote a work on the superstition of the
time, in which he demonstrated the impossibility of rising in
the air; that it is an error to believe in the power of magic;
and that it has its existence in the credulity solely of the
people.”
One of the first men to make an aërial model like a fire balloon was
the celebrated Brazilian, Bartholomeo-Lourenco de Gusmao, who in his
day was nicknamed the “flying man,” and who is reported to have made
a remarkable experiment in aërial locomotion at Lisbon. The following
account of it is found in a manuscript of Ferreira:
“Gusmao made his experiment on August 8, 1709, in the court of
the Palace of the Indies, before his majesty and a large and
distinguished audience, with a globe which lifted itself softly
to the height of the hall of the Ambassadors, then descended in
like manner. It was borne up by certain materials which burned
and which the inventor himself had ignited.”
All the details of this description, which was written a generation
or more before the Montgolfier experiment, suggest at once a hot-air
balloon. But a note printed in 1774 and cited by Cavallo explains that
the globes must have been transported by gas. It is certain that early
in 1709 Gusmao applied to the King for a patent and sole right to some
such invention, desiring an injunction and severe penalty against
all infringements. The application sets forth a machine capable of
journeying through the air faster than over land or sea, competent
to carry messages five or six hundred miles a day to troops, or the
most distant countries, and even adequate to explore regions about the
poles. Quite a modern promoter Señor Gusmao. The King in reply issued
the following decree:
“Agreeably to the advice of my council, I order the pain of
death against the transgressor. And in order to encourage the
suppliant to apply himself with zeal toward improving the
machine which is capable of producing the effects mentioned by
him, I also grant him the first Professorship of Mathematics in
my University of Coimbra, and the first vacancy in my College
of Barcelona, with the annual pension of 600,000 reis during
his life.”
The “patent” seemed liberal enough, and yet Gusmao never resumed
his aërial experiments. He was accused of magic, and may have
feared persecution on that account; accordingly he engaged in naval
construction till 1724, when he left Portugal.
The first vacuum balloon was proposed by the Jesuit father, Francis
Lana, and described in his book _Podromo dell’Arte Maestra Brecia_,
which appeared in 1670. Though not a practical project like Gusmao’s,
it was very ingenious, and marks an interesting phase in the evolution
of the fundamental idea of the air ship, or “balloon” as it was called
by the inventor, who then coined the word now in common use. Lana
proposed to use four copper spheres each 25 feet in diameter and
1/225 inches in wall thickness, quite well exhausted of air, to give
ascensional force which he computed at 1,200 pounds aggregate for the
four spheres. From these he would suspend the passengers in a boat
having a mast and sail to propel the ship in time of favorable wind.
Having computed the buoyancy according to well-known physical laws, he
could see no possible objection to his project “unless,” he writes,
“it be that God would never permit this invention to be practically
applied, in order to prevent the consequences that would ensue
therefrom in the civil and political government of men.”
[Illustration: FIG. 4.—LANA’S PROPOSED VACUUM BALLOON.]
Of recent years inventors having less delicate scruples about
embarrassing Providence, have revived Lana’s project with
improvements. It has been proposed to replace the sail by a
motor-driven propeller, and to ensure the hull against collapse from
the prodigious external air pressure—a ton per square foot—by ample
internal bracing. Even within the past twelve months this scheme has
been soberly advocated by several technical journals and by the author
of an elaborate book on aërial warfare. To a mathematician this is
amusing, when not too pathetic; for it can be rigorously proved that
no vacuum balloon of present day material, whatever its design, can
possibly resist crushing if made light enough to float.
In 1887 Walter Wellman described in the _Associated Press_ a steel
vacuum balloon 144 feet in diameter and 654 feet long in which a
Chicago doctor proposed to carry passengers to the North Pole, at
incredible speed, if they would furnish him $130,000 to meet the
expenses of construction. “Here is a most excellent opportunity,” wrote
Wellman, “for all who would like to win fame by being one of the party
which shall set foot upon that icy _ignis fatuus_ of many nations and
two centuries.” Two decades later Mr. Wellman organized, after his own
ideas, an aërial expedition to the North Pole; but he no longer favored
starting from Chicago in a vacuum balloon with a party of stockholders.
It may be added that the inventor of the great steel vacuum balloon,
after organizing the Trans-Continental Aërial Navigation Company, and
failing to raise all of the $130,000, sought aid from the national
government. Here was an interesting situation; a doctor ignorant
of mechanics, with the plans for a mammoth and impossible balloon,
appealing for aid to a congress, supremely shy of air ships, even
though recommended by its ablest military advisers. But in this case
there was a capable lobby. The bill for this physically impossible
balloon actually passed the House, and was finally defeated only by
the timely effort of a few scientific men who, by easy calculation,
proved the absurdity of the invention. As the reader may like to see a
mathematical proof of the impossibility of a vacuum balloon, since such
projects arise frequently, the argument is given in Appendix I.
PART I
GROWTH OF AËROSTATION
CHAPTER I
EARLY HISTORY OF PASSIVE BALLOONS
Oh, that I could as smoke arise,
That rolls its black wreathes through the air;
Mix with the clouds, that o’er the skies
Show their light forms, and disappear:
Or like the dust be tossed
By every sportive wind till all be lost!
—ÆSCHYLUS.
If desire is sometimes the mother of invention, doubtless the wish to
“mix with the clouds,” or “as smoke arise,” suggested to man his first
means of aërial locomotion. Indeed this is openly avowed by Joseph
Montgolfier. “Smoke rises in the chimney; why not encage this smoke,
and have an available force.” But before describing his fundamental
experiments of 1783, let us notice the less conspicuous ones,
though not less philosophical, of his immediate predecessors in the
development of aëronautic science.
It has been seen, that many years before 1783, inventors had clearly
conceived the true principle of the balloon, and would be glad to
avail themselves of an element of sufficiently low specific gravity
for aërial flotation. The desired opportunity came when, in 1766,
Henry Cavendish published his experiments, proving that hydrogen is
many times lighter than air. Immediately after this, Dr. Black, the
famous chemist and natural philosopher of Edinburgh, conceived the
idea that a thin light vessel filled with hydrogen should be able to
float and rise in the atmosphere, ideas that he conveyed to his friends
and expressed in his lectures a year or two after the appearance of
Cavendish’s publication. But he contented himself with merely pointing
the way to an obviously practicable invention, leaving, as a university
professor should, the development of the scientific idea to inventors
and constructive engineers.
Intermediate between Dr. Black, the pure scientist, and the Montgolfier
brothers manufacturers, came Tiberius Cavallo, an Italian philosopher
living in England, who made the first small hydrogen balloons. In
a note presented to the Royal Society of London, June 20, 1782, he
relates experiments that seem to entitle him to all the credit of
inventing the balloon except success on a practical scale. He made
hydrogen soap bubbles which rose beautifully in the air, an experiment
that has been repeated throughout the world in every chemical
laboratory since his day. He made a variety of gum bubbles and varnish
bubbles inflated with hydrogen; but curiously enough these failed
to rise, though it is known that such bubbles can be made to float
handsomely.[5] He inflated carefully prepared gold-beater skin and
failed, though gold-beater skin balloons, both large and small, are now
a marketable commodity. Finally he constructed paper balloons which he
tried to float by use of hydrogen, but without success, though a year
later the Montgolfier brothers easily made paper bags arise with hot
air, and Professor Charles ascended in a large silk balloon inflated
with hydrogen.
The cause of Cavallo’s interesting failures reveals itself in his own
account of one of his pioneer experiments. In his _History and Practice
of Aërostation_, he relates that he constructed, of fine Chinese paper,
a cylindrical balloon having short conical ends and a calculated
buoyancy of twenty-five grains, when properly inflated with hydrogen.
This bag, carefully deflated of air by compression between the hands,
he suspended above a large bottle connected with it by a glass tube,
and supplied with materials for generating hydrogen; in this case a
mixture of dilute sulphuric acid and iron filings. When the hydrogen
was evolving quite rapidly, he expected to see the paper sac expand
and fill out with proportionate speed; but to his surprise it remained
perfectly flat, while the room filled with the strong and disagreeable
odor of the “inflaminable air.” He then realized that the carefully
made sac of paper, which could be so easily inflated with air, was very
permeable to hydrogen, allowing it to escape instantly, as through
porous cloth, or netting.
Cavallo desisted when the goal was within reach. His plans were
practicable, but he abandoned them too readily. Why did he not varnish
his balloon when it leaked? He could thus so easily have inaugurated
the art of aërial navigation. But after salting the bird’s tail he let
it escape.
Various accounts have been given of the steps by which the Montgolfiers
were led to their invention of the balloon. They are said to have
studied and discussed projects for aërial locomotion a decade before
hitting upon their first successful device; at one time filling a paper
bag with smoke ineffectually; again with steam, and again trying, but
in vain, to employ hydrogen. The following apparently reliable account
is given by a friend of the Montgolfiers, Baron Gernando, in his
biographical notice of Joseph Montgolfier, having obtained the story
from the inventor himself.
Joseph Montgolfier found himself at Abignon, and it was at the time
when the combined armies held the siege of Gibraltar. Alone, in the
chimney corner, dreaming, as usual, he was contemplating a sort of cut
that represented the work of the siege; he grew impatient observing
that one could not reach the body of the place either by land or
sea. “But could not one arrive there through the air? Smoke rises in
the chimney; why not store this smoke in such a manner as to form an
available force?” His mind calculated instantly the weight of a given
surface of paper, or taffeta; he constructed without delay his little
balloon, and saw it rise from the floor, to the great surprise of his
hostess, and with a peculiar joy. He wrote on the spot, to his brother
then at Annonay: “Prepare immediately a supply of taffeta and cordage,
and you shall see the most astonishing thing in the world.”
A quainter story is told by Brisson in his _Dictionary of Physics_. He
says: “I can only repeat what the citizen Montgolfier himself told me,
when he came to Paris to announce his discovery; that the citizeness
Montgolfier having placed a skirt on an open-wicker basket, such as
women use to dry linen, the skirt was lifted to the ceiling. It is from
this fact that the citizens Montgolfier started.”
Whatever the preliminaries, the Montgolfier brothers finally made the
experiment of holding a paper bag over a fire fed with wet straw and
wool. It is doubtful whether they purposed to fill it with smoke, or
with hot air or an electrical cloud. They knew that a cloud of some
kind rises from such a fire, and they wanted to harness it. Their
first balloon took fire and went up as smoke. But they were rich
paper manufacturers, and soon had another balloon of 700 cubic feet
capacity. This rose from the fire to a height of 1,000 feet, carrying
no fuel with it. Thus two practical[6] men had made fire lift a paper
sac; let the Academy explain how. The baby Aërostation was born.
How fortuitous the primal steps of science! Galvanism from the twitch
of a frog’s leg; aërostation from the puff of a petticoat! There had
been no year in thirty centuries when people could not easily have
built a hot-air balloon. All the materials were available; only a
little thought was wanting. A simple sketch sent to a Roman tailor,
or tent-maker, could have furnished a woven bag competent to lift
passengers from the heart of the Coliseum, to the wonder and delight
of a hundred thousand spectators. Yet the genius that could design the
Coliseum, or cover its vast enclosure with canvas, failed to think of
the magic bag that would have enhanced so much the ingenious shows of
a show-loving people. That device was an inspiration destined to a
common Frenchman at no uncommon period of science. The hydrogen balloon
arrived in the natural and logical order of scientific progression;
but the hot-air bag might have presented itself at any time since the
birth of weaving. It was a happy thought, like the ophthalmoscope,
or jack-knife—quaint modern creations of constant use or comfort to
mankind.
The public inauguration of aëronautics occurred on June 5, 1783, at
Annonay, the home of the Montgolfier family, 36 miles from Lyons.
The states of Vivarais being assembled at that place, were invited
to witness the ascension. The Deputies and many spectators found in
the public square an enormous bag which, with its frame, weighed 300
pounds, and would inflate to a ball 35 feet in diameter. When told
that this huge mass would rise to the clouds they were astonished and
incredulous. The Montgolfiers, however, lit a fire beneath and let the
bag speak for itself. It gradually distended, assuming a beautiful
form, and struggling to free itself from the men who were holding it.
At a given signal it was released; it ascended rapidly, and in ten
minutes attained a height of 6,000 feet. It drifted a mile and a half
and sank gently to the ground.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.—MONTGOLFIER’S EXPERIMENTAL BALLOON.]
When the French Academy learned of this event they desired to have
an ascension in Paris, and at once started a public subscription to
defray the expense of constructing and inflating a balloon. They
placed the work in charge of the physicist Charles, after inviting the
Montgolfiers to Paris, and finding they could not come immediately.
Charles proved more than a substitute; he became a fertile inventor and
a rival in the new field. Aided by the skill of the Robert brothers, he
made a silk globe varnished with dissolved rubber, and filled it with
hydrogen, which is many times lighter than hot air. The operation of
filling occupied three days, consuming 500 pounds of sulphuric acid and
half a ton of iron. The globe was 13 feet in diameter, and designated
a “balloon,” or big ball. This had next to be moved from the place of
filling, in the Place des Victoires, to the Champ de Mars, two miles
distant, in order to have space enough to accommodate the increasing
crowd of spectators. Accordingly, on the 26th it was conveyed thither,
in the dead of night, preceded by lighted torches, surrounded by a
cortege, and escorted by foot and horse guards. Impressive and weird,
indeed, was this nocturnal caravan of troops and towering globe
advancing slowly through the dark and silent streets. The astonished
cab drivers knelt humbly, hat in hand, while the procession passed.
The ascent of this, the first hydrogen balloon, was a popular and
a memorable event. The field was lined with troops. The curious
spectators had thronged every thoroughfare and darkened every housetop.
It was an all day festival, inaugurating a peculiarly French science,
with French animation. The booming of cannon announced to all Paris
the impending flight of the balloon. At five o’clock, in the presence
of 50,000 spectators, and in a shower of rain, the balloon rose more
than half a mile and entered the clouds. The people overwhelmed with
surprise and enthusiasm, stood gazing upward, despite the rain,
observing every maneuver till the vessel had ascended and faded from
view.
[Illustration: FIG. 6.—CHARLES’ FIRST HYDROGEN BALLOON.]
The landing of this little balloon did not leave it in a condition to
exhibit proudly to future generations. After drifting three quarters
of an hour, it fell in a field near Gonesse, a village fifteen miles
from the place of ascension, apparently ruptured from overdistention.
The villagers flocked about it with curiosity and trepidation, ignorant
of its nature, whether of bird kind or monster; and doubtful of its
origin, whether natural or satanic. They fell upon it with flails and
pitchforks. When struck it smelt strongly of sulphur, indicating a
diabolic source. They finally hitched it to the tail of a horse which
galloping away in terror, badly damaged it. Whether this destruction
was wrought through fear or rustic hilarity, it induced the government
of France to issue a notice to the public explaining the innocuous
nature of a simple balloon.
In the meantime Joseph Montgolfier, having reached Paris, had
constructed a waterproof linen balloon 46 feet in diameter and
ornamented in oil colors, which was to be publicly launched at
Versailles. On September 19, 1783, the king and queen, the court and a
vast throng of people of every rank and age, assembled to witness the
ascension. Montgolfier explained to them every detail, and finally lit
the fire, about one o’clock. The great bag gradually expanded, rounding
out in eleven minutes to a beautiful globular form, tugging upward with
a force of seven hundred pounds. Beneath was suspended a wicker cage
containing the first aërial passengers—a sheep, a rooster and a duck.
The vessel rose majestically above the applauding multitude to a height
of fourteen hundred feet, and drifted some two miles in eight minutes,
descending gradually in the wood at Vaucresson. The animals were tipped
out on landing; but, when found by two game-keepers, they were none the
worse for their strange journey. The sheep was grazing and the cock
crowing, says one report, while another relates that the sheep had
trampled on the rooster and lamed him.
Stephen Montgolfier now wishing to send up human passengers, made a
balloon of 100,000 cubic feet capacity. It was shaped like a full lemon
pointing upward, with a cylindrical neck below, 16 feet in diameter.
Around this neck was a wicker balcony three feet wide, to carry the
aëronauts, bundles of straw for fuel, pails of water and sponges to
extinguish incipient conflagrations, here and there in the balloon,
during a journey. Through stokeholes in the side of the neck sheaves
of straw could be forked to the grate suspended centrally below by
radial chains. During inflation the base of the balloon rested on a
platform, and its top was supported by a rope stretched between two
poles. The vessel when completed, in a garden of the Faubourg St.
Antoine, was 85 feet high by 48 feet across, and weighed 1,600 pounds.
About its zone, painted in oil, were elegant decorations; portraits,
cyphers of the king’s name, fleur-de-lis, with fancy borders below and
above; while higher still, on the arching dome of the bag, were all the
signs of the celestial zodiac.
The handsome vessel was now ready; but what daring captain should
navigate her? King Louis proposed two prisoners who were under sentence
of death, and had to be killed somehow. But the brave Pilâtre de
Rozier protested indignantly: “Eh quoi! de vils criminels auraient
les premiers la gloire de senlever dans les airs! Non, non, cela ne
sera point.” He stirred up the city, and finally prevailed, through
the entreaties of the Marquis d’Arlandes, who secured from the king
permission to accompany his friend.
After some days of preliminary practice in maneuvering the tethered
balloon, these gentlemen were ready for an aërial voyage. On November
21, 1783, the balloon was inflated in the garden of La Muette palace,
and stocked with enough straw for an hour’s journey. When all was ready
Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis d’Arlandes stepped with eager courage
into the gallery taking opposite sides to ensure proper balance. At two
o’clock they rose splendidly, amid the acclamations of a vast throng
of spectators, and at the height of 280 feet, removing their hats,
saluted the surprised multitude. Encountering a south blowing wind,
they drifted five miles in some twenty minutes, and landed safely in a
field. The apparatus was soon assembled on a cart and returned to the
Faubourg St. Antoine, where it was originally constructed. The details
of this first human voyage in a balloon are very interesting and well
told in a letter written by the Marquis d’Arlande to a member of the
French Academy.
[Illustration: FIG. 7.—MONTGOLFIER’S PASSENGER BALLOON.]
“At this time M. Pilâtre said: ‘You do nothing, and we shall not
mount.’ ‘Pardon me,’ I replied. I threw a truss of straw upon the
fire, stirring it a little at the same time, and then quickly turned
my face back again; but I could no longer see La Muette. Astonished,
I gave a look to the direction of the river.... M. Pilâtre then said,
‘See, there is the river, and observe that we descend.’ ‘Well, then,
my friend, let us increase the fire;’ and we worked away. But instead
of crossing the river, as our direction seemed to indicate, which
carried us over the house of the Invalides, we passed along the island
of Cygnes, reëntered over the principal bed of the river, and advanced
up it as far as the gate de la Conference. I said to my intrepid
companion: ‘See, there is the river &c.’ I stirred the fire, and took
with the fork a truss of straw, which from being too tight, did not
take fire very easily. I lifted it and shook it in the middle of the
flame. The next moment I felt as if I were lifted up from under the
arms, and said to my companion, ‘Now we mount, &c.’ At the same time
I heard a noise toward the top of the machine, as if it were going to
burst; I looked, but did not see anything. However, as I was looking
up, I felt a shock, which was the only one I experienced. The direction
of the motion was from the upper part downwards. I said then: ‘What
are you doing? Are you dancing?’ ‘I don’t stir,’ said he. ‘So much the
better,’ I replied, ‘it is then a new current, which, I hope, will push
us over the river.’ In fact, I turned myself in order to see where we
were, and I found myself between l’École Militaire and les Invalides,
beyond which place we had already gone about 2,500 feet. M. Pilâtre
said at the same time: ‘We are on the plain.’ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘and
we advance.’ ‘Work on,’ said he. I then heard another noise in the
machine, which appeared to be the effect of a rope breaking. This fresh
admonition made me examine attentively the interior of our habitation.
I saw that the part of the machine which was turned toward the south
was full of round holes, many of which were of a considerable size. I
then said: ‘We must descend,’ and at the same time I took the sponge
and easily extinguished the fire, which was round some holes that I
could reach; but leaning on the lower part of the linen, to observe
whether it adhered firmly to the surrounding circle, I found that the
linen was easily separated from it, on which I repeated that it was
necessary to descend. My companion said: ‘We are over Paris.’ ‘Never
mind that,’ said I, ‘but look if there appears any danger for you on
your side—are you safe?’ He said: ‘Yes.’ I examined my side, and found
that there was no danger to apprehend. Farther, I wetted with a sponge
those cords which were within my reach. They all resisted, except two,
which gave way. I then said: ‘We may pass over Paris.’ In doing this,
we approached the tops of houses very sensibly; we increased the fire,
and rose with the greatest ease. I looked below me, and perfectly
discovered the Mission Étranger. It seemed as if we were going toward
Saint-Sulpice, which I could perceive through the aperture of our
machine. On rising a current of air made us leave this direction, and
carried us toward the south. I saw on my left a sort of forest, which
I took to be the Luxembourg; we passed over the Boulevard, and then I
said: ‘Let us now descend.’ The fire was nearly extinguished; but the
intrepid M. Pilâtre, who never loses his presence of mind, and who
went forward, imagining that we were going against the mills that are
between Petite Gentilly and the Boulevard, admonished me. I threw a
bundle of straw on the fire, and shaking it in order to inflame it more
easily, we rose, and a new current carried us a little toward our left.
M. Rozier said again: ‘Take care of the mills’; but as I was looking
through the aperture of the machine, I could observe more accurately
that we could not meet with them, and said: ‘We are there.’ The moment
after, I observed that we went over a piece of water, which I took
for the river, but after landing, I recollected that it was the piece
of water, &c. The moment we touched the ground, I raised myself up to
the gallery and perceived the upper part of the machine to press very
gently on my head, I pushed it back, and jumped out of the gallery, and
on turning toward the machine, expected to find it distended, but was
surprised to find it perfectly emptied and quite flattened, &c.”
While the foregoing experiment was in progress, plans were matured for
the construction of a hydrogen balloon large enough to support two
passengers and remain aloft many hours, without the need of carrying
dangerous fuel. This type of balloon, called a _Charlière_, after its
inventor, was destined largely to supersede the hot-air type, known
as the _Montgolfière_, and indeed, to replace it entirely for free
voyages of considerable endurance and for most power voyages. The
construction after the plan of Professor Charles was delegated to two
very intelligent mechanics, the Robert brothers who also had succeeded
in dissolving caoutchouc, and thus producing a very superior balloon
varnish. The project was first announced in the _Journal de Paris_ of
the 19th of November 1783. As usual in those days of public enthusiasm,
a subscription was opened to defray the expenses of the experiment,
estimated to cost about ten thousand francs.
[Illustration: FIG. 8.—CHARLES’ PASSENGER BALLOON.]
This balloon was a truly scientific creation, which advanced
aërostation from tottering infancy almost to full prime. The bag was
a sphere 27½ feet in diameter made of gores of varnished silk. A net
covered the upper half and was fastened to a horizontal hoop girding
the middle of the globe, and called the “equator.” From the equator
depended ropes which supported, just below the spherical bag, a wicker
boat measuring eight feet by four, covered with painted linen and
beautifully ornamented. The balloon had at the bottom a silk neck 7
inches in diameter, to admit the gas during inflation, and at the top,
a valve which could be opened by means of a cord in the boat to let
out gas during a voyage, so as to lower the balloon, or to relieve
excessive pressure. In the boat were carried sand ballast to regulate
the height of ascension, a barometer to measure the elevation, anchor
and rope for landing, a thermometer, notebook, provisions, and all the
paraphernalia of a scientific voyage. Barring the fancy boat, this is
almost a description of a good modern balloon.
The inflation and ascension occurred in the Garden of the Tuileries,
where the limp bag was initially suspended from a rope stretched
between two trees. For three days and nights the hydrogen, drawn from
twenty barrels containing iron and dilute sulphuric acid, poured upward
through the silken neck into the distending globe, which swelled in
volume to 1,400 cubic feet. Finally on a beautiful day, the first of
December 1783, the Tuileries and all the neighborhood were crowded with
spectators. A numerous guard of soldiers, stationed about the apparatus
and grounds, preserved order. The fashion and nobility of Paris were
there, in ample splendor, attracted by the novelty and importance
of the experiment, and the fame of the inventor. Shortly before two
o’clock Professor Charles presented to his friend, Montgolfier, a pilot
balloon six feet in diameter, saying, “It is your prerogative to blaze
the way through the sky.” The pilot balloon was released, showing to
everyone the direction of the aërial currents. Charles and Roberts
stepped into the boat, seated themselves, and quickly rose into the
sky. The multitude gazed in silent wonder. Presently they observed two
pennants waving high above them, though the navigators were scarcely
visible; whereupon they burst forth into wild enthusiasm and thunderous
applause.
Immediately a cavalcade set out in hot pursuit of the venturesome
sailors. It was the first chase after an air ship, and a most vigorous
one. The balloon drifting northwestward at a speed of fifteen miles
an hour, crossed the Seine, passed over several towns and villages,
to the great astonishment of the inhabitants, and landed in a field
near Nesle. Here it was securely held by friendly peasants, to await
the advent of the official witnesses. Presently these arrived, drew
up a certificate of descent and signed it. The Duke de Chartres, and
the Duke de Fitz-James, who had followed less swiftly, now rode up
and signed the formal document, to the great gratification of the
aëronauts. The aërial journey had been a most delightful one, lasting
about two hours and covering nearly thirty miles.
After receiving the felicitations of his friends, Charles determined
to reascend, in order to obtain further scientific observations. Owing
to leakage and loss of buoyancy, he must now leave behind his pleasant
companion. He had proposed replacing with earth, or stones, a part
of Mr. Robert’s weight, but, finding none at hand, he signaled the
peasants to let go, whereupon he rose with unusual speed. The remainder
of this first and very remarkable scientific voyage is well told by the
navigator himself:
“In twenty minutes I was 1,500 fathoms high; out of sight of
all terrestrial objects. I had taken the necessary precautions
against the explosion of the globe, and prepared to make the
observations which I had promised myself. In order to observe
the barometer and thermometer, placed at the end of the car,
without altering the center of gravity, I knelt down in the
middle, stretching forward my body and one leg, holding my
watch in my left hand, and my pen and the string of the valve
in my right, waiting for the event. The globe, which, at my
setting out, was rather flaccid, swelled insensibly. The air
escaped in great quantities at the silken tube. I drew the
valve from time to time, to give it two vents; and I continued
to ascend, still losing air, which issued out hissing, and
became visible, like a warm vapor in a cold atmosphere. The
reason of this phenomenon is obvious. On earth, the thermometer
was 47°, or 15° above freezing point; after ten minutes’ ascent
it was only 21°, or 11° below. The inflammable air had not
had time to recover the equilibrium of its temperature. Its
elastic equilibrium being quicker than that of the heat, there
must escape a greater quantity than that which the external
dilatation of the air could determine by its least pressure.
For myself, though exposed to the open air, I passed in ten
minutes from the warmth of spring to the cold of winter; a
sharp dry cold, but not too much to be borne. I declare that,
in the first moment, I felt nothing disagreeable in the sudden
change. When the barometer ceased to fall, I marked exactly
18 inches 10 lines (20-01 in. English), the mercury suffering
no sensible oscillation. From this I deduce a height of 1,524
fathoms (3,100 yards), or thereabouts, till I can be more exact
in my calculation. In a few minutes more, my fingers were
benumbed by the cold, so that I could not hold my pen. I was
now stationary as to the rising and falling, and moved only in
an horizontal direction. I rose up in the middle of the car
to contemplate the scene around me. At my setting out the sun
was set on the valleys; he soon rose for me alone, who was the
only luminous body in the horizon, and all the rest of nature
in shade; he, however, presently disappeared, and I had the
pleasure of seeing him set twice in the same day. I beheld,
for a few seconds, the circumambient air and the vapors rising
from the valleys and rivers. The clouds seemed to rise from the
earth and collect one upon the other, still preserving their
usual form, only their color was gray and monotonous from the
want of light in the atmosphere. The moon alone enlightened
them, and showed me that I was tacking about twice; and I
observed certain currents that brought me back again. I had
several sensible deviations; and observed, with surprise, the
effects of the wind, and saw the streamers of my banners point
upwards. This phenomenon was not the effect of the ascent or
descent, for then I moved horizontally. At that instant I
conceived, perhaps a little too hastily, the idea of being able
to steer one’s course. In the midst of my transport I felt a
violent pain in my right ear and jaw, which I ascribed to the
dilatation of the air, in the cellular construction of those
organs, as much as to the cold of the external air. I was in a
waistcoat and bareheaded. I immediately put on a woolen cap,
yet the pain did not go off but as I gradually descended. For
seven or eight minutes I had ceased to ascend; the condensation
of the internal inflammable air rather made me descend. I now
recollected my promise to return in half an hour, and, pulling
the string of the valve, I came down. The globe was now so much
emptied, that it appeared only a half globe. I perceived a
fine ploughed field near the wood of Tour du Lay, and hastened
my descent. When I was between twenty or thirty fathoms from
the earth I threw out hastily two or three pounds of ballast,
and became for a moment stationary, till I descended gently
in the field, about a league from the place whence I set out.
The frequent deviations and turnings about make me imagine
that the voyage was near three leagues, and I was gone about
thirty-three minutes. Such is the certainty of the combinations
of our aërostatic machine, that I might have kept in the air at
least for twenty-four hours longer.”
Further interesting details of the first balloon experiments at Paris
are furnished by Dr. Benjamin Franklin, then American Minister to
France, in his letters written to Sir Joseph Banks, President of
the Royal Society of London, and presented in Appendix II of this
book. These quaint and substantial stories are well worth perusal
as the expressions of a great diplomat and philosopher who, in the
midst of social and political activities, found time for scientific
correspondence with his friends in both hemispheres.
Aërial navigation was now become a practical art which should advance
rapidly in popularity, in both Europe and America. Very soon ascensions
were made everywhere, for private amusement and for public exhibitions.
Not a few were made for scientific, for military and for topographical
purposes; thus giving the art a utilitarian as well as a sporting
feature. It will be interesting to note some of the more conspicuous
ascensions, voyages and improvements made in passive balloons
subsequently to the invention of _Montgolfières_ and _Charlières_.
The largest hot-air balloon ever constructed, _La Flesselle_, was
launched from the suburbs of the city of Lyons on January 19, 1784,
just two months after the ascent of the first human passengers. It was
also one of the most troublesome to assemble and keep in repair. Day by
day, for more than a week, the balloon was inflated for the purpose of
attaching the ropes to support the great gallery. But the wind blew
dreadfully at times; rain and snow fell on the machine; frost and ice
covered the huge bag; many rents ensued, demanding frequent repairs.
On one occasion, when fed too freely with flame from straw sprinkled
with alcohol, the monstrous ship rose so vigorously as to drag fifty
men with it some distance along the ground. Finally on the 19th of
January, when the weather moderated, the operators built small fires
under the scaffold below the balloon, and thawed away the ice from
the drenched and frozen bag. Then they stocked its gallery with straw
and pitchforks, with fire extinguishers, and other provisions for the
journey. The inflation beginning about noon, occupied but seventeen
minutes. The balloon swelled out rapidly, with the roaring flames
ascending inside, and at last stood forth huge and majestic before
the admiring multitude—a towering thing of magic growth, 100 feet in
diameter by 130 feet high.
The ascension of this gigantic vessel was immensely spectacular; but
it was also most adventurous and foolhardy. The great bag, which at
best was made of poor materials, was in bad repair after its frequent
inflations. But of the six passengers in the gallery not one could be
induced to remain behind to lessen the risk to the others. Their pilot,
M. de Rozier, remonstrated with them; the proprietor M. C. Flesselle
wished them to cast lots; but no one would abandon the journey. So,
with fear and reluctance, the pilot ordered the mooring ropes to be
cut. Just as the ascent began, a seventh passenger, M. Fontaine, sprang
into the gallery and sailed aloft with the others. By vigorous stoking
the aërial sailors urged their fiery vessel upward three thousand feet,
whence, apparently without fear, they waved their hats to the vast
throng below.
[Illustration: FIG. 9.—LA FLESSELLE.]
The spectators were now in a frenzy of excitement. For more than a week
they had vacillated between hope and disappointment; but now they saw
the huge ship soaring into the sky, perhaps on her way to destruction.
They heard the blast of martial music and the booming of mortars. Then
the accumulated emotion of the multitude burst forth. Exclamations
of joy, shrieks of fear, thunders of applause resounded above the
sea of people. Finally the balloon began to burst, a dangerous rent
running vertically along her side. The machine descended with great
rapidity, to the alarm of everyone. It is reported that not fewer than
sixty thousand people ran to the place of landing, with the greatest
apprehension for the lives of the travelers. But the adventurous men
stepped forth from the gallery, after a fifteen minutes’ voyage,
without hurt of any kind, save an insignificant scratch borne by Joseph
Montgolfier, who on this occasion made his first and last ascension.
This was also the first and last ascension of that gigantic fire
balloon; for although it furnished a world of delirious emotion and
excitement, the trouble of inflating the vessel was too great to be
repeated.
The crossing of the English Channel by balloon had been contemplated
many months by various adventurous spirits; and at length, on a fine
day, the seventh of January, 1785, this feat was attempted by two
intrepid men, the French aëronaut, M. Blanchard, and an American
physician, Dr. Jeffries, who had graduated at Harvard in 1763, and
was practicing medicine in England. Starting from the perpendicular
cliff at Dover Castle, at one o’clock, they sailed in the direction of
Calais, having with them only thirty pounds of sand ballast. This was
too little for so long a voyage; but it would doubtless carry them a
few miles, in the favorable breeze then blowing. To their surprise,
the atmosphere seemed to grow lighter as they advanced over the water,
letting them sink too freely. As they approached mid-channel they
were compelled to discharge all their ballast in order to maintain
their level. But the balloon still descended, seemingly attracted by
the water. Then they ejected a parcel of books to gain a moment’s
relief. When three-fourths across the Channel they sighted the French
Coast, which now they yearned to see at closer range; for the balloon
was contracting and sinking rapidly. They threw out from the boat
everything available, wings, anchors, cords, provisions; yet they saw
the vessel persistently approaching the sea. Finally they cast off part
of their clothing, fastened themselves to the cords suspended from
the balloon-ring, and prepared to cut away the boat. But presently
approaching the coast near Calais, they began to rise; then ascended
rapidly, soaring in a magnificent arch above the high grounds. At
last they descended gradually above the forest of Guines, seized the
branches of a tree to stop their flight, and at three o’clock were
happily landed. It was a thrilling voyage of two hours, and made a
profound impression at the time. As a mark of appreciation the King
presented Blanchard a sum of 12,000 francs and a pension of 1,200
francs per year. The people erected a monument on the place of landing
to commemorate this extraordinary voyage.
This splendid achievement incited two Frenchmen to attempt a counter
voyage which ended disastrously. On June 15, 1785, Pilâtre de Rozier
and M. Romain set out from Boulogne on a voyage from France to
England, in a compound balloon composed of a hydrogen balloon forty
feet in diameter, below which was suspended a fire balloon ten feet
in diameter. They hoped by judicious stoking of the lower balloon to
obviate the sinking tendency suffered by Blanchard and Jeffries. But
the smaller globe proved a fatal auxiliary. Scarcely a quarter of an
hour after launching, the whole apparatus was aflame at an altitude of
3,000 feet, and presently fell in charred and hideous fragments upon
the seashore. M. Romain still showed some signs of life, but Pilâtre
de Rozier was completely dead and all his bones were broken. They were
the first martyrs in the cause of the new science. Poor De Rozier
knew on starting that his apparatus was in bad condition, but he had
received for the purpose a sum of money from a distinguished patron,
and therefore felt obliged in honor to attempt the voyage. He was
twenty-eight years old and engaged to be married to a young lady in the
convent at Boulogne, who eight days after the catastrophe which robbed
her of her fiancé, died brokenhearted and in convulsions.
CHAPTER II
PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PASSIVE BALLOONS
The next important advance in practical ballooning was made by the
substitution of coal gas for hydrogen. This was England’s contribution
to an art which previously had not greatly flourished west of the
Channel. It was a contribution following the natural growth of science;
for in 1814 coal gas began generally to be used for lighting London,
and seven years later for inflating balloons. This valuable innovation
was made by the famous aëronaut, Charles Green, on the occasion of his
first ascension, made July 19, 1821, the coronation day of George IV.
The new method largely superseded the old, extending throughout the
world with the spread of gas lighting; and it gave a powerful stimulus
to aëronautics by rendering inflation cheap and convenient. Mr. Green
himself made 526 ascensions during his life, or at the rate of one
cruise a month for nearly forty-four years. In due time, every country
had its professional aëronauts, and finally its amateurs, who, forming
themselves into aëro clubs, devoted themselves to racing in free
balloons, inflated quite usually from a city gas supply.
In 1836 Mr. Robert Holland organized an expedition designed to test the
utmost capabilities of the balloon of his day, particularly in points
of endurance and control. Engaging as pilot the first aëronaut of the
age, Mr. Charles Green, and employing the largest gas balloon that ever
had been constructed, stocked with provisions enough to last three
men a fortnight, he invited a third person, Mr. Monck Mason, to join
them on a cruise from London to wherever the wind would take them, but
preferably to land near Paris, as the balloon was to be delivered there
after the voyage.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.—THE GREAT BALLOON OF NASSAU.]
The vessel selected for that famous cruise was _The Great Balloon of
Nassau_, then recently built by Mr. Green and representing all that his
skill and experience could devise. It was of pear shape, formed of
the finest crimson and white silk, “spun, wove and dyed expressly for
the purpose,” and comprising when distended a volume of 85,000 cubic
feet. From its stout balloon-ring six feet in diameter was suspended a
wicker car measuring nine feet long by four wide, having a seat across
either end, and a cushioned bottom to serve as a bed, if such should be
needed. Across the middle of the car was a plank supporting a windlass
for raising or lowering the guide-rope, that is a heavy rope which
could be trailed over land, or water, to keep the balloon at a nearly
constant level without expenditure of ballast, and to check its speed
on landing. This valuable device invented by Mr. Green in 1820, was
now to receive adequate trial, which, indeed, formed one of the chief
purposes of the cruise. Other paraphernalia of the voyage were food
and drink, warm clothing, lamps, trumpets, telescopes, barometers, a
quicklime coffee-heater, a grapnel and cable, and a ton of sand ballast
in bags.
The voyage proved well worthy of the elaborate preparations. At
one-thirty o’clock on November 7th, the three navigators arose
from London, in presence of a mighty multitude, and drifted in a
southeasterly direction traversing the cultivated plains of Kent, and
in two hours passed the environs of Canterbury. Here they dropped
a parachute with a letter for the Mayor, which he duly received.
Continuing their journey they floated leisurely above the tree tops,
talking to the inhabitants of the country, startling the fleet-winged
quail, terrifying a colony of rooks, and finally reaching Dover at
sundown, where they again dropped a letter for the Mayor of the city,
which also was duly delivered.
Without a moment’s pause they drifted over the Channel into the
gathering darkness. Before them rose a huge wall of vapor and black
clouds standing on the bosom of the sea; behind them the twinkling
lights and the music of breakers rolling on a hospitable shore.
Presently they were immersed in a region of absolute silence and
impenetrable darkness. At times this deep stratum would slowly
dissolve, revealing a glimpse of the dusky ocean and a passing ship;
then some huge wreath of vapor would involve them in bottomless gloom,
without perspective, without apparent motion, without a sound to cheer
or mark their dubious course. Now to avoid the risk of settling too
near the sea, as Blanchard and Jeffries had done, they were preparing
to let down the guide-rope with floating ballast attached, when
suddenly they emerged from the pall of darkness, and were greeted by
the glittering lights of Calais, and the gentle sound of waters dashing
upon the beach. They had crossed the Channel in one hour, and were
soaring serenely three thousand feet above the ocean, not having to
lower the guide-rope to preserve their elevation.
Now came the preparations for a night voyage over an obscurely defined
land route. A simple rope one thousand feet long without ballast was
allowed to trail beneath them. A lamp was lit. Coffee was heated by the
slacking of quicklime. An ample store of viands and wine was spread on
the board in the middle of the car. The strenuous period of thought and
labor was past, and now three hungry men sat leisurely at dinner, after
a fast of twelve long hours. However sparing of bones and bottles,
which later might serve as ballast, they were not economical of food
and wine that evening. For the present they had only to live and be
happy as bachelors. Muffled in soft garments, well fed, abundantly
served with divine beverages, hot or cold; what finer picture of
masculine comfort and delight?
They were now floating tranquilly in the vast solitude of heaven, over
a teeming continent mantled in night and mystery. Far along earth’s
sable surface gleam the scattered fires of many villages; and above
it the lovelier fires of a moonless sky. Unseen, unsuspected, they
survey kingdoms and cities, trailing their long rope serpent-like
over woodland, field and quiet homestead. Now on the horizon before
them looms a greater fire, like a distant conflagration, widening as
they approach. Gradually it expands into a model city, shooting out
long lines of illuminated streets; here the public squares, markets
and theatres; there the rumbling iron mills with blazing furnaces.
They are above Liege at her festive hour, murmuring with animation
and busy life. Again they drift into the dark regions of slumber,
lapped in silence and deep tranquillity, where the lights of men are
extinguished, and the stars, redoubling their lustre, gleam whitest
silver in heaven’s jetty dome. Midnight involves the world; an abyss
of darkness enfolds it; their solitary lamp seems to melt its way
through solid space of blackest marble. For hours they undulate over
the rolling hills, rising and falling a thousand cubits, held always to
earth by the trailing rope. At times they are so near as to trace the
landscape dimly; here a white tract covered lightly with snow, here a
dark valley or forest, here a tortuous river, probably the Rhine, with
its multitudinous thunder of waters. But in all that weird and obscure
wandering no joyous note of human or animal life ascends ere dawn to
cheer their solitary course in the sky.
At last the paling of the morning star, and a faint tingeing of the
eastern cumuli, announce the expected day. With sudden bound the
great ship mounts aloft twelve thousand feet, into the glory of the
blazing sun, new risen among clouds of amber and purple. Far below,
twilight and mist still mantle the half-awakened world, presenting a
stupendous panorama, vast as an empire. Presently down they plunge into
the vaporous and obscure atmosphere, drifting carelessly, but soon
reascending into the splendor of morning. Thus after making the sun
rise three times and set twice, they float contentedly along the misty
landscape, marveling what region lies below them, whether a barren
wilderness, or the abode of civilized life, with human comforts and a
ready means of transportation. A hot breakfast would be very welcome
now; for they had accidentally dropped the lime pot and had spent the
latter half of the night without warm beverage in a region where oil
and water had frozen.
At length through the clearing vapor they perceive the country well
tilled and populous; a good place to land to shorten their route to
Paris, and avoid the wide plains of Poland or Russia. They raise the
guide-rope, lower the cable and anchor, open the valve, and descend
in a grassy field near Weilburg, in the Duchy of Nassau. It is now
seven-thirty o’clock, just eighteen hours since starting; and they
have traveled five hundred miles, the longest aërial voyage thus
far recorded. Very soon they are surrounded by a wondering crowd of
pipe-puffing, shaggy-headed, German peasants, by whose willing aid they
finally deflate the balloon, pack it in the bottom of the car, and
mount it on a one-horse cart for Weilburg. Thence the aëronauts, after
a week of festivities in their honor, and distinguished attentions from
the highest officials of the town, embarked with their balloon for
Paris. This famous craft now bore its permanent title; for a few days
previously the lovely daughter of the Baron de Bibra, with seven other
young ladies and Mr. Green, had stood within the air-inflated vessel,
poured a generous libation of wine, and christened the hardy cruiser
_The Great Balloon of Nassau_.
It was in truth a great balloon in various ways; in solidity and
strength, in workmanship, in completeness of appointment, in endurance
and control. Having accomplished that long journey without a sign
of weakness or defect, it was still in prime condition, proudly
heading for the farthest verge of Europe. It had not, of course, the
instrumental equipment of a modern balloon; but it did possess the
elements essential for a long and hard cruise. Since the day of its
launching many additions have been added to the art, but these, for
the most part, are special adjuncts. The more important features of a
good balloon are practically the same to-day as when they were first
introduced by Professor Charles and sturdy old Mr. Green.
A still more elaborate and colossal air ship was the _Geant_,
constructed in 1863, for A. Nadar of Paris. It was made of a double
layer of white silk, had a volume of 215,000 cubic feet and a buoyancy
of 4½ tons. The car was a wicker cabin 13 feet wide by 7 feet high,
with a wicker balcony round the top so that the roof could be used
as an observation deck—a delightful place to loll in the starlight,
or watch the morning sun “flatter the mountain tops with sovereign
eye.” The closed car comprised two main rooms with a hallway between
them, one containing the captain’s bed and baggage, the other having
three superposed berths for passengers. Minor divisions of the car
were reserved for provisions, a lavatory, photography and a printing
press, the latter to be used for the dissemination of news from the
sky, as the navigators floated from state to state. A compensator
balloon of 3,500 cubic feet, just below the main bag and connected
with it, received the escaping gas during expansion with increase of
temperature or altitude, and gave it back on contraction. In fact
as well as in name, Nadar’s vessel was a giant. Curiously enough, he
called it the “last balloon,” for he expected to realize enough money
by exhibiting it, to inaugurate successful flying by means of the
helicopter, and thus banish ballooning from the world of futile effort
to the domain of bygone dreams and chimæras.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.—CAR OF NADAR’S BALLOON.]
The first ascension, made on Sunday, October 4, 1863, was one of
magnificent promise. In the midst of a vast holiday throng on the Champ
de Mars, the great globe towered aloft nearly two hundred feet, held to
earth by one hundred men and twice as many sand bags. In the car were
fifteen notable passengers including one lady, the fair young Princess
de la Tour d’Auvergne, in morning toilet and a pretty hat. “Lachez
tout!” shouts Captain Nadar, the effervescent photographer of Paris.
Away they soar, heading for St. Petersburg, with provisions enough to
sail beyond the polar sea.
The captain was now in supreme control, with the key to the victual
and liquor room in his pocket, and his twelve commandments duly signed
by all aboard. They had pledged themselves not to gamble, not to carry
inflammable materials, not to smoke unduly, not to throw bottles
overboard, not to quit the balloon without permission, but to descend
if so ordered, etc. They had sailed at five o’clock in the evening and
all was going merrily. But presently trouble came. The valve rope gave
way, the vessel was sailing in the dark, and the Godards declared she
was drifting to sea, whereas she was drifting in quite the opposite
direction. To be on the safe side they threw out the anchors by
permission of the commander. One anchor broke, but the other took hold
and checked the balloon in spite of the strong wind blowing. At last
after three violent bumps on the ground they landed near Meaux at nine
o’clock in the evening, one passenger sustaining a broken knee, the
others various bruises. It was a grand adventure and all were pleased.
Two weeks later a second voyage was begun in similar style, and again
from the Champ de Mars, this time in the presence of the King of
France and the young King George of Greece; but now Nadar took along,
not the Princess with the pretty hat, but Madame Nadar, his wife. To
entertain the crowd before starting, thirty-two persons were first sent
aloft 300 feet and drawn back to earth. Finally at five o’clock Sunday
evening, October 18th, a party of nine passengers soared proudly
northward, well provisioned as before, and eager for a long voyage.
They disappeared in the gathering night, leaving their friends much
concerned for their safety and ultimate destination. At half past eight
they were over Compiegne, seventy-eight miles away, drifting near the
ground to say “All goes well” and have the good tidings transmitted
to Paris. At nine they crossed the Belgian frontier; at midnight they
were over Holland; at sunrise they skirted the Zuyder Zee and entered
Hanover; at eight they were coursing headlong toward Nienburg and the
North Sea in the current of a swift west wind.
They were now in great peril. If they went to sea they might all be
drowned; if they came to earth at such horizontal speed they should
be terribly pounded. Choosing the latter evil, they opened the valve
and threw down the grappling irons. “To the ropes,” shouted the Godard
brothers. Assembling on deck all clung to the suspension ropes to
mitigate the shock of landing. Nadar put his arm about his wife to
protect her. The anchors snatching a tree, uprooted and dragged it
along; then caught and tore off the roof of a house; threshed into
a telegraph line pulling down the wires and poles; struck into some
firmer obstacle and broke off completely, leaving the huge monster
to sweep unchecked in the violent ground current. Owing to trouble
with the valve, the gas could not be liberated quickly; the great
vessel again and again plunged to earth and rebounded high in air,
its ponderous basket crashing through heavy timber, and breaking
down whatever opposed its course. For nine miles they pounded over
the plain by Nienburg toward the sea, dashing into pools, bogs and
thickets, their limbs sprained or broken, their bodies bruised, their
faces splashed with mud. Presently through loss of gas the rebounding
ceased, the basket dragged along the earth squeezing some of the
passengers beneath it, and dumping others out on the ground, leaving
them behind. Those remaining tried to assist Madam Nadar to land, but
they were tumbled out and she was caught under the basket from which
she was extricated with much difficulty, when the balloon was finally
halted. Thus their memorable voyage of seventeen hours, covering 750
miles, had a terrific, though not fatal ending. One had a broken femur,
another a dislocated thigh, others numerous scratches and contusions.
But no complaint was uttered; for the afflictions were regarded as
natural concomitants to such interesting sport. After some days tender
nursing by the Germans, and solicitous inquiries from the King of
Hanover, they returned to Paris; some indeed on their backs, but for
all that, none the less admired by their countrymen, as survivors of a
marvelous adventure.
Another valiant English leader in aërostation was James Glaisher,
member of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
As one of a committee of twelve appointed by that body in 1861, to
explore the higher strata of the atmosphere by means of the balloon,
he volunteered his services as an observer, when no other capable man
could offer to do so. With a professional aëronaut, Mr. Coxwell, and a
new balloon specially constructed for the work, cubing 90,000 feet, he
made eleven ascensions for the society, four from Wolverhampton, seven
from Woolwich. Incidentally he made seventeen other ascents of various
altitude; not at the expense of the committee, but as a scientific
passenger in public balloon ascents advertised beforehand.
The objects of the enterprise were first to study the physical
conditions of the atmosphere; secondly to study the effect of the
higher regions upon the passengers themselves, and some pigeons,
which they carried along; thirdly to make some observations in
acoustics and magnetism, particularly to determine the period of
oscillation of a magnet at various altitudes. The specific study of
the atmosphere itself was to comprise observations at all altitudes,
of the temperature of the air, its pressure, and percentage of
moisture; observations of the velocity and direction of the wind,
the constitution of the clouds, their height, density and depth, the
constitution and electrical properties of the air. They were also to
collect samples of the air at different elevations, which later might
be examined in the laboratory. Thus the voyages were systematically
planned for scientific research, and were the first thorough attempts
in England, though similar efforts had been made previously in France.
It may be added that Glaisher’s observations were the most important
made during the first century of aëronautics, and may be found fully
detailed by that hardy investigator himself in the British Association
Reports for 1862-66.
Mr. Glaisher’s most interesting voyage of that memorable series
occurred on September 5, 1862. Starting from Wolverhampton at three
minutes after one o’clock, they soared swiftly upward, passing through
a cloud eleven hundred feet thick and emerging in a glorious field
of sunlight with an amethystine sky above and a boundless sea of
vapor beneath; a sea of rolling hills and mountain chains, with great
snow-white masses steaming up from their surface. They had left the
noisy bustle of earth in the comfortable temperature of 59°; in three
quarters of an hour, they were five miles aloft in a deadly silent
atmosphere, two degrees below zero, and approaching one third its usual
density, the balloon neck white with hoar frost, the men gasping for
breath. Here the observations became increasingly interesting but
immensely more difficult. They are graphically told in the following
extract from Mr. Glaisher’s classical report:
“I asked Mr. Coxwell to help me to read the instruments, as I
experienced a difficulty in seeing. In consequence, however,
of the rotatory motion of the balloon, which had continued
without ceasing since the earth had been left, the valve-line
had become twisted, and he had to leave the car and mount into
the ring above to adjust it. At this time I looked at the
barometer, and found it to be 10 inches, still decreasing
fast; its true reading therefore, was 9¾ inches, implying a
height of 29,000 feet. Shortly afterwards I laid my arm upon
the table, possessed of its full vigor, and on being desirous
of using it, I found it powerless; it must have lost its power
momentarily. I tried to move the other arm, and found it
powerless also. I then tried to shake myself, and succeeded
in shaking my body. I seemed to have no limbs. I then looked
at the barometer; whilst doing so my head fell on my left
shoulder. I struggled and shook my body again, but could not
move my arms. I got my head upright, but for an instant only,
when it fell on my right shoulder, and then I fell backwards,
my back resting against the side of the car, and my head on
its edge; in this position my eyes were directed towards Mr.
Coxwell in the ring. When I shook my body I seemed to have full
power over the muscles of the back and considerable power over
those of the neck, but none over either my arms or my legs; in
fact I seemed to have none. As in the case of the arms, all
muscular power was lost in an instant from my back and neck. I
dimly saw Mr. Coxwell in the ring and endeavored to speak, but
could not; when in an instant intense black darkness came, the
optic nerve finally lost power suddenly. I was still conscious,
with as active a brain as at the present moment whilst writing
this. I thought I had been seized with asphyxia, and that I
should experience no more, as death would come, unless we
speedily descended; other thoughts were actively entering my
mind, when I suddenly became unconscious as in going to sleep.
I cannot tell anything of the sense of hearing; the perfect
stillness and silence of the regions six miles from the earth
(and at this time we were between six and seven miles high) is
such that no sound reaches the ear.
PLATE I.
[Illustration: GLAISHER AND COXWELL.]
[Illustration: PARSEVAL KITE BALLOON.]
“My last observation was made at 1 h. and 54 m., at 29,000
feet. I suppose two or three minutes fully were occupied
between my eyes becoming insensible to seeing fine divisions,
and 1 h. 54 m., and then that two or three minutes more passed
till I was insensible; therefore I think this took place at
about 1 h. 56 m. or 1 h. and 57 m. Whilst powerless I heard
the words, ‘temperature’ and ‘observation,’ and I knew Mr.
Coxwell was in the car speaking to me, and endeavoring to
arouse me, therefore consciousness and hearing had returned. I
then heard him speak more emphatically, but I could not see,
speak or move. I heard him again say, ‘Do try—now do.’ Then I
saw the instruments dimly, then Mr. Coxwell, and very shortly
saw clearly. I rose in my seat and looked round, as though
waking from sleep, though not refreshed by sleep, and said to
Mr. Coxwell, ‘I have been insensible;’ he said, ‘You have;
and I, too, very nearly.’ I then drew up my legs, which had
been extended before me, and took a pencil in my hand to begin
observations. Mr. Coxwell told me he had lost the use of his
hands, which were black, and I poured brandy on them.
“I resumed my observations at 2 h. 7 m., recording the
barometer reading at 11.53 inches, and temperature −2°. I
suppose three or four minutes were occupied from the time of my
hearing the words ‘temperature’ and ‘observation’ till I began
to observe; if so, then returning consciousness came at 2 h.
and 4 m., and this gives seven minutes for total insensibility.
I found the water in the vessel supplying the wet-bulb
thermometer, which I had by frequent disturbances kept from
freezing, was one solid mass of ice; and it did not all melt
until after we had been on the ground some time.
“Mr. Coxwell told me that whilst in the ring he felt it
piercingly cold; that hoar-frost was all round the neck of the
balloon. On attempting to leave the ring he found his hands
frozen, and he had to place his arms on the ring and drop
down; that he thought for a moment I had laid back to rest
myself; that he spoke to me without eliciting a reply; that
he then noticed my legs projected and my arms hung down by my
side; that my countenance was serene and placid, without the
earnestness and anxiety he had noticed before going into the
ring, and then it struck him I was insensible. He wished to
approach me, but could not, and he felt insensibility coming
over himself; that he became anxious to open the valve, but in
consequence of having lost the use of his hands he could not,
and ultimately did so by seizing the cord with his teeth and
dipping his head two or three times until the balloon took a
decided turn downwards. This act is quite characteristic of
Mr. Coxwell. I have never yet seen him without a ready means
of meeting every difficulty, as it has arisen, with a cool
self-possession that has always left my mind perfectly easy,
and given me every confidence in his judgment in the management
of so large a balloon.
“No inconvenience followed the insensibility; and when we
dropped it was in a country where no conveyance of any kind
could be obtained, so that I had to walk between seven or eight
miles.
“The descent was at first very rapid; we passed downwards three
miles in nine minutes; the balloon’s career was then checked,
and we finally descended in the center of a large grass-field
belonging to Mr. Kersall, at Cold Weston, seven-and-a-half
miles from Ludlow.
“I have already said that my last observation was made at
a height of 29,000 feet; at this time (1 h. 45 m.) we were
ascending at the rate of 1,000 feet per minute; and when I
resumed observations we were descending at the rate of 2,000
feet per minute. These two positions must be connected, taking
into account the interval of time between, viz. 13 minutes,
and on those considerations the balloon must have attained
the altitude of 36,000 or 37,000 feet. Again, a very delicate
minimum thermometer read—12, and this would give a height of
37,000 feet. Mr. Coxwell, on coming from the ring, noticed that
the center of the aneroid barometer, its blue hand, and a rope
attached to the car, were all in the same straight line, and
this gave a reading of 7 inches, and leads to the same result.
Therefore these independent means all lead to about the same
elevation, viz. fully SEVEN MILES.
“In this ascent six pigeons were taken up. One was thrown out
at the height of three miles, when it extended its wings and
dropped as a piece of paper; a second, at four and five miles,
and it fell downward as a stone. A fourth was thrown out at
four miles on descending. It flew in a circle, and shortly
alighted on the top of the balloon. The two remaining pigeons
were brought down to the ground. One was found to be dead, and
the other, a ‘carrier,’ was still living, but would not leave
the hand when I attempted to throw it off, till after a quarter
of an hour it began to peck a piece of ribbon which encircled
its neck, and was then jerked off the finger, and flew with
some vigor toward Wolverhampton. One of the pigeons returned to
Wolverhampton on Sunday the 7th, and it is the only one that
has been heard of.”
This was the loftiest ascent ever made up to that time; and thus
Glaisher, or rather Coxwell, who was in the ring above him, could be
called the “highest man” of the first century of aëronautics. Their
greatest elevation, however, is now generally estimated at much less
than seven miles, and probably below six miles, due allowance being
made for inaccuracies of estimate made by Mr. Glaisher. His results,
nevertheless, were considered valuable, revealing as they did, that the
balloon may be used safely up to the neighborhood of five miles; that
the temperature of the atmosphere does not, as previously supposed,
decline one degree for each 300 feet of ascent, but often declines
more rapidly, and sometimes even increases with the elevation for
considerable stretches; that the moisture percentage is extremely
slight at an altitude beyond five miles; that at all elevations
attainable by man the dry- and wet-bulb thermometers can be used
effectively, etc.
A still loftier ascent was made by Professor Berson of Germany,
aided by the respiration of oxygen. On July 31, 1901, accompanied by
Dr. Süring, he ascended from Berlin in the balloon _Preussen_ to an
elevation of 10,800 meters, which at present constitutes the world’s
record for altitude. The balloon had a capacity of 300,000 cubic feet,
and left the ground two thirds filled with hydrogen, and carrying 8,000
pounds of ballast in the form of sand bags attached to the sides of the
basket, so that they could be cut loose with the slightest physical
effort.
The _Preussen_ was one of the largest passive balloons ever
constructed. In cubic capacity it was comparable with the colossal
_Montgolfière_, _La Flesselle_, already described, and the huge free
balloon _Le Geant_, constructed by Nadar in 1863. But all were
eclipsed by the great balloon of Henri Giffard. This latter measured
450,000 cubic feet, and even to-day ranks as the largest captive
balloon ever constructed. It was a familiar object at the Paris
Exposition of 1878, where it was installed by the famous inventor
Henri Giffard, to give sightseers a bird’s-eye view of Paris. It could
take up forty persons at one time, or eight more than once ascended in
Nadar’s _Geant_.
No serious attempt has been made to surpass the altitude flight of
Professor Berson and Dr. Süring; for though it is easily possible to
carry human beings to a greater height than seven miles, the results
seem hardly to justify the cost. To ascend very much higher would
require an enormous and costly balloon, and to ensure the comfort
of the passenger might require an air-tight car, or armor supplied
continuously with fresh air, or oxygen. Such a suit, or car, however,
can be made very light, since its pressure must naturally be internal;
and it would admit of an extremely rapid change of elevation without
discomfort to the passenger. A steel bottle weighing fifty pounds,
and filled with compressed air, or oxygen, would supply a passenger
several hours, and allow him to breathe under normal pressure. The
total weight of a bottle and air-tight car, or suit, need not exceed
the weight of a man. Moreover, the ballast could be largely dispensed
with, thus admitting of a very rapid ascent from the earth. A celluloid
car would have the advantage of transparency, though it might become
too brittle at very low temperatures. A suit, or car, with glass
portholes would serve in lieu of a celluloid car for transparency. The
usual balloon and basket, carrying a steel bottle, furnishing air at
normal pressure to a man in a rubberized silk suit is a sufficiently
simple and practicable device; the air entering the suit near his
mouth and leaving below through a check valve regulated to maintain the
desired internal pressure. An air-tight silk fabric capable of enduring
safely a tensile stress of 150 pounds per running inch would answer the
purposes. But at present there seems to be no incentive to attempt a
balloon trip exceeding the heights already attained, unless it be that
of notoriety or sentiment.
The French meteorologists have devised a much simpler and cheaper
method of exploring the upper atmosphere, by use of small balloons
carrying recording instruments. An ordinary silk or gold-beater
skin balloon, partly inflated, ascends to a great height with the
instruments, drifts away losing gas, and on landing is found by some
one who returns it according to written directions accompanying the
craft. Another method, introduced by Professor Assman, is to employ
closed rubber balloons which at great altitudes burst by the expansion
of the hydrogen within them, and allow the instruments to descend
in parachutes softly to the ground. Instrument-carrying balloons of
the above type are called “sounding balloons,” or _balloons sondes_,
whereas if they carry no instruments, but merely show the course of the
wind, they may be called “pilot balloons.” Such sounding balloons have
been used to explore the temperature of the atmosphere to an altitude
of 18 miles.
In the preceding pages some extended balloon voyages have been
described. These were considered very long in their day, but in recent
years have been surpassed frequently, first by the professional
aëronauts, then by the amateurs and members of various aëronautic
clubs practicing aërostation as a sport, and stimulated by attractive
prizes. But the man who achieved the longest balloon flight during the
first century of the art, seems to have been Mr. John Wise, America’s
foremost pioneer balloonist.
Mr. Wise was a rare composite of showman, scientist, sport and
dare-devil, who during the four decades succeeding his first ascension
at Philadelphia in 1835, made no fewer than 440 voyages. At first the
aërial art captivated him by the beauty and sublimity of the natural
panoramas witnessed from on high; then he amused himself by dropping
things from the basket and hearing them whistle through space; and
finally he coquetted with the balloon itself, in various ways to
observe the result. On one occasion the neck was choked and the
valve could not be operated, so that when the hydrogen expanded with
increasing altitude, it overstretched the cover and started a rent in
the side of the bag. The balloon descended rapidly, but landed without
injurious shock.
The audacious aëronaut then decided to make an ascension and
deliberately burst the balloon, by confining the gas in it and throwing
out ballast. But first he tried the experiment on a dog, taking him up
4,000 feet, dropping him in a small collapsed balloon and watching him
settle slowly to earth. Then rising to an altitude of 13,000 feet he
stood debating whether to follow the example of the dog. The balloon
quickly ended the question by exploding at the top. The hydrogen rushed
out with a tempestuous sound, and the great vessel sank swiftly with a
moaning noise of the wind in her rigging. In a few seconds the bag was
empty and collapsed on the top of the net thus forming an effective
parachute. After an exciting fall of more than two miles, Mr. Wise
landed on a farm, with a lively thump, which overturned the basket, and
threw him sprawling on the ground. It was fine sport; he decided at
once to advertise a repetition of it, and thus was led by degrees to
the invention of the ripping panel.[7]
Mr. Wise firmly believed that a steady wind from west to east prevails
at a height of two miles. He wished to use this for long voyages, and
even contemplated crossing the Atlantic; for he trusted his varnish to
hold hydrogen a fortnight if need be. Accordingly in 1873 the New York
_Daily Graphic_ paid the cost of a balloon to carry him and two others
on that hazardous voyage. The bag had a capacity of 400,000 cubic feet,
but was too frail in construction to receive Mr. Wise’s approval, and
actually burst during inflation when slightly more than three fourths
full. Fortunately, perhaps, for Mr. Wise, he never had an opportunity
to attempt the trans-Atlantic voyage; but on one occasion he enjoyed a
memorable cruise in the great west wind which so took his fancy. Rising
from St. Louis on June 23, 1859, he sailed northeastwardly for twenty
hours, and landed at Henderson, N. Y., having traversed a distance of
809 miles, measured directly. But in attempting another long voyage
with two companions, in September, 1879, he passed over Lake Michigan,
where all were drowned.
In recent years Mr. Wise’s long voyage has been exceeded several
times. In 1897 M. Godard sailed from Leipsic to Wilna, a distance of
1,032 miles in 24½ hours; but this was not an official flight nor in a
direct course as the crow flies. In October, 1900, M. Balsan voyaged
from Vincennes, France, to Rodom, Russia, a distance of 843 miles in
27 hours and 25 minutes, and De la Vaulx starting from the same point
landed at Korosticheff, Russia, having traversed 1,193 miles in 35¾
hours. This latter is the longest balloon flight thus far recorded. A
close second to this record was made by A. R. Hawley in his spherical
balloon _America_, aided by Augustus Post, in the Gordon Bennett
International Balloon Race of 1910. Sailing from St. Louis, October
17th, they drifted 1,172.9 miles from their starting point, and landed
in a great forest at Peribonka River, North Lake Chilogoma, Canada,
where they were lost for several days.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.—DIAGRAM OF A MODERN SPHERICAL BALLOON WITH
RIPPING PANEL.]
Quite as eventful was the ocean voyage of Walter Wellman, who left
Atlantic City October 15, 1910, for Europe in a motor balloon with a
drag rope, or equilibrator, voyaged with favorable wind to a point
140 miles northeast of Nantucket Island, then was driven by adverse
wind toward Bermuda, and finally rescued by a passing steamer, after
69 hours in the air and a journey of about one thousand miles. A full
account of this strange voyage is given in the New York _Times_ of
October 19, 1910, and in the _Scientific American_ of subsequent date.
The recent advances in aërostation, though not radically changing the
balloon itself, contribute much to its usefulness and convenience.
Improvements have occurred in the means of inflation and deflation,
in devices for making topographical and meteorological observations,
as also for transmitting and receiving signals. Hydrogen shipped in
steel tubes is now available for easy and rapid inflation, the process
of obtaining it on a large scale making it practically as cheap as
illuminating gas. The ripping panel, invented in 1844 by America’s
foremost pioneer aëronaut, John Wise, is a simple and an excellent
practical device. This is a long patch running longitudinally above the
equator[8] of the balloon, feebly sewed to the envelope, and having a
cord, called the “ripping cord,” extending down to the car along the
outside or inside of the bag, so that the pilot on coming to earth
can let out the gas quickly by tearing a rent in the balloon, thus
flattening it promptly on the earth’s surface, so as to avoid dragging
and bumping if any wind prevails. During an ascension the rise or fall
of the vessel may be instantly noted on the dial of the statoscope,
the temperature, pressure and moisture of the atmosphere may be read
on recording instruments, messages may be sent by telegraph and
telephone either by wire or through space, and sky or landscape may
be photographed if there be sufficient light. The bag itself has been
improved by making it of special fabrics formed of several layers of
silk, or cotton, with thin layers of rubber vulcanized between them
to render the cloth impermeable, also the bag, when not designed to
cleave the wind, is usually given a spherical form which is the figure
of greatest volume for a given surface, the figure originally used by
the inventor of the gas balloon; but when designed to be tethered in
a wind, it is given a longish shape and a tail so that it may ride
the wind like a kite. This type of balloon, though first proposed by
Douglass Archibald about 1845, was first made a practical invention by
Captain von Sigsfeld and Major von Parseval. In a certain sense it is a
tethered motor-balloon, just as a kite is a tethered aëroplane.
CHAPTER III
EARLY HISTORY OF POWER BALLOONS
Directly after the first launching of human passengers in a crude
aërostat, numerous schemes for controlling the course of a balloon were
evolved. Apparently mere flotation afforded less contentment to the
early pioneer aëronauts than to the free balloonists of the present
hour. Many were eager to apply propelling mechanism to their gas bags,
expecting thus to achieve practical locomotion through the air, even a
generation before the advent of practical steam navigation. Magnificent
dreams they had, indeed, but none the less futile. Few suspected the
enormous power required to propel swift balloons of the very best shape
and size; still fewer realized the impossibility of driving spherical
bags at a practicable velocity.
On the other hand, it must be said, to the credit of that era of
investigators, that certain noted scientists, after computing the power
required to drive a balloon at high speed, promptly recognized the
inadequacy to that task, of any motors then available. In conjunction
with favorable aërial currents something might be effected; that they
fully grasped; for they knew that the wind frequently has different
directions at different levels. They believed, therefore, that by
causing the craft to rise or fall to a suitable stratum, by use of
various then known devices, it could be made to travel in any direction
at the will of the pilot. Likewise they deemed that the rise and fall
of a balloon, due to change of buoyancy, could be used to propel it, if
sails attached to the vessel were set obliquely to the motion, so as to
receive fair pressure; or if the balloon were made flat, or longish, so
as to glide horizontally, like a kite or parachute.
Several devices for changing the altitude of the balloon were proposed
or tried. If the vessel were a _Montgolfière_, the mere increase or
lessening of the fire would promptly cause it to rise or fall. If a gas
bag were employed it could be sent up or down by casting out ballast
or opening the valve; or again, as proposed by Pilâtre de Roziere, by
having a _Montgolfière_ underneath the gas balloon, and lifting or
depressing the whole by altering the intensity of the flame. Finally,
an air balloon within a gas balloon was proposed by the Roberts, and a
gas balloon within an air balloon was proposed by General Meusnier, in
either of which combinations, a change of level could be effected by
pumping air into, or letting it escape from, the air bag. All of these
devices can be effected and practically operated by a competent balloon
maker and pilot; and yet they have not enabled man to realize his dream
of navigating the air in all directions without motive power.
The first attempts at balloon propulsion could not be seriously
regarded by trained engineers, even at the inception of aëronautics;
but still, as infantile steps in the new art, they may deserve passing
notice.
Blanchard, on March 2, 1784, made the first real effort to steer a
balloon, using for that purpose a spherical gas bag and car provided
with aërial oars and a rudder. As he was about to ascend, however,
from the Champs de Mars, a young officer with drawn sword persisted in
accompanying the pilot, thus compelling Blanchard to leave his wings
on earth to allow sufficient buoyancy for himself and his obtrusive
guest. His first trial was, therefore, frustrated; but subsequent ones
made with that inadequate contrivance also proved futile under the best
circumstances; for the scheme was evidently puerile, though tried by
various grown-up men besides M. Blanchard.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.—BLANCHARD’S DIRIGIBLE BALLOON, 1784.]
A no less simple and quaint device for propulsion was that of the
two physicists, the Abbé Miolan and Janinet. The balloon was a
_Montgolfière_ with a large hole in one side, through which the hot air
was to escape with such strong reaction as to drive the bag forward, on
the principle of a lawn sprinkler, or of Newton’s reaction wagon. The
projectors failed, however, to make an ascent, and the crowd becoming
furious destroyed the balloon.
A more reasonable plan for practical navigation was devised and tried
by the Robert brothers. A melon-shaped balloon, fifty-two feet long by
thirty-two feet in diameter, was made of silk and inflated with pure
hydrogen. Beneath was suspended a longish car of light wood covered
with sky-blue silk. This elegant ship was to be rowed through heaven by
means of six silken oars actuated by sturdy sailors. A silken rudder
should guide her at pleasure when the winds were asleep, or softly
playing in the placid sky. She was a fairy bark, indeed, a soaring
castle lovely to behold.
After a preliminary trial, accompanied by their patron, the Duke de
Chartres, they were ready for a substantial journey. On September 19,
1784, the vessel was inflated and taken to the Garden of the Tuileries,
in front of the palace, where its cords were held by Marshall Richelieu
and three other noblemen. At eleven forty-five the two Roberts and
their brother-in-law arose and drifted beyond the horizon on a seven
hours’ cruise. Before coming to earth, they plied the oars vigorously,
and described a curve of one kilometer radius, thus deviating 22° from
the feeble wind then prevailing. In a lighter wind they could deviate
still more. They considered, therefore, that the experiment was a
complete success. They had constructed the first elongated balloon,
and had “solved the problem of aërial navigation.” In very happy mood,
therefore, they landed at dusk among the delighted inhabitants of
Artois, where they were graciously met and hospitably entertained by
the Prince de Ghistelles-Richbourg.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.—ROBERT BROTHERS’ DIRIGIBLE, 1784.]
The Robert brothers were the first to employ in practice an air bag
inside a gas bag. This was held within the balloon by ropes and
connected with the outer atmosphere by a tube, the idea being to
regulate the internal pressure of the balloon by introducing air into,
or withdrawing it from, the smaller bag. But during an ascension with
their patron, the Duke de Chartres, they entered a violent eddy which
tore away the oars and rudder, at the same time agitating the balloon
so violently that the internal air bag broke its sustaining cords and
fell upon the bottom of the gas bag, thus throttling the connection
with the external atmosphere. The vessel rose swiftly and the gas
expanded dangerously near to the bursting pressure. At a height of
16,000 feet the Duke de Chartres, perceiving the imminent danger of
an explosion of the envelope, drew his sword and cut a rent ten feet
long in its lower part. A part of the gas immediately rushed forth,
and the balloon sank rapidly, but after the discharge of the ballast,
landed safely without further mishap. The Duke acted wisely enough,
but he was afterwards ridiculed for his apparent lack of courage. If
he had possessed more bravery and less caution he might have allowed
the balloon to burst and descend as a parachute, thus anticipating the
spectacular performance of John Wise, in 1838.
Simultaneously other inventors were evolving designs of no less
importance in the ultimate perfection of the dirigible. In a letter
written to Benjamin Franklin on May 24, 1784, Francis Hopkinson of
Philadelphia proposed to build a balloon of spindle shape and to drive
it by means of a wheel-like propeller at the stern, consisting of vanes
set at an angle to the line of progression, like the common smokejack.
This proposed craft, the harbinger of the modern screw-driven motor
balloon, far antedated the screw-driven boat and the submarine torpedo
which it most resembles.[9]
While Blanchard and other aëronauts were paddling their globose bags
in search of favorable winds, vainly hoping thereby to direct their
course in the air, General Meusnier of the French army, and member of
the Academy of Sciences, made a systematic study of the requirements
for practical air navigation. After some research on forms suitable
for aëronautic hulls, he designed a power balloon having a pointed
car suspended from a bag of goose-egg form, this latter embodying his
idea of the best shape for a balloon that must cleave the air swiftly
and resist deformation. The propulsion was to be effected by means of
three coaxial screw propellers, supported on the rigging between car
and bag, and actuated by eighty men, for lack of a light artificial
motor. He thus hoped to obtain a moderate velocity which, combined with
skillfully selected air currents, would enable the ship to reach her
destination in ordinary weather.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.—GEN. MEUSNIER’S PROPOSED DIRIGIBLE, 1784.]
General Meusnier introduced important special features in the design of
dirigibles for preserving their form and poise. He insisted that the
bag and boat should be so rigidly connected that one could not swerve
from alignment and relative position with the other. He also emphasized
the necessity of preserving the vessel from deformation during flight,
in order to diminish its resistance. To that end he proposed to provide
the hull with a double envelope, the inner one thin and light but
impermeable to hydrogen; the outer one strong and air-tight; the space
between the two envelopes to be pumped full of air under pressure
sufficient to preserve the form of the bag when beating its way swiftly
against a buffeting wind. This was an important invention which in
later years was adopted in many of the most powerful motor balloons—for
all, indeed, except those of the rigid type. He also proposed the
use of stabilizing planes to control the poise of the vessel, thus
anticipating the Lebaudy brothers by more than a century. Like the
Robert brothers he proposed to raise or lower the vessel in search of
suitable currents, by altering the quantity of air in the space between
the inner and outer envelope, by use of hand bellows.
Apparently General Meusnier and his colleagues were endowed with
constructive genius sufficient to have developed a practical motor
balloon, had they been able to secure a light engine. Lacking this the
early aëronauts could do little more than describe their projects, and
await the growth of the collateral arts and sciences. Accordingly no
substantial advance in motor balloons beyond Meusnier’s designs was
effected till after the middle of the nineteenth century; and until
then the art of aëronautics remained in the hands of showmen. Hundreds
of projects, indeed, were advanced, some exciting considerable interest
and expectation, but nevertheless of such paltry value as hardly to
deserve comment. One notable exception to these was the invention of
Porter in America.
In 1820 Rufus Porter, a Yankee inventor, and later the original
founder of the _Scientific American_, patented an air ship of very
promising appearance for that early day. Its hull was a long, finely
tapering symmetrical spindle, suspending a car of similar shape by
means of cords, which were vertical at its middle but more and more
slanting toward its ends. Midway between the hull and car was a large
screw propeller actuated by a steam engine in the car. A model of
this dirigible exhibited in Boston and New York, some years later, is
reported to have carried its own power, at fair speed, and to have
obeyed its helm satisfactorily.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.—RUFUS PORTER’S DIRIGIBLE, 1820.]
The inventor, being too poor to develop his air ship alone, did
little with the patent during its life; but in 1850 he organized
a stock company to realize the needed funds. From the sale of 300
five-dollar shares he expected to raise $1,500, and with this sum
build an “aëroport,” 150 feet long, capable of carrying five persons
sixty miles an hour, the whole to be completed in six weeks. Once
this was in operation he would easily command funds sufficient to
build a full-sized vessel adapted to regular passenger service. For,
after careful calculation, he reported that: “It appears certain that
a safe and durable aërial ship (or aëroport) capable of carrying 150
passengers at a speed of ninety miles an hour, with more perfect safety
than either steamboat or railroad cars, may be constructed for $15,000,
and that the expense of running it would not exceed $25 per day.”
The language and project seem very modern, even at the present
time, and might well be copied now by a promoter of that identical
project. But it must be observed that the most successful European
experimenters, after spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on giant
air ships, have not yet attained one half the speed contemplated by
that ambitious and chimerical Yankee. The picture was handsome and
alluring, none the less. It may even be said to excel in outward design
any of the air-ship plans produced in either hemisphere before the
middle of the nineteenth century.
In 1850 a clockmaker and skillful workman, Jullien by name, exhibited
in the Hippodrome, at Paris, a torpedo-shaped model balloon of
gold-beater’s skin, provided with a screw propeller at either side
of its bow, and a double rudder at its stern. It measured 23 feet in
length and weighed 1,100 grammes complete. The propellers were actuated
by spring power, and proved able to drive the tiny vessel against a
moderate wind. The most suitable form for the bag was determined by
towing models through water.
[Illustration: FIG. 17.—JULLIEN’S MODEL DIRIGIBLE, 1850.]
Aërodynamically considered, this tiny motor balloon was by far the best
in design of any that appeared during the first century of aëronautics.
It may be regarded as the harbinger of the swiftest modern French
balloons. It was also an inspiration to Henri Giffard who assisted
Jullien in constructing his clever model, and shortly afterwards built
the first dirigible ever driven by a heat engine.
The illustrious Henri Giffard was perhaps the first aëronautical
engineer adequately endowed and circumstanced to realize, on a
practical scale, General Meusnier’s well pondered and truly scientific
plans for a motor balloon. He had studied in the college of Bourbon,
and had worked in the railroad shops of the Paris and St. Germain
railway. He had further equipped himself by making free balloon
ascensions, under the auspices of Eugene Godard, for the purpose of
studying the atmosphere; and by building light engines, one of which
weighed 100 pounds, and developed three horse power. Finally in 1851 he
patented an air ship, consisting of an elongated bag and car, propelled
by a screw driven by a steam engine. He had not the means to build such
a vessel, but he had the genius and training necessary to construct it,
and at the same time enough enthusiasm and persuasive power to induce
his friends, David and Sciama, to loan him the requisite funds.
[Illustration: FIG. 18.—GIFFARD’S STEAM DIRIGIBLE, 1852.]
Giffard’s first dirigible was successful in both design and operation.
It consisted of a spindle-shaped bag covered with a net whose cords
were drawn down and attached to a horizontal pole, from which the car
and motor were suspended, and at the end of which was a triangular
sail serving as a rudder. To guard against fire, the furnace of the
vertical coke-burning boiler was shielded by wire gauze, like a miner’s
lamp, and the draft, taken from its top through a downward pointing
smoke pipe, was ejected below the car by force of exhaust steam, from
the engine, thus obviating, as Giffard asserted, all danger from the
use of fire near an inflammable gas. The car hung twenty feet below
the suspension pole, and carried a three horse-power engine driving a
three-blade propeller 11 feet in diameter, making 110 turns a minute.
The motor complete, including the engine and boiler without supplies,
weighed 110 pounds per horse power. The bag measured 143 feet long, 39
feet in diameter, and 75,000 cubic feet in volume. Giffard reports of
his first voyage, made from the Hippodrome in Paris at five fifteen
o’clock, September 23, 1852, that although he could not sail directly
against the strong wind then blowing, he could attain a speed of six
to ten feet per second relatively to the air, and he could easily
guide the vessel by turning her rudder. He continued his journey till
nightfall, then made a good landing, near Trappes, and by ten o’clock
was back in Paris.
This vessel was but a prelude to mightier projects. After some further
experience with dirigibles of moderate size, Giffard designed a
colossal air ship calculated for a speed of forty-four miles an hour.
Its hull was to be of torpedo shape, measuring 2,000 feet in length,
100 feet in diameter, and 7,000,000 cubic feet in volume. It was a
most audacious project, one worthy of the genius and energy of that
illustrious engineer, the most original and daring inventor known in
the aëronautical world during the nineteenth century.
Stimulated by this huge enterprise, Giffard’s first step was to pay his
debts and make a fortune. He soon acquired a hundred thousand francs
from the sale of small high-speed engines of his own construction, and
with this, settled his account with David and Sciama. Next he realized
several million francs from his world-famous injector, a device by
which steam flowing from a boiler is made to drive in feed-water
against the same pressure.
He now made definite plans to build a motor balloon of one and a half
million cubic feet capacity, driven by a condensing engine drawing
steam from two boilers, one fired with oil, the other with gas from
the balloon, so as to keep the vessel from rising with loss of weight.
His designs were complete, and everything was provided for. He had
deposited a million francs in the Bank of Paris to defray the estimated
cost. But, in the words of Tissandier,[10] “above the human will and
foresight are the fatal laws of destiny to which the strongest must
submit.” The great inventor was visited with a painful affliction
of the eyes; his sight waned, unfitting him for work; he became
disconsolate, pined away with pain and grief, and in 1882 ended his
life by taking chloroform.
Giffard was succeeded in France, first by Dupuy de Lome; then by
Gaston Tissandier, well-meaning projectors of steerable balloons, but
too cautious to effect an important advance in the art. The first of
these gentlemen, an eminent marine engineer, in 1872, completed a gas
balloon for the French government, resembling the one designed by
General Meusnier in 1784, and like that also driven by muscular power
actuating a screw, and kept rigidly inflated by use of an internal
balloon, or ballonet. The car was suspended from the bag by a close
fitting cover instead of a net, in order to lessen the resistance, and
it was kept in alignment by use of crossed suspension cords. A speed
of but six miles an hour was attained by the industrious work of eight
men operating an ample screw propeller. A decade later Tissandier, with
a balloon of like design, but driven by the power of an electric motor
and bichromate of potash battery, attained a speed of six to eight
miles an hour.
[Illustration: FIG. 19.—DUPUY DE LOME’S DIRIGIBLE, 1872.]
The two vessels were safe but of no practical value, for lack of
sufficient power to cope with the wind. Their motors were fundamentally
unadapted to the purpose of swift propulsion, and incapable of
development to very great lightness and strength. Furthermore, the
vessels themselves were unsuitably designed for speed; their shape
being one of too much resistance, and their dynamic balance being
that of a pendulum, or clumsy parachute, rather than that of a vessel
adapted to cleave the air with celerity, grace and steadiness. If there
had been danger of fire from placing the motor and screw near the gas
bag, that might justify or excuse the clumsiness of design in the craft
of De Lome and of Gaston Tissandier; but, having perfectly safe motors,
it is astonishing that they did not place the center of mass and the
line of thrust more nearly in the line of resistance. This obvious
requirement was duly recognized by several of their contemporaries,
notably by Hänlein in Germany, and by Captain Renard of the French War
Department, and had been observed by Jullien.
Captain Charles Renard proved to be a worthy inheritor of the dreams,
experience and inventions of the first century of aëronautical
votaries. He did not, indeed, have the picturesque madness displayed
by some of his predecessors; he did not project schemes of marvelous
originality or boldness; but he manifested uncommonly good judgment
and excellent scientific method in combining the researches and
contrivances of others with those of himself and his collaborator,
Captain Krebs. As a consequence they produced the first man-carrying
dirigible that ever returned against the wind to its starting point,
and the first aërial vessel whose shape and dynamic adjustment even
approximated the requirements of steady and swift navigation in a
surrounding medium presenting various conditions of turbulence or calm.
Captain Renard had been studying and designing dirigibles since 1878
in coöperation with Captain La Haye and Colonel Laussedat, president
of an aëronautic commission appointed by the Minister of War; and had
endeavored to secure from the latter an appropriation sufficient to
construct a dirigible; but his request was at first denied, owing
to the waste of funds on similar projects in 1870. However, with the
help of Gambetta, who promised a sum of $40,000, Renard was enabled to
proceed. In the meantime he had been made director of the laboratory at
Chalais Meudon, seconded by Captain Krebs.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.—RENARD’S DIRIGIBLE, _La France_, 1884.]
These officers first worked out the separate elements in the design of
their motor balloon before proceeding to build on a practical scale.
They chose the torpedo form for their gas bag, thereby ensuring in
the hull itself, projectile stability, and diminution of resistance.
They placed the car near the envelope, thus minimizing the disturbing
moment of the screw thrust, and the resistance of the suspension cords.
They employed an extraordinarily powerful electric motor actuating a
large screw so as to obtain a strong thrust with the least effort.
In addition they adopted the best ideas of their predecessors in
aëronautical design; the internal ballonet of Meusnier, and the
close fitting cover of De Lome, with crossed suspension cords. But
unfortunately they used an electric motor instead of some light engine.
Finally, having carefully computed its requisite dimensions, they
proceeded to construct the elegant air ship, _La France_, which was
tested in 1884 and aroused anew the hope of ultimately conquering the
air.
Further details of this successful ship are of interest. Its hull
was 165 feet long, 27.5 feet in greatest diameter, at one fourth the
distance from its front end, and cubed 66,000 feet, thus having a
buoyancy of two long tons. It was kept rigid under varying conditions,
by means of a ballonet filled with air driven in by a common fan blower
coupled to the motor. Beneath the envelope, a long narrow rectangular
car made of bamboo, covered with silk, was suspended from the cords
of the balloon cover which embraced the hull throughout nearly its
entire length. The car was 108 feet long and 6 to 7 feet across,
carried at its forward end the propeller, at its rear a rectangular
rudder, and between them the aëronauts and the batteries and electric
motor. A sliding weight was used to alter the poise of the ship, and a
guide-rope to soften its descent.
The electric motor and battery which furnished the propulsive power
were designed expressly for such use, and were considered at the time
to be remarkably light and effective. The motor, which was designed
with the assistance of M. Gramme, weighed 220.5 pounds, and developed
nine horse power. The battery, composed of chlorochromic cells, was the
result of the researches of Renard himself. Having made a careful study
of the best geometrical arrangement of the parts of the cell, Renard
found that this battery would deliver to the shaft one horse power for
each eighty-eight pounds of its weight. Thus the power plant rivaled
in lightness the steam engine of Giffard, and at the same time was free
from danger; but apparently it could not be much reduced in weight,
whereas Giffard’s steam-power plant could be reduced tenfold, as shown
by Renard’s contemporaries.
The trials of _La France_ in 1884-85 were most successful and
encouraging; not that they represented or pointed to the complete
mastery of aërial navigation, but because they so far surpassed all
previous achievements. The vessel moved through the air as steadily as
a boat on the water, and obeyed her rudder perfectly, heading against
the wind, or at any angle to it, or turning entirely about, at the will
of the aëronauts. On her first voyage from Chalais, August 9, 1884, she
traversed a distance of four and one half miles in twenty minutes, made
various evolutions in the air with the greatest ease, and returned to
her point of departure. The following account of this voyage is given
by Renard:
“As soon as we had reached the top of the wooded plateaus which
surround the valley of Chalais, we started the screw, and had
the satisfaction of seeing the balloon immediately obey it and
readily follow every turn of the rudder. We felt that we were
absolutely masters of our own movements, and that we could
traverse the atmosphere in any direction as easily as a steam
launch could make its evolutions on a calm lake. After having
accomplished our purpose, we turned our head toward the point
of departure and we soon saw it approaching it. The walls of
the park of Chalais were passed anew, and our landing appeared
at our feet, about 1,000 feet below the car. The screw was
then slowed down, and a pull at the safety-valve started the
descent, during which, by means of the propeller and rudder,
the balloon was maintained directly over the point where our
assistants awaited us. Everything occurred according to our
plan, and the car was soon resting quietly on the lawn.”
Six other similar voyages were made within the two years following,
and we have as a result, that in five out of the seven trials, the
balloon returned to its point of departure. Its failure to return in
the other two trials was due, in the one case, to the breaking down of
the motor; in the other, to the resistance of a strong wind which made
it necessary to land at a distance from the starting point. The last of
these remarkable voyages was performed in presence of the Minister of
War, on September 23, 1885. The balloon started from Calais and sailed
against the wind directly to Paris, passed over the fortifications,
described a graceful curve and returned to its place of departure,
recording an average speed of 14.5 miles an hour.
The torpedo form of hull, chosen by Renard and Krebs, has two important
advantages; one is projectile stability, the other is economy of
propulsive power. Owing to the blunt bow and long tapering stern, the
center of mass is well forward, while the center of side wind pressure
is more to the rear. As a consequence, if the vessel should encounter a
quartering wind-gust, or have her nose slightly turned from the course,
she would promptly right herself like a dart or an arrow. If on the
contrary, the hull were a symmetrical spindle, the vessel would move
forward in unstable equilibrium, and, once slightly diverted from her
course, would tend to deviate further, like an arrow with unloaded head.
The second advantage mentioned is also worth attention, viz.: that at
ordinary transportation speeds a longish spindle has less resistance
with a blunt bow than with a very sharp one. Renard and Krebs did
not account for this fact; but the present writer, by determining
separately the skin friction and the impactual resistance of the air,
proved that in sharpening the bow beyond a certain best form, its
friction increases faster than its head resistance diminishes, the
most suitable shape being that of a torpedo whose nose has a radius
of curvature of about two diameters, and its stern a radius of about
twelve diameters.
While the successors of Giffard in France were thus engaged in
developing dirigibles driven by muscular or electric power, a few
German experimenters were applying gas and benzine engines to such
vessels, with better promise of ultimate practical success and
usefulness. The first of these was Hänlein, who in 1872 advanced the
meritorious project of driving a well shaped balloon by means of a gas
engine taking its fuel from inside the balloon, and making good the
loss by pumping air into the ballonet. This balloon was of far better
design for swiftness and kinetic stability than the contemporary one of
Dupuy de Lome. Its hull was a well pointed cylinder 164 feet long, 30
feet in diameter and of 85,000 cubic feet capacity, made air-tight by
a thick coating of rubber inside, and a thin one outside. The car was
rigidly suspended near the envelope and carried a 6 horse-power Lenoir
gas engine actuating a large screw. Notwithstanding that the buoyancy
was small, owing to the use of coal gas, this air ship attained a speed
of 15 feet per second. By employing hydrogen, a much larger engine
could have been carried, entailing a much swifter speed. During its
trial the balloon was kept near the earth’s surface, held loosely by
ropes in the hands of soldiers. The air ship was remarkably successful
for that early date, and had the potency of greater achievement
than its contemporaries in France; but owing to lack of funds its
capabilities were not fully developed. If it had been inflated with
hydrogen, and propelled by use of gas and petrol, so that the loss
of weight would compensate for the loss of buoyancy, it might have
anticipated the speed and endurance of the best air ships built toward
the close of the nineteenth century, or later.
PLATE II.
[Illustration: HAENLEIN’S GAS-DRIVEN DIRIGIBLE.]
[Illustration: WÖLFERT’S BENZINE-DRIVEN DIRIGIBLE.]
[Illustration: SANTOS-DUMONT’S DIRIGIBLE, _NO. 16_.
_Photo E. Levick, N. Y._ ]
In 1879, Baumgarten and Wölfert in Germany built a dirigible equipped
with a Daimler benzine motor, but otherwise not possessing any special
merit. An ascension was made at Leipsic in 1880, but owing to improper
load distribution the vessel reared on end and crashed to earth. After
further experiments, an ascension was made on the Templehofer field,
near Berlin, in 1897, but this ended disastrously; for the benzine
vapor ignited; the fire spread to the balloon, and the vessel fell
flaming to the earth, killing Wölfert and his assistant. Baumgarten had
died some years before.
In 1897, an aluminum air ship invented by an Austrian engineer, named
Schwartz, was launched on the Templehofer field. Its hull was of
cylindrical form with conical ends, made of sheets 0.008 thick, and
stiffened with an internal frame of aluminum tubes. Being leaky and
inadequately driven, it voyaged but four miles, drifting with the wind,
then fell to earth with considerable shock. The pilot, a soldier of the
Balloon Corps, escaped by jumping, before the vessel struck ground, but
the frail unbending hull was soon demolished by the buffeting of the
winds as it lay stranded on the unyielding earth. This was the second
air ship built after the plans of poor Schwartz, the first having
collapsed on inflation. He had, however, the credit of being the first
to drive a rigid air ship with a petrol motor, and thus to inaugurate
a system of aërial navigation capable of immense development, in
the hands of sufficient capital and constructive skill. Thus the
rigid type, conceived and crudely tried by Marey Monge and Dupuis
Delcourt in the early part of the century, began to approach practical
realization toward the end of the century.
The process of inflating with hydrogen such a rigid hull is
interesting. Schwartz’s plan, carried out by Captain Von Sigsfeld,
was to place the hydrogen in one or more sacs inside the hull, thus
expelling the air and filling the space, then withdrawing the sacs and
leaving the hydrogen within. A better plan is to have a single sac
inflated with air just filling the hull like the lining of an egg, then
to force the gas between the lining and metal wall of the hull, thus
expelling the air from the sac, which when completely collapsed can be
removed. Practically the same result can be obtained by use of a thin
fabric covering one half the inner wall, like the lining of an egg.
Further provision can easily be made for manipulating the ballonet in
such a case.
CHAPTER IV
INTRODUCTION OF GASOLINE-DRIVEN DIRIGIBLES
We have now traced the art of balloon guidance and propulsion from its
earliest inception to the close of the nineteenth century. It was a
period of extravagant hope and chimerical scheming, but withal a period
fruitful in devices of fundamental value. The best experiments paid no
dividends, but they prepared the way for really useful vessels. The
methods of manipulation and control had been sufficiently developed
to answer immediate needs. The air ship was at least dirigible, if
not practical. It kept its shape, obeyed its rudder, rose and fell
according to the operator’s will. It was, however, a fair-weather
machine, beautiful in appearance, but helpless in any considerable
wind. Speed was now the desideratum, and the attainment of this
involved new difficulties. The storm-proof balloon was still a dream.
Naturally one inquires what velocity makes a dirigible air ship really
practical, assuming all other requirements satisfied. The minimum
allowable speed depends largely upon the locality and season. On Long
Island an assured velocity of forty to fifty miles an hour would
seem desirable; for there the winds are swift and the water near. In
Washington, or Berlin, thirty miles an hour is enough, though each
additional mile per hour must be regarded as a considerable gain on
a small margin of progress in facing a stiff breeze. Colonel Renard
has estimated, from a study of the wind records near Paris, that a
dirigible is practically useful in that locality if it can maintain a
speed of twenty-eight miles an hour for ten or twelve hours; since in
that case it can maneuver 81 days in 100.
Renard’s own graceful ship attained a speed of but half that much. In
order, therefore, to give his vessel the desired usefulness its speed
must be doubled. This would require an eightfold[11] increase of motive
power without increase of weight. Evidently then the cardinal requisite
was a light durable motor of extraordinary output. Such motors
fortunately were now coming into the market, owing to the development
of gasoline engines for automobile racing.
The year 1898 witnessed the commencement of two famous systems of
navigation by the lighter than air, one in France, the other in
Germany, destined quickly to revolutionize the art, and to establish
it on a practical basis. The leading exponents of these two systems
were Señor Don Alberto Santos-Dumont, a rich young Brazilian living in
Paris, and Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, Germany’s stanch old admiral
of the air. Both achieved success by applying the gasoline engine to
the propulsion of elongated balloons, but by very different methods.
Santos-Dumont, apparently ignoring, or fearing to adopt, the excellent
hull and car designed and used by Renard, began where Tissandier left
off, with a symmetrical hull and low-hung car, thus producing a safe
aërial pendulum, if not a racing machine; then by degrees he gradually
felt his way to something more efficient. Zeppelin began with a long
cylindrical hull pointed at the ends, rigidly framed like that of
Schwartz, and supporting its car and propellers well aloft near the
line of resistance. His was a bold and effective design but difficult
to execute. Santos-Dumont scored the first success, and startled the
world by his spectacular flights; but ere long he was surpassed by
other builders of non-rigid balloons. Zeppelin won his success slowly
and by heroic perseverance in the face of enormous obstacles, finally
emerging as the most successful and illustrious figure in the history
of aëronautics. The achievements of these two pioneers and colleagues
make the first decade of the twentieth century memorable in the annals
of aërial navigation.
Santos-Dumont, who spent his early years on his father’s large coffee
plantation in Brazil, had, during boyhood, dreamed of navigating the
air, and in 1897, at the age of twenty-four, made in France his first
ascension in a spherical balloon. While living at Paris during that
year he gave much time to motorcycling, automobiling and operating
spherical balloons, of which he possessed two constructed after his own
ideas; one, the smallest in the world, designed for solitary voyages,
the other large enough for more than one person, intended for social
excursions. Thus by way of amusement, and probably by impulse rather
than deliberate purpose, he was equipping himself to become both the
designer and the pilot of his future dirigibles.
Having acquired experience and skill in operating both balloons and
engines, the young enthusiast set about realizing his boyhood dream
of navigating the air independently of the course of the wind. His
first dirigible was designed to carry his weight of 110 pounds and a
3½ horse-power petroleum engine taken from his tricycle, and reduced
in weight to 66 pounds. The hull was a cylinder of varnished Japanese
silk, 82½ feet long including its pointed ends, 11½ feet in diameter
and 6,354 cubic feet in gas capacity. A ballonet, or air pocket,
occupied the lower middle of the envelope. The basket for the little
pilot, engine, and two-blade propeller was suspended far below the
hull, to which its cords were attached by means of small wooden rods
inserted into hems along each side of the envelope, for a great part of
its length. The poise of the vessel was controlled by shifting weights
fore and aft, while the turning right and left was effected by means
of a silk rudder stretched over a steel frame. On the whole it was a
crude and primitive affair, but of considerable interest as the first
dirigible of a young man destined to give a strong impulse to the
development of motor balloons of the non-rigid type.
After some preliminary tests, the little air ship and pilot soared away
from the Zoölogical Garden in Paris, on September 20, 1898, rising in
the face of a gentle wind, to the wonder and delight of a large crowd
of witnesses, some of them professional aëronauts and very skeptical
as to the outcome of this venturesome experiment. The ship maneuvered
round and round overhead of the applauding throng, steering readily in
all directions. Then the green navigator ascended a quarter of a mile
and merrily continued his evolutions in the direction of the Longchamps
race course. But when he wished to descend he observed the envelope
contracting in volume, and was appalled to find that he could not
pump air into the ballonet fast enough to keep the hull distended. It
became swaybacked, and “all at once began to fold in the middle like a
pocket-knife; the tension cords became unequal and the balloon envelope
was on the point of being torn by them.” As he was falling swiftly
toward the grassy turf at Bagatelle, he called to some boys who were
flying kites, to grasp his guide-rope and run against the wind. They
understood and ran so swiftly with the canted balloon that it played
kite, and descended with a moderated fall, landing the frightened
aëronaut safely on the turf.
Except for the doubling of his long balloon, Santos-Dumont’s first
voyage was satisfactory, and he returned to Paris elated. He had found
it easy to steer in all directions. He could change his level hundreds
of feet without discharge of gas or ballast, by merely canting his
balloon, and allowing it to run obliquely up or down grade. He had
stemmed the wind and gone whither he pleased, at such speed as to make
his clothes flutter. And best of all he had found no danger in using a
gasoline motor near an inflammable gas bag. The mere buckling of the
long bag was a trifle, to be remedied by using an air pump adequate to
maintain the flabby thing well inflated. He felt, therefore, that he
had the conquest of the air well in hand, and that he was drifting into
air ship construction as a life work. Small wonder that he continued
his conquests till he had built, in less than one decade, fourteen
motor balloons.
_Santos-Dumont No. 2_ was closely patterned after its predecessor,
but was a little larger and carried a rotary fan worked by the motor,
to keep the balloon plump by filling the air pocket, or ballonet. On
May 11, 1899, an ascension was made from the old starting place, but
in rainy weather. As the vessel rose its hull contracted faster than
air could be pumped into the ballonet, the long bag doubled worse than
before, and dropped into the trees with its chagrined but fearless
rider.
The _No. 3_, which followed, was a short, thick vessel, 66 feet long
by 25 feet in diameter, having in outward appearance the features of
Dupuy de Lome’s very stable and very slow dirigible. It was apparently
a safety ship for a scared young man who had not yet learned fully to
appreciate Renard’s elegant design. It served for a few pleasant trips,
while the inventor was screwing up courage to build another cylindrical
vessel, and gradually realizing the advantage of an elongated car such
as Renard had employed in _La France_. Not only was the hull short
and thick, but it was further secured from buckling by a horizontal
stiffening pole placed between it and the basket, and from which the
latter was hung. After some voyages in _No. 3_, which the captain found
very tractable, and probably capable of fifteen miles per hour, he was
ready to begin a new vessel.
The _No. 4_ was a compromise between the better features of _No. 3_
and its predecessors. The elongated hull and ballonet were resumed,
and the stiffening pole was elaborated into a longish car resembling
Renard’s, but of triangular cross section. On this long trussed frame
were placed the motor, propeller, rudder and the rider in his basket.
A seven horse-power engine turning, at one hundred revolutions per
minute, a screw propeller having two blades, each 13 feet across, gave
a thrust of 66 pounds. Frequent trials of the ship during the summer
of 1900, in presence of the Exposition crowds, brought the inventor
into extraordinary prominence, and secured for him the “Encouragement
Prize” of the Paris Aëro Club, consisting of the yearly interest on
one hundred thousand francs, this being one of M. Deutsch’s numerous
foundations for the promotion of aëronautics.
In the spring of 1900, M. Deutsch de la Meurthe had established another
prize which Santos-Dumont now greatly coveted, and hoped ere long to
win. This was a cash sum of one hundred thousand francs to be awarded
by the Scientific Commission of the Aëro Club of France to the first
dirigible that, between May 1 and October 1, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903,
1904, should voyage from Saint Cloud to and around the Eiffel tower,
and return within half an hour. The distance to the tower and back,
not counting the turn, was nearly seven miles, and the estimated speed
required to fulfill the conditions for winning the prize, even in calm
weather, was 15½ miles per hour.
As Santos-Dumont thought his _No. 4_ scarcely swift enough to win
the Deutsch prize, he enlarged it by inserting an additional length
of sixteen feet at its middle, supplied it with a stronger car, and
applied a larger engine, naming the new vessel so formed, his _No.
5_. Its hull was 109 feet long, 17 feet in largest diameter and cubed
nearly 20,000 feet. A four cylinder air-cooled petroleum motor driving
a screw propeller having two blades, each 13 feet across, gave a thrust
of 120 pounds, at 140 revolutions per minute, and produced such draft
as to give the inventor pneumonia. Among other novelties water ballast
was used, and piano wires replaced the old-time suspension cords.
The _No. 5_ proved so powerful and swift that on July 13, 1901,
Santos-Dumont attempted to win the Deutsch prize. Starting from the
Aëro Club grounds at Saint-Cloud in presence of official witnesses,
at half past six in the morning, when the air is usually stillest,
he turned the Eiffel Tower in the tenth minute, thus gaining twenty
minutes for the home stretch. But on his return he encountered an
unexpected head wind, and after a terrific struggle reached the
timekeepers at Saint-Cloud in the fortieth minute.
To add to the romance of this voyage, the genii of the upper elements
stopped his motor, shortly after his return, and the bold sailor in his
shining ship landed in a stately chestnut tree very near the house
of the Princess Isabel, daughter of Dom Pedro. She very thoughtfully
arranged a breakfast for him and sent it up in a basket, where he was
at work disengaging the balloon, at the same time inviting him to call
and relate to her the story of his voyage. A few days later she sent
him a medal of St. Benedict “that protects against accidents.” He wore
the medal, and on his very next trial escaped without a scratch from an
appalling accident which might have terminated fatally. He continued to
wear the gift of that gracious princess, on a thin gold chain circling
his wrist, and many a time thereafter endured unscathed the most
dreadful accidents, as if he possessed a charmed life.
On August 8, 1901, the dauntless aëronaut again sailed for the coveted
prize, at the same still morning hour, sacred to duels and aërial
contests. In nine minutes he turned the tower and headed bravely for
home. But soon a leaky valve let the balloon shrink and the wires
sag into the whirring propeller, which therefore had to be stopped.
Santos-Dumont now had the choice of drifting back against the tower
and destroying his vessel high in air, or of descending at once, by
allowing the balloon to sink without discharge of ballast. He chose
the latter course, hoping to land on the Seine embankment; but instead
his balloon struck the top of the Trocadero hotel, exploded and fell
in fluttering shreds into the courtyard. Some firemen who had been
watching the flight from a distance, came with a rope and found
the long car leaning like a ladder against the wall of the court,
the balloon shreds hanging from it in graceful folds, and Captain
Santos-Dumont perched aloft in his wicker basket wearily waiting for
St. Benedict’s further aid. As usual, he was rescued intact.
On the evening of his fall on the roof of the hotel Santos-Dumont
issued specifications for his famous _No. 6_, which surpassed
all its predecessors in safety and speed. It had the shape of an
elongated ellipsoid with pointed ends, measured 110 feet in length,
20 feet in major diameter, 22,239 cubic feet in volume, and had an
absolute ascensional force of 1,518 pounds. It was driven by a twelve
horse-power four-cylinder water-cooled engine which gave the propeller
a thrust of 145 pounds. To insure against buckling of the gas bag, an
air pump connected with the motor, kept the ballonet under constant
pressure, regulated by an escape valve through which the excess of
air passed outward. To secure the envelope against rupture, due to
the expansion of the hydrogen at unusual elevations, a stronger valve
was used to let the gas escape from the envelope into the atmosphere.
Thus the air escape valve kept the pressure constant in the partially
distended ballonet, and consequently also in the surrounding gas
envelope itself; while the stronger gas valve in the envelope opened
only in an emergency, when the gas pressure had fully collapsed the
internal air pocket and was threatening to explode the envelope. With
all its improvements this new vessel was finished and inflated by
August 4, being a work of twenty-two days, and after some preliminary
trials was ready to try for the Deutsch prize.
The day of triumph followed quickly. On October 19, 1901, at 2.45
P.M., Santos-Dumont again headed for the Eiffel Tower in presence of
the official witnesses. In spite of a wind of six meters per second
striking him sidewise, he held his course straight for the goal, and
turned it in the ninth minute, as in his preceding attempt. On the
return he had to struggle against a quartering wind and the caprice
of his motor, which sometimes threatened to stop, and again spurted
so actively as to turn the ship upward at a steep angle. The mighty
throng below, in the Auteuil race track and the Bois de Boulogne, sent
up immense applause, then suddenly held its breath in alarm, as the
vessel pitched violently. But the hardy little rider was self-possessed
and at home on his vaulting Pegasus. Alert to every prank he held his
course straight for the timekeepers and passed over their heads at
exactly twenty-nine and one-half minutes after starting.
His unmercenary disposal of the two rich awards which he had won seemed
no less commendable than the dauntless industry which achieved such
rapid success. The Deutsch prize amounting in all to one hundred and
twenty-five thousand francs he divided into two unequal parts. The
greater sum of seventy-five thousand francs he gave to the prefect
of police of Paris, to be used for the deserving poor; the remainder
he distributed among his employés. The Encouragement Prize of four
thousand francs a year, mentioned before, he also declined to retain,
but instead he founded with the money a new prize at the disposal of
the Aëro Club. As a second reward for his triumphal voyage around the
Eiffel Tower, he received from the Brazilian government one hundred
and twenty-five thousand francs and a beautiful gold medal bearing
appropriate and very complimentary inscriptions.
Now that the stimulus and excitement of striving for the Deutsch prize
was over, the ardent inventor was free to develop and test his air
ships in a deliberate and scientific manner. He therefore set about
building specialized types of motor balloons, and practicing with them
over all kinds of territory, smooth and rough. Within the next six
years he constructed eight more air ships making altogether fourteen,
besides his various free balloons, to say nothing of the aëroplanes and
hydroplanes which he found time to develop. But before indulging in
these new luxuries he would have more experience with his _No. 6_.
When the cold weather set in, following his victorious flight about
the Eiffel Tower, Santos-Dumont went with his _No. 6_ to Monaco, to
practice air cruising over the Mediterranean. The Prince of Monaco
had erected for him an “aërodrome,” or balloon shed, facing the sea
and very near shore. On pleasant days the daring pilot would cruise
up and down the bay, not far from shore, trailing his guide-rope over
the waves with the greatest ease, and to the applause of thousands of
spectators. But on February 14, 1902, he set forth on a pleasure cruise
over the bay with insufficient gas pressure, and thus came to grief.
The bag grew flabby; the hydrogen poured to its higher end; the vessel
reared up so steeply that the propeller had to be stopped to avoid
its cutting the envelope. Rather than drift at the mercy of the wind,
the pilot opened the valve and sank slowly to the water where he was
rescued by a boat. On the following day the parts of his _No. 6_ were
fished out of the sea and sent back to Paris. His few days’ practice
had taught him the delights of guide-roping over the waters, and his
accident induced him in future to sew unvarnished silk partitions
across his balloons, to prevent the hydrogen passing too suddenly from
one end to the other.
Returning to Paris he built for himself an “aërodrome,” provided
with great sliding doors like the one at Monaco, and equipped with a
hydrogen plant, constructive appliances, and everything needed for
the rapid rebuilding or repair of air ships. It stood in a vacant lot
surrounded by a high stone wall and was made of posts covered with red
and white canvas, so that it looked like a great striped tent. Inside,
the central stalls were 31 feet wide, 165 feet long, and 44½ feet
high,[12] the whole enclosure having accommodation for seven dirigibles
all inflated and ready for instant service. When completed, in the
spring of 1903, it was at once used to harbor three new air ships.
These were the _No. 7_, designed for racing contests; the _No. 9_,
called the Runabout, a minim air ship used for calls and short pleasure
trips; and the _No. 10_, called the Omnibus, intended for several
persons, with ample supplies for a considerable journey.
The _No. 7_, which excelled its predecessors in length and bulk, was
intended greatly to outstrip the best of them in velocity. The first
air ship had attained fourteen miles per hour, the _No. 6_, nearly
twenty miles an hour in winning the Deutsch prize, and over twenty
miles per hour on subsequent occasions, though provided with a motor
rated at only 12 horse power. The new vessel which had little greater
resistance than _No. 6_, was to carry four times the internal pressure,
or about 12 centimeters of water, and to be propelled by an engine of
60 horse power. The inventor expected therefore to attain a speed of
between forty and fifty miles per hour. A very lofty expectation for
that day, and one still unrealized for many years.
The racing air ship, or _No. 7_, was of cigar form, supporting a long
car beneath, and generally resembling the _No. 6_, but slightly more
tapering. Her length was six times her major diameter, and her volume
45,000 cubic feet. The envelope was made of two layers of the strongest
French silk, four times varnished, and was built exceptionally thick
at the stern, where the differential outward pressure is greatest in
flight. The propulsion was effected by a 60 horse-power water-cooled
four-cylinder Clément engine actuating two screw propellers 16½ feet
in diameter, one in front the other at the rear of the car. The poise
and maneuvering were to be controlled in the usual way, by means of the
rudder and shifting weight. The inventor seemed not to realize that
the bow of his vessel was too sharp to cleave the air with minimum
resistance, though his predecessor, Jullien, in 1850, had discovered
experimentally that a torpedo form is better for speed than the
symmetrical spindle form used by Santos-Dumont in his racing vessel. He
did, however, in time, learn that the torpedo form of hull is better
for stability of forward motion, and hence adopted that form in his
little _Runabout_.
The _No. 9_ was a thick torpedo-shaped air ship originally cubing only
7,770 feet, though later enlarged to 9,218 feet. It was so thick as
to appear nearly egg-shaped. In order to make it respond promptly to
the rudder Santos-Dumont drove it through the air blunt end foremost,
but with apparent regrets, thinking that it would cleave the air
more easily than sharp end foremost. In this he was mistaken; for
the writer has shown that a body of such shape encounters much more
resistance—roughly one hundred per cent more—when driven sharp end
foremost than when driven blunt end forward. This fact furnishes one
reason why most whales and swift fishes have blunt bows and long
tapering sterns. However this be, the practical man felt his way to
success, whether right or wrong in his theory of resistance. When
actuated by a three horse-power Clément motor, weighing 26½ pounds, the
little air ship carried its jaunty pilot twelve to fifteen miles an
hour on many a merry trip about Paris and its environs.
The _No. 10_, or _Omnibus_, was a well shaped vessel of nearly eighty
thousand cubic feet capacity, and amply provided with steering
devices. Its hull tapered slightly from front to rear, terminating
in projectile-shaped ends, and had a length of nearly six times its
major diameter. Underneath was suspended a long car provided with
aëroplane surfaces, in addition to the usual rudder, for controlling
its movements.
Its arrow-like appearance was suggestive of some of the greatest German
balloons of the decade. Indeed, the _Omnibus_, if well powered, might
have proved a very swift vessel, in addition to a powerful carrier.
But she was designed merely for easy going passenger service, for the
purpose of popularizing aëronautics and stimulating its growth.
Santos-Dumont now had three typical air ships, a spacious and well
equipped “aërodrome,” and ample facilities for advancing the science
of motor balloons on a moderate scale. He could not, however, maintain
the ascendency in this branch of science in France; for he encountered
the rivalry of great wealth employing highly trained engineering and
constructive talent. He could, however, still promote the art as a
pioneer and a popularizer. This he continued to do. With his little
_Runabout_ he would one day guide-rope along the boulevard, another
day take up a little boy, another day send up a beautiful young lady
to navigate the air alone for a short distance, another day voyage
over the military parade grounds and with his revolver fire a salute
of twenty-one shots to the President of France, and give exhibitions
to arouse the interest of the War Department. But he could not keep
pace with the new giants in aëronautics, and he did not attempt
it. Nor did he ever build a vessel of sufficient power, speed and
durability to be purchased by the French nation. That honor went to his
opulent contemporaries who had not failed to take cognizance of his
contributions to the aërial art.
CHAPTER V
PRACTICAL DEVELOPMENT OF NON-RIGID DIRIGIBLES
In 1899 the Lebaudy brothers, wealthy sugar refiners in Paris,
commissioned their able engineer, Julliot, to make investigations
and develop plans for a large and swift air ship. This he did with
the assistance of Surcouf, a well-known manufacturer of balloons at
Billancourt, Paris. Emulating the example of Santos-Dumont and certain
German aëronauts in making their plan, they adopted the light petroleum
engine for motive power, but experimented on a larger scale, thus
creating a new era in military aëronautics in France. Their first
vessel was the _Jaune_ whose bag was built at Surcouf’s place, and
its mechanical part at the Lebaudy Sugar Refinery. When launched,
in 1902, it so pleased the owners that they determined to continue
the experiments on a larger scale. Their second air ship, called the
_Lebaudy_, after fulfilling various tests, was accepted by the French
government and formed the beginning of its modern aërial fleet.
Moisson, near Paris, where the balloons were kept, now became quite an
aëronautical center. Here, under military supervision and the skillful
management of the aëronaut Juchmes, other dirigibles were built in
rapid succession. Of these the _Patrie_ was launched in 1906, and the
_République_ in 1908, both fine swift vessels capable of voyaging many
hours and carrying many passengers. The Lebaudy vessels were the first
air ships of the “semi-rigid type,” in which the long and flexible
envelope, or hull, is provided with a rigid keel or floor, from which
the car is suspended with its machinery and passengers. They are,
therefore, of unusual interest both for their scientific design and for
the stimulus they imparted to the growth of aërial fleets. For this
reason they may well be studied in some detail.
The first Lebaudy air ship, called the _Yellow_, because of its color,
had an envelope constructed of a rubber-treated cotton fabric, made in
Hanover and covered with a yellow coating of lead chromate, to ward off
the sun’s actinic rays from the rubber, and thus prevent deterioration.
Her hull, which was cigar shaped and inflated with hydrogen, measured
183 feet in length, 32 feet in diameter, and 80,000 cubic feet in
volume. She was propelled by a 40-horse-power Daimler motor actuating
twin screws, and attained a maximum speed of twenty-six miles an hour.
During her first year’s service she made many ascensions, returning to
her starting point twenty-eight times out of twenty-nine. Her longest
voyage, made at Moisson, June 24, 1904, was sixty-two miles in two
hours and three quarters, with an average speed of twenty-two miles
an hours. But in November, 1902, while landing in a high wind at the
end of her voyage from Paris to Chalais-Meudon, she was wrecked by
colliding with a tree. Her motor, however, was uninjured, and a new
envelope was at once prepared.
The second vessel, called the _Lebaudy_, and brought out in 1904,
though resembling her predecessor, had a number of improvements in
detail. Her hull was somewhat larger than the _Jaune_, and no longer
pointed at the stern, but rounded off to an ellipsoidal shape, and
provided, like the rear of an arrow, with guiding, or steadying planes.
It measured 190 feet in length and 94,000 cubic feet in volume. It
was provided with two windows for internal inspection, and had an air
bag of 17,650 cubic feet, divided into three parts. This air bag was
inflated by a rotary fan near the main body, driven by the motor during
flight, and by a storage battery when at rest. Suitable horizontal
and vertical sails were used to steady and guide the vessel; also a
guide-rope and anchor were carried. The car, suspended by steel ropes,
ten feet below the hull, carried the passengers and supplies; also
the motor actuating twin propellers, one on either side. At night an
abundance of light was available, each passenger carrying a small lamp
fastened to his clothes, the car itself bearing a powerful acetylene
projector in its front, and two other lamps of 100 candle power each,
to illumine the vessel. It was an elaborate affair, costing fifty to
sixty thousand dollars, and was the outcome of experiments costing ten
times that sum.
PLATE III.
[Illustration: THE _LEBAUDY_.
_Photo E. Levick, N. Y._]
[Illustration: _LA PATRIE._
(Courtesy E. L. Jones.)]
[Illustration: LEBAUDY’S _MORNING POST_.]
The _Lebaudy_, with these various improvements, gave much satisfaction
to her owners, and received favorable recognition from the French War
Department. During the thirty ascensions and voyages of her first
year’s service, she proved herself a swift vessel, easy to control,
very stable, and safe to land on solid ground. The Minister of War,
who had followed her developments with much interest, appointed a
commission to test her value for military service, with a view to her
adoption by the government. The test required that the balloon remain
in active service three months, always being anchored in the open, and
that it perform certain prescribed maneuvers and voyages. In one of
these it sailed with three persons on July 3, 1905, from Moisson to
Meaux, an air-line distance of 57 miles in two hours and thirty-five
minutes, at an average speed of 22 miles an hour, thence to Chalons,
61 miles in three hours and twenty minutes. Here it was anchored to
some trees, but presently was caught in a strong wind, lifted high in
the air, then dashed violently against other trees, with the complete
destruction of its envelope. Within eleven weeks it was repaired
in the military riding school at Toul, nearby; then, after some
evolutions, returned to its harbor at Moisson. Other maneuvers were
made subsequently, in which five officers were carried at one time,
and interesting experiments were tried, such as dropping a sand bag
upon a given spot, photographing fortifications, etc. The Minister of
War, accompanied by two officers and other passengers, made a trip on
October 24th, which was the seventy-sixth voyage of this stanch vessel.
On November 10th, the hard-worked and successful air ship went into
winter quarters, being now the property of the French government, and
the first of her modern aërial cruisers.
The _Patrie_ and the _République_, planned on the general lines
of the _Lebaudy_, but in ascending scale of magnitude, were built
expressly for the French government, and experienced brilliant if
ill-fated careers. Both vessels had whale-shaped hulls, with rather
sharp-pointed noses and rounding sterns. The original volume of the
_Patrie_ was 111,250 cubic feet, which was later increased to 128,910,
by the insertion of a cylindrical section at the major diameter of the
hull. The _République_ had a volume of 2,000 cubic feet more than the
_Patrie_, and a length of 200 feet, or a little less than the enlarged
_Patrie_. She also had a diameter of 35½ feet as against 33¾ in the
sister vessel. As the technical reader may like more complete details
of these two noted air ships, a fuller account is given in Appendix III.
The _Patrie_ was a swift and graceful ship which, during its brief
activities in 1906-7, made many remarkable trips at an altitude of
about half a mile, and frequently maneuvered with the troops. She
sailed with excellent stability, had a speed of about 28 miles an hour,
and, with four men, had a radius of action of 280 miles. In November,
1907, carrying four passengers, she voyaged from Paris to Verdun,
on the German frontier, where she was to be stationed. In spite of
a quartering wind, the total distance of 175 miles was traversed in
seven hours and three quarters, or at an average overground speed of
25 miles an hour. But while at Verdun, after some maneuvers, she was
too insecurely anchored to the ground by means of iron stakes. A strong
wind came, tore out the pickets, and overpowered the soldiers, some
two hundred in number, who were trying to hold the vessel. As she was
pulling them along the ground, they were ordered to let go. The huge
ship bounded high into the air, soared across France, England, Wales,
and part of Ireland, then far out over the Atlantic where she vanished,
leaving no trace behind.
The _République_ also had a brilliant but ephemeral career, from July,
1908, to September, 1909. She surpassed the _Patrie_ not only in bulk
and buoyancy, but also in power and speed. She had an 80-horse-power
motor as against the _Patrie’s_ motor of 60 to 70 horse power. She
could carry eight to nine men, had a speed of about thirty miles an
hour, and a radius of action of 500 miles. She made a number of long
flights and manifested satisfactory steadiness and stability. But on
September 25, 1909, while maneuvering near Paris, one of her propellers
broke and tore a great gash in her envelope. At once, with outrushing
gas and collapsing hull, the great ship fell 500 feet crashing to the
earth, a total wreck, and killing her crew of four officers. This
disaster illustrated forcibly the advantage of the cellular system of
balloon construction, and drew more favorable attention to the rigid
type of air ship cultivated in Germany.
The famous firm that produced the _République_ brought forth, in
1909, two other fine vessels patterned after it, the _Russie_ and _La
Liberté_, built respectively for Russia and France. The _Russie_ made
her first voyage on May 29th, ascending 600 feet with eight passengers,
and maneuvering under perfect control. After her official trial,
in June, she was sent to St. Petersburg, being the first dirigible
furnished to a foreign government by a private concern. The _Liberté_
was launched the last week in August and, after various practice and
official tests, was accepted by the French government two months later.
On a notable voyage, made on September 20th, she sailed ten hours with
her Panhard motor constantly working.
The escape of the _Patrie_ was a loss keenly felt by the French people,
but soon compensated by the generosity of M. Deutsch de la Meurthe.
This liberal patron of aëronautics had a dirigible of excellent design,
whose hull, based on the plans of Colonel Renard, was contrived and
built by E. Surcouf, director of the Astra aëronautic establishment,
along with H. Kapferer, while its other parts were built by Voisin,
both of Billancourt. In September preceding the accident to the
_Patrie_, he had offered the use of his air ship, the _Ville de Paris_,
to his government, which accepted the gift with the understanding that
it was not to be delivered except in case of war or emergency. When,
therefore, in November, 1907, the disaster occurred to the _Patrie_,
M. Deutsch at once placed his dirigible in the hands of the military
authorities.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.—_La Ville de Paris._]
The _Ville de Paris_ showed considerable resemblance to her prototype,
the _France_ of 1884, but differed from that elegant vessel in various
important features. Her hull was shaped like a wine bottle with its
thickest end, or bow, brought to a sharp projectile point, and its
other end furnished, like an arrow, with four fixed guiding surfaces
to steady its flight. These guiding surfaces were elongated, finlike,
cylindrical sacs, inflated as shown in the illustration. The hull
measured 200 feet long, 34½ feet in major diameter, 112,847 cubic feet
in volume. Heavy bands of canvas with their edges sewed along the
sides of the balloon served as flaps for the attachment of the cords
suspending the long car beneath. With this long suspension the weight
of the car was more evenly distributed over the envelope than in the
Lebaudy balloons. An interesting improvement in this air ship was the
stabilizing planes, placed above the car, fore and aft, to lift or
depress aëroplanelike, thus enabling the pilot to raise or lower the
vessel, also to alter her trim, or to check her pitching. As might be
expected, her flight was very steady, but as the motor developed only
70 to 75 horse power, her velocity did not exceed twenty-five miles per
hour. In January, 1908, she made a run of 147 miles in seven hours, six
minutes, with an average speed of 21 miles an hour. Further details of
construction are given in Appendix III.
We now have had examples of the three leading types of motor balloons;
the rigid, the semirigid, the flexible. The rigid type, as exemplified
in the Schwartz and Zeppelin air ships, is characterized by its
solidly trussed hull of invariable size and form to which all other
parts are directly attached. The semirigid type, exemplified in the
Lebaudy vessels, has a flexible hull, generally of woven fabric, with
a trussed floor or platform for its ventral part, from which the car
is suspended. The flexible type, as seen in the _Ville de Paris_, the
_France_, and its predecessors, consists of a flexible hull entirely
devoid of stiffening framework, together with a car, usually quite
long, suspended from the bag directly. These are all of the important
kinds in use at present. A combination of balloon and aëroplane has
been tried by Santos-Dumont, Malecot, and others, but thus far has
not resulted in a very successful and distinct type. Of the many
powerful, swift, and elegant balloons which sprang into being after
the success of the Lebaudy vessels, all could be classified under the
above three types. Neither kind proved preëminently the fittest for
all service, but the semi-rigid and flexible balloons multiplied most
rapidly; partly, no doubt, because of their cheapness and convenience
of management. We may review briefly this new crop of air ships, before
turning to the novel and huge rigid vessels of Count von Zeppelin.
The _Ville de Paris_ was followed, in 1909, by the _Clément-Bayard_,
a slightly larger vessel of very similar pattern, constructed for the
Russian government for $40,000. It also, like the _Ville de Paris_,
was built by the Astra Society. The most striking feature of this new
balloon was its curious stern with its bulblike steadying surfaces.
These fin surfaces were not flat, as in the _Patrie_, nor cylindrical,
as in the _Ville de Paris_, but of pear form, with the blunt ends
pointing rearward and inflated like the rest of the hull. Apparently
these tail bags were not economical of power, since, as is well
known, a pear shape encounters greater resistance when moving sharp
end forward than when moving blunt end forward. However this be, the
stabilizing force proved very effective. The vessel was driven by a
Clément-Bayard motor of 100 horse power actuating a wooden screw placed
in front of the long car, as in the _France_. A speed of 30 miles an
hour was attainable, and the ship could accommodate eight passengers.
On one occasion it made a round trip from Sartrouville, traversing 125
miles at an average speed of 27 miles an hour. It was acquired by the
Russian government on August 23, 1909, having on that day completed
its third official test, and satisfied the requirement of rising 1,550
meters and voyaging two hours at a height of 1,200 meters. Two notable
incidents of that voyage were that the air ship made a new record for
altitude, and on landing was caught by a squall which tore it from the
hands of thirty men, after which, owing to motor failure, it drifted
freely across country, tripped on a willow, and fell into the Seine,
whence it was rescued after considerable pains and labor.
Other vessels presently built by the Astra Society may be listed,
together with their size in cubic meters, as follows: _Ville de
Bordeaux_, 3,300 m^3;[13] _Ville de Nancy_, 3,300 m^3; _Colonel
Renard_, 4,000 m^3; _España_, 4,000 m^3; _Clément-Bayard II_, 6,500
m^3; _Transaerienne I_, 6,500 m^3; _Flandre_, 6,500 m^3 (228,579
cubic feet). These were among the most noted air ships produced in
France toward the close of the first decade of the twentieth century.
On the whole they proved to be swift and stable ships adapted either
for military use, or for exhibitions and sport, and even for regular
transportation of passengers.
The _Ville de Nancy_ was one of the conspicuous dirigibles of the
summer of 1909. It was constructed primarily for use at the Exposition
at Nancy, and was owned by the Compagnie Générale Transaerienne, an
aërial passenger transportation society organized at Paris, in
March, 1909, with a capital of one million francs. This society planned
to inaugurate an aërial line from Paris to Bordeaux, in 1910, equipped
with other vessels of the Astra construction, more powerful than the
_Ville de Nancy_, and capable of transporting a dozen passengers.
PLATE IV.
[Illustration: _LA VILLE DE PARIS._
_Photo E. Levick, N. Y._]
[Illustration: _COLONEL RENARD._
_Photo E. Levick, N. Y._]
The _Ville de Nancy_ was slightly smaller and slightly more powerful
than the _Clément-Bayard I_, besides differing in minor details. It
measured 55 meters in length, 10 meters in greatest diameter, and
cubed 33,000 meters, as against the 35,000 meters of its predecessor.
It was driven by a 100-horse-power Bayard-Clément motor actuating a
Chauvière screw propeller at the front of the car. The car itself was
made of steel tubes covered with fabric, and near the engine with
sheet aluminum. The tail bags were an evident improvement on those of
the previous air ships, being less blunt at the rear, and therefore
less adapted to generate a retarding suction. They were still rather
bulbous, however.
This splendid vessel made various interesting voyages during the
summer of 1909, the first on June 27th, piloted by Surcouf and
Kapferer, directors of the Astra Society. On July 14th, she maneuvered
at Longchamps, side by side with the _République_, thus contrasting
nicely with the ship designed by Julliot. It was the first time two
dirigibles navigated together in regular maneuver. The _Ville de Nancy_
was naturally the swifter, having greater power and less bulk than
the other. About the middle of July she sailed from Sartrouville to
Nancy, where she was to sail about the Exposition grounds and make
daily excursions, carrying passengers for 100 francs per trip. These
voyages proved very popular, being the first of their kind, and in
themselves quite attractive. As the vessel was endowed with excellent
stability and had manifested high speed, she was well suited to be the
first regular passenger air ship, and the herald of the aërial liners
projected to cruise between Paris and Bordeaux.
The _Colonel Renard_ was closely patterned after the _Ville de Nancy_,
but was larger and more powerful. She measured 212 feet in length,
140,000 cubic feet in volume and carried an engine of 120 horse power,
driving a Chauvière propeller. On July 13th she made her first trip,
cruising one hour with notable facility, then reëntered the hangar[14]
of the Astra Society, at Beauval near Meaux. Thence, on August 23d, she
sailed for Rheims to compete in the aëronautical races, arriving after
a very successful cruise. On August 29th, she circled the ten kilometer
rectangular course at Betheny, near Rheims, five times in 1 hour, 19
minutes, 40 seconds, thus winning the Prix des Aëronats,[15] of 10,000
francs offered for the vessel that should accomplish, in the least
time, those five rounds, aggregating 50 kilometers. The showing was not
remarkable, but the vessel could sail much faster in a straightaway
voyage.
The prize-winning _Renard_ was quickly followed by the _España_, a
vessel of the same size and pattern, built for the Spanish government
by the same capable firm. During October this fine air ship made
several trial trips, carrying seven men. On November 2d she made
a splendid official test voyage of five hours, sailing from the
Astra aërodrome, at Beauval, to Paris and return, a distance of 250
kilometers in 5 hours and 10 minutes, or at the average rate of 31
miles an hour for the entire course. On November 5th, she started on a
ten-hour voyage, with five men and fuel for fifteen hours; but after
five hours, stopped her engine, and came to earth, owing to the bending
of the main shaft of the motor.
Besides the great auto balloons designed by Julliot and Surcouf, of
which the _République_ and _Colonel Renard_ are examples, a number of
convenient cruisers were brought forth in 1909 by the Zodiac Company.
One of the leading spirits in this enterprise was the famous Count de
la Vaulx, well known for his auto balloon designs and his long voyages
in sphericles. The chief merit of these modest air ships, which ranged
in volume from 25,000 cubic feet upwards, was cheapness and facility of
demounting and shipment. They were intended to popularize the art among
the masses, by giving everyone a chance to make a voyage at no great
expense. Besides their applicability to sport, touring, and public
uses, some were designed for considerable speed and endurance; which
qualities, together with their demountability and partial independence
of hangars, were expected to give them military value. They were of
the flexible type, so arranged that the various parts were easily
detachable, so as to be packed for transportation, by wagon or car.
The smaller ones might be called semi-navigables, since they had the
organs of a swift motor balloon, but, like the common sphericles,
could easily be demounted and hauled home—a likely issue on a day of
any considerable wind. The first one cost $5,000, cubed 25,000 feet
and, with its 16-horse-power engine, traveled 13 miles per hour. Its
hull had the form of a whale with docked and rounded tail. From this
body hung an elongated car with a screw at the rear and elevating
planes in front. Others of similar make, but larger, followed in rapid
order, their common mission being that advocated by Santos-Dumont, in
the early part of the decade, when he produced his _Runabout_ and
_Omnibus_—to give everybody a ride.
[Illustration: FIG. 22.—_Le Petit Journal_, ZODIAC TYPE.]
PLATE V.
[Illustration: _ZODIAC III._]
[Illustration: _ZODIAC IV._]
The _Zodiac I_ was quickly followed by vessels _II_ and _III_, cubing
respectively 1,200 and 1,400 meters. The _No. II_ had a speed of
twenty, or more, miles per hour, and carried two passengers when
inflated with coal gas, three with hydrogen. The _No. III_, of torpedo
form, measured 133 feet long, 28 feet in major diameter, carried four
persons, and sailed 25 miles an hour with her 40-horse-power Ballot
engine. On August 29th, piloted by Count de la Vaulx, she competed with
the _Colonel Renard_, at Rheims, for the _Prix des Aëronats_, making
five rounds of the ten kilometer course in one hour and twenty-five
minutes, this being at the average speed of 22 miles an hour. On
October 30th, again piloted by the same renowned aëronaut, she sailed
from Brussels to Anvers, rounded the lofty Cathedral spire, and
returned to her aërodrome, traversing a distance of sixty kilometers in
one hour and twelve minutes, or with an average speed of 31 miles an
hour, a good showing for so small an air ship.
A very handsome dirigible, named the _Belgique_, was constructed early
in 1909, by the skillful aëronautical engineer, Louis Godard, of Paris,
in collaboration with the prominent Belgian engineer and sportsman,
Robert Goldschmidt. It was a flexible balloon of elegant torpedo form,
measuring 175 feet long, 30 feet in major diameter, and 106,000 cubic
feet in volume. It was propelled by two 60-horse-power Vivinus engines
actuating two screws, made of fabric stretched over radial sticks,
and placed at either end of the spindle-shaped car. The control was
provided for by ample keel surface, an elevating plane in front,
and ingeniously designed fins on the rear of the hull to steady the
motion. The entire structure showed much originality and skill. When
the dirigible was tested near Brussels, on June 28th, it was piloted
by Louis Godard, the famous expert in sphericals, accompanied by
Goldschmidt. Godard’s début in this capacity was reported as excellent.
The Italian government brought forth, in the summer of 1909, a swift
and elegant auto balloon showing considerable originality of design.
It has a porpoise-shaped hull of 2,500 cubic meters capacity, divided
into seven compartments, so as to obviate the accident which wrecked
the _République_. An ample keel along the rear bottom, and large
aëroplane surfaces at the stern, serve to guide and steady the vessel.
Propelled by twin screws well above a short car, she readily attained
thirty miles an hour, carrying four persons. On October 31st, starting
on her seventeenth voyage, she cruised from the aëronautic park, Vigna
de Vale, near Rome, to Naples and back to Rome by ten o’clock at
night, having sailed over the edge of the Mediterranean Sea and over
the French squadron in the bay, remaining fourteen hours in the air
and traversing 520 kilometers, or 323 miles. It was one of the finest
voyages of the year. Further details of this Italian military dirigible
_No. I bis_, together with illustrations, are given in _Aërophile_ for
January 15, 1910, together with its prototype the dirigible _No. I_,
which maneuvered so successfully in 1908.
England and America all along had pursued an oriental, or
semicivilized, policy toward the auto balloon, languidly watching
the progress elsewhere, and hoping some time to enjoy the fruition,
if not the glory, of the costly and successful experiments made in
other countries. In 1909, however, the British government appropriated
nearly $400,000 for aëronautics, and the United States House of
Representatives voted $500,000, but promptly reversed its action,
and gave nothing, though it may be said that even then there was a
growing sentiment in favor of a more liberal policy. The movement to
secure the beginning of an aërial fleet in England is summarized in the
following paragraph.[16]
PLATE VI.
[Illustration: _LA BELGIQUE._]
[Illustration: ITALIAN MILITARY DIRIGIBLE _NO. I BIS_.]
“The naval authorities were entrusted with the building of a
rigid ship, whilst to the military department was delegated the
work of building non-rigid and semi-rigid ships. A national
air-ship fund was organized by the _Morning Post_ with the
object of purchasing a French Lebaudy semi-rigid dirigible
which would be presented to the War Office; whilst Mr. Arthur
du Cros and other members of the Parliamentary Aërial Committee
arranged for a _Clément_ non-rigid air ship of new design, to
sail from Paris to London, and also to qualify for purchase as
a unit of the British aërial fleet.”
The non-rigid auto balloon ordered from Clément, and afterwards known
as the _Clément-Bayard II_, was the masterpiece of that skilful
designer, and occupied his best thought and energy for eighteen
months, aided by his devoted and capable engineer, Sabathier. She
was completed in the Clément-Bayard factory at Lamotte-Breuil in
April, 1910, and during the next five months made thirty-two test
ascensions and practice voyages. In particular she took a conspicuous
part in the military maneuvers at Picardie during the early half of
September, where with wonderful precision and airworthiness she made
forced voyages in fair weather and foul, remaining, when so desired,
in continuous communication with the land office by means of wireless
telegraphy. Finally, on a fair day, September 16th, the tried and
perfected vessel was brought forth from her hangar for the long
contemplated voyage to London, her machinery and rigging in trimmest
order, and her car furnished with supplies for twenty hours, or thrice
the anticipated time of transit.
The voyage was a glorious achievement for aëronautics, and for the
enthusiastic constructor and his devoted aids. Starting at seven
o’clock in the morning, with seven men aboard, including happy Clément,
Sabathier, and an English delegate, the whalelike cruiser sailed
directly to London with admirable regularity, covering the entire
distance of 242 miles in six hours, or at the rate of forty miles
an hour, which is better time than could be made by land and water.
Enthusiastic cheers from the English spectators greeted the arrival of
this French dirigible, built for the English government. Then quietly
the English soldiers took the vessel in hand, as if performing a
familiar duty, and housed her in the _Daily Mail_ hangar, at Wormwood
Scrubs. Thus simply and without unusual incident terminated the first
motor-balloon cruise between the two countries, and one of the finest
voyages in the history of aëronautics.
In outward appearance the _Clément-Bayard II_ closely resembled her
predecessor, except for the absence of empennage on her envelope. In
the whalelike elegance of her hull she was, in fact, a reversion to the
trim and efficient model of Renard’s dirigible of 1884, which in turn
was a fair copy of Jullien’s model of 1850, all having excellent forms
for speed and stability. But the new vessel was of greater size and
power than her predecessor. Her net buoyancy was sufficient to carry
twenty passengers. Her average speed tested in a round-trip voyage was
about 50 kilometers or 31 miles per hour when her two motors developed
200 horse power, and 55 kilometers or 34 miles per hour when the
engines developed their maximum effort of 260 horse power. The details
of construction were so elaborate and important, and so representative
of the best aëronautical workmanship of the time that a full account of
their chief features is presented in Appendix III. In passing it may be
added that some time before sailing to England the _Clément-Bayard II_,
because of her excellent workmanship and maneuvers, received the first
prize at the review of dirigibles by the French Minister of War.
PLATE VII.
[Illustration: _CLÉMENT-BAYARD I._
(Courtesy E. L. Jones.)]
[Illustration: _CLÉMENT-BAYARD II._
_Photo E. Levick, N. Y._]
[Illustration: FIG. 23.—_Clément-Bayard II_, 1910.]
The dirigible to be purchased with the money secured by the popular
subscription organized by the _Morning Post_ was ordered from the
Lebaudy factory at Moisson in July, 1909, to be delivered directly
through the air to Farnborough before November 6, 1910. This
stipulation was severe enough, but furthermore the vessel was to
be a considerable departure from any thus far built at that famous
factory, and was to be the largest air ship yet constructed in France.
As usual the general design of the huge balloon was entrusted to the
distinguished aëronautical engineer, Henri Julliot, and this was a
certain guarantee of its successful operation.
The general features of this great military dirigible resemble those
of her prototype, the _Patrie_, differing chiefly in the shape of her
hull and the method of stiffening. The hull itself was more longish
than the _Patrie’s_, but had the same sharp prow and blunt stern; for
a blunt stern offers better support to the empennage planes, though
it increases the resistance more than a tapering stern. The trussed
framing to stiffen the ship was no longer a platform inserted in the
base of the hull, but a long trussed beam of cruciform cross section,
made of steel tubing and suspended intermediately between the hull and
car.
The hull was of excellent workmanship and bold design. The envelope
was of rubberized tissue, measured 338 feet in length, 39.4 feet in
diameter and cubed 353,000 feet. Its length was, therefore, 8.5 times
its diameter, an extraordinary proportion for a balloon of the flexible
type. The hull was provided with three ballonets, two ripping panels,
and various valves, as shown in the scale drawing.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.—MORNING POST DIRIGIBLE, 1910.]
The car, made of steel tubing and large enough for twenty persons,
carried two Panhard-Levassor motors of 135 horse power each, actuating
two Chauvière wooden screws, sixteen feet in diameter, placed on either
side, well outward and upward, the transmission gear permitting either
engine, or both, to drive the screws at one time. Below the car and
well forward was a ground keel, or post, on which the whole vessel
could pivot with the wind, when riding at anchor, while a shorter
ground post was placed at the rear of the car.
The controlling surfaces were adequate and skillfully arranged. To
maintain steadiness and directness of flight, fixed empennage planes,
both horizontal and vertical, were provided, some attached to the stern
of the hull, others at the rear of the trussed suspension beam. To
direct the up and down movement, ailerons placed well to the front and
rear of the long framing, were turned about conjunctively in opposite
directions, thus causing the vessel to raise or lower her bow. Needless
to say, all these navigation appliances worked with ample force and
effectiveness from the beginning of the earliest tests.
After four preliminary ascensions the great air ship started from
Moisson to her destination at Farnborough, having on board Henri
Julliot, Louis Capazza, the pilot, Alexander Bannerman, director of
the aëronautic military school at Aldershot, and five other men. It
was a triumphant and glorious voyage, one of the most splendid in
the history of aërostation. Piloted by aid of chart and compass, and
by signal fires and captive balloons arranged along her route, the
vessel followed a direct course, without check or hindrance, crossing
a wide part of the English Channel and arriving before the hangar at
Aldershot, where the British soldiers awaited her, and where she was
safely landed, having made the whole voyage of 230 miles in 5.5 hours,
at a level varying between five hundred and two thousand feet. As
shown by the accompanying map, about one third of the route lay over
the Channel, or, more accurately, 78 miles, which was traversed in two
hours. Thus the whole journey was accomplished at an average speed
of nearly forty-two miles an hour, or in less time than it could be
effected in any other way than through the air.
[Illustration: 15 Novembre 1910
FIG. 25.—ROUTE OF BRITISH MILITARY DIRIGIBLES FROM FRANCE TO ENGLAND,
1910.]
The United States War Department, in 1908, started an aërial squadron
by purchasing from Thomas S. Baldwin, for $10,000, a tiny air ship of
the flexible type, a trifle larger than Santos-Dumont’s _Runabout_, but
in fact the smallest military dirigible then in existence. It had a
rubberized gray silk cylindrical hull slightly tapering toward the rear
and terminating in ogival ends, its length being 96 feet, its major
diameter 19½ feet. From this was suspended, by means of netting and
steel cables, a longish car having at the rear a double rudder working
about a vertical hinge, at the front an elevating plane and an 11-foot
wooden screw driven by a Curtiss 20-horse-power water-cooled engine.
With two men aboard, this vessel readily attained over twenty miles an
hour in a straightaway course, and at times more nearly thirty miles an
hour. Its total ascensional force was 1,350 pounds, of which 500 were
available for men, ballast and supplies.
Santos-Dumont’s most strenuous disciples outside of France were found
among the German military officers. These advocated and promoted both
the semirigid and the flexible types of auto balloon, with such ability
as to match the best productions of the foremost French designers.
The most successful pioneers of these two types in Germany were
respectively, Major von Gross, commander of the balloon battalion at
Tegel, near Berlin, and Major Von Parseval of the Bavarian army, and
director of the Society for the Study of Motor Air Ships.
Beginning in 1907, a number of Gross auto balloons were built in
succession, for the German Aëronautical Battalion, by Master Engineer
Basenach, under the supervision of its commander, Major Gross. The
first was intended only as a model, though it was large enough for
two passengers. It cubed 63,000 feet, but having an engine of hardly
more than 20 horse power, was necessarily slow. It was succeeded by
the _Gross I_, and others, all having rigid ventral parts, like the
_Patrie_, but with hulls of rather better form for speed and bulk
combined, having blunter bow and longer stern.
PLATE VIII.
[Illustration: _U. S. SIGNAL CORPS DIRIGIBLE I._
(Courtesy U. S. Signal Corps.)]
[Illustration: _GROSS II._
(Courtesy E. L. Jones.)]
The second Gross air ship, built in 1908, cubed 176,000 feet, and
attained a speed of 27 miles per hour, driven by two 75-horse-power
Daimler motors. On September 11th of that year, with four persons
aboard, she made a round trip from Berlin lasting 13 hours, covering
176 miles, and attaining altitudes up to 4,000 feet. This was one of
the finest voyages known at the time. This air ship was purchased by
the German government, named _Gross I_, and sent to Metz. A detailed
description is given in Appendix III.
The _Gross II_, brought forth in April, 1909, resembled her predecessor
in build, but had greater power and speed. Her hull cubed 176,000
cubic feet, had a blunt bow, full body and sharp stern, was provided
with horizontal and vertical keels, a sliding weight, and a ballonet
at either end. She was propelled by two Körting engines of 75 horse
power each, actuating two three-blade propellers. Under the action of
her keels and stabilizing planes and rudder, her motion was steady and
precise. A special feature of this air ship was the wireless telegraph
equipment by which she could send messages in all directions over a
range of 300 miles or more. She made many practice voyages during the
season of 1909, sometimes alone, again in concert with other auto
balloons and with troops. In August she made a fine voyage of sixteen
hours, from Tegel to Apolda and return, traversing 470 kilometers.
The above described vessel was followed by others, large and small.
The _Gross III_ measured 70 meters long, cubed 7,500 meters, and was
propelled by four Körting motors aggregating 300 horse power. This was
a splendid vessel, and one of extraordinary speed.
Various auto balloons of the Parseval type were designed by Major Von
Parseval of the Bavarian army, who also was one of the inventors of the
kite balloon. Satisfactory experiments with his air ship were made as
early as 1906. These formed the basis of larger vessels, subsequently
constructed in the same factory of August Riedinger of Augsburg,
for the Motor Air Ship Study Society, of which Parseval was general
manager. This society, organized practically at the command of the
Emperor, purchased the Parseval patents and began the development of
auto balloons as a business enterprise, soon furnishing a series of its
flexible air ships to the German army.
After the experiments of 1906, the Parseval air ship was enlarged from
2,500 to 2,800 cubic meters, its length becoming 52 meters and its
major diameter 8.7 meters. Its hull was of cylindric form, with rounded
bow and egg-shaped stern; had two air bags—one fore, the other aft—and
at the stern carried two fixed horizontal planes and a vertical rudder.
From this envelope the car, made largely of aluminum, was hung by steel
cables, and on its bottom had trolley wheels resting on suspension
cables joining the front and rear parts of the hull. The vessel was
propelled by a 50-horse-power Mercedes motor actuating a four-blade
screw propeller 13 feet in diameter, mounted between the car and hull.
This screw was made of thin steel tubes covered with shirting. Among
the merits of Parseval’s air ship may be mentioned its lightness and
demountability, and its kite-like effect on the air, got by canting
the hull while the car, rolling on the suspension cables, allowed
the screw mounted above it to thrust horizontally. The canting was
effected by giving one ballonet more air than the other, thus causing
its end of the hull to sink. The speed was about twenty-five miles per
hour.
PLATE IX.
[Illustration: _PARSEVAL I._
(Courtesy W. J. Hammer.)]
[Illustration: _PARSEVAL II._
(Courtesy E. L. Jones.)]
The second _Parseval_ was of greater bulk and power than her
predecessor. Her hull which was of cylindric form, with round prow
and pointed stern, measured 190 feet long, 30.5 feet in diameter, and
113,000 cubic feet in volume. She resembled her predecessor in the
arrangement of the two ballonets, and in the “loose,” or trolley,
system of suspension of the car. The propeller was a unique patented
device of Von Parseval’s. It had four cloth blades so weighted with
lead as to stand out firmly under centrifugal force, assuming an
effective shape for propulsion, though limp and deformed when at rest.
Various interesting evolutions were performed by this vessel in the
autumn of 1908, including tests imposed by the military authorities,
as a condition of purchase by the government, one requirement being a
voyage of one hour at an altitude of 1,500 meters; another requirement
being a continuous cruise of twelve hours. These tests completed,
the Motor-Luftschiff-Studien-Gesellschaft sold its proud ship to the
Vaterland for 210,000 marks.
About the same time the War Department purchased the _Gross I_, already
described, and Zeppelin’s third great ship, naming it _Zeppelin I_.
Germany thus began her program of developing a great aërial fleet,
by acquiring three powerful and well tried ships, each capable of
remaining all day in the air, and having a radius of action of several
hundred miles. They were frequently called upon to make test voyages in
all kinds of weather, to maneuver with the troops, to pass in review
before the Emperor, at times conveying prominent officers and members
of the noblest families, including Prince Henry and the Crown Prince,
who manifested a fondness for navigating about their newly opened
empire of the sky. But sometimes the tests were crucial. On September
11, 1908, both the _Gross_ and _Parseval_ were summoned to Potsdam by
His Majesty. They set forth from their sheds, at Tegel, in face of a
strong wind. After journeying some distance they each had to abandon
the voyage, the _Gross_ returning home, and the _Parseval_ falling to
the ground owing to an accident.
The third Parseval air ship was brought forth on February 18, 1909, by
the Luftfahrzeug-Gesellschaft, an aëronautical firm founded by merging
the Motor-Luftschiff-Studien-Gesellschaft with the A. E. G. This vessel
closely resembled her predecessor, but possessed greater size, power,
and perfection of detail. Her hull at first measured 224 feet long,
47 feet in diameter, and 198,000 cubic feet in volume, but later was
enlarged to 235,000 cubic feet by increasing its diameter.
Her car, which could accommodate twelve passengers, was framed of steel
tubing covered with canvas, and was divided into two parts, separated
by the big gasoline cylinder running athwart ship, the passenger cabin
being to the fore, the engine room aft. Here were stationed the two
engines, of 120 horse power each, actuating reversible right and left
_Parseval_ screws 13 feet in diameter, located to the rear, well aloft
and outward on either side. In the forepart of the passenger cabin was
space for the pilot and his navigating appliances; his chart desk, his
valve controls, his statoscope, manometers, etc.
The great ship with her nine tons burden was to have sailed from
Bitterfeld to Frankfort, for the Aëronautical Exposition, but owing
to excessive gales, she was sent by rail. Once there, she made many
excursions, at times carrying passengers at a schedule rate, reported
to be 200 marks for a voyage of one to two hours. In October she made
an inter-city excursion covering a distance of nearly 500 miles, during
which she passed four nights in the open air, finally returning in
good form to Frankfort. On October 27th she made a farewell tour about
Frankfort, then voyaged along the Main and down the Rhine valley to
Cologne, there to participate in the aëronautic military maneuvers,
together with the _Parseval I_, the _Gross II_ and the _Zeppelin
II_. Having passed creditably through these and other operations in
the autumn, she was eventually stationed at Tegel, as a part of the
national fleet.
The fourth _Parseval_, a smaller vessel, was built for the Deutscher
Aëro Club early in 1909. Her hull cubed 113,000 feet, and her framing
was made of the strongest materials, carefully hollowed, to eliminate
undue weight. At the rear of the car, on either side, were two
100-horse engines, driving two _Parseval_ propellers at a common speed,
whether both engines were in operation, or only one. In many respects
she resembled her immediate predecessors, and her little successor
_Parseval V_ of 1,200 cubic meters capacity and 30 meters length, built
for the Imperial Automobile Club.
The maneuvers at Cologne constituted the first grand demonstration of
the new fleet of military dirigibles, and proved a severe test of the
powers of the air ships, even when manned by experienced crews and
commanded by regular military officers. Two companies of the balloon
corps battalion were in attendance. Large provisions of hydrogen loaded
on wagons, each carrying 100,000 cubic feet, were kept in readiness to
be attached to an express train and rushed at the first alarm to any
balloon in need of replenishing. On Sunday, October 31, three of the
dirigibles representing each type, _Zeppelin IV_, _Parseval I_, _Gross
II_, left Cologne together, by official order, and returned after
flights of 7, 10 and 11 hours respectively, covering in the aggregate
930 miles. Again, leaving Cologne shortly before noon on November 3d,
they went down the Rhine, simulated a concerted attack on the great
fortress of Eherenbreitstein, and returned in the evening, each having
covered 155 miles. And so on for many days they continued to execute
maneuvers under military orders and in severe forced marches.
CHAPTER VI
DEVELOPMENT OF RIGID DIRIGIBLES
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the famous cavalry general of Würtemburg,
and hero of the Franco-Prussian war, after retiring from the army,
organized, in 1898, a limited liability company for the purpose of
developing a new type of dirigible which he had long contemplated.
It was to be a vessel far larger and swifter than any the world had
yet seen. In the summer of 1900, after two years of industrious
experimental research and active construction, he brought forth from
his floating laboratory on Lake Constance, near Manzell, the first
of those wonderful air ships which have aroused such expectation and
enthusiasm in Germany. In outward appearance and in its chief features
of design it typified the whole series of motor balloons thus far
developed and navigated by that illustrious inventor. Many valuable
improvements were added, as a result of trial and the advance of the
collateral sciences; but the fundamental plans seem to have proved as
practical as they were bold and original. One by one were surmounted
the greatest obstacles, physical, financial and finally political; for
the Prussian Ministry did not favor his project at first, and many
aëronautical adepts were adverse to it. Those huge ships faced the fury
of many a tempest; their dauntless builder endured the storm of hostile
criticism; but in the end, builder and ships alike won the plaudits of
a proud empire and of an astonished world.
Outwardly a Zeppelin balloon may be described as a long cylinder with
ogival ends and a V-shaped keel running the length of its bottom. From
afar the cylinder and pointed ends appear circular in cross section,
but they are sixteen-sided. About one-third the distance from either
end of the great ship a small boat is suspended from the hull so
closely that at those places the keel is omitted to make room. These
two boats are rigidly connected with the hull and support it when the
vessel rests on, or is towed along the water. Within them are the crew
and petroleum engines, while above them and outward on each side of
the hull, and fastened to it by outriggers, are two pairs of screw
propellers, so placed as to exert their united thrust along the line
of resistance. In some cases the crew can walk through the V-shaped
keel from one boat to another, the passageway being illuminated here
and there, by transparent covering, or windows of celluloid, along the
sides and floor. Again an observer may climb up through the hull and
take observations of the sky from above. Telephones, electric bells,
and speaking tubes serve to transmit intelligence from one part of the
vessel to another.
The frame of the hull is formed of sixteen longitudinal beams, or
girders, of trellised metal work running from prow to stern and
riveted at regular intervals to cross bridges of similar trellised
metal work, each cross bridge being a sixteen-sided wheel with
trellised rims strengthened by radial rods running inward to a
central flange of sheet aluminum. Thus the body of the vessel is
divided into many compartments, each bounded by two wheels, and the
surrounding longitudinal beams. Each compartment contains a hydrogen
balloon, or sac, which fairly fills it and exerts a lift against
the longitudinal beams and against a netting formed of ramie cords
stretched from wheel to wheel, diagonally between beams at their
inner corners. Similarly the outward corners of the beams are joined
by strong diagonal wires for the purpose of rigidity, and the whole
external frame is covered with a heavy fabric which forms the outer
skin, or wall of the hull. Between this skin and the hydrogen bags
are air spaces, as also between bag and bag. Thus the whole vessel is
buoyed up by numerous thin hydrogen sacs, protected by the frame and
outer skin from the direct sun, from foul weather, and from external
shocks. The gas bags are also separated from each other by the bridge
work and flanges of aluminum.
PLATE X.
[Illustration: _GROSS III._]
[Illustration: ZEPPELIN AIRSHIP STRUCTURE.]
Obviously there is a material advantage in having many gas cells and
two propelling plants; for if one fails it may not prevent navigation.
The tandem arrangement of bags separated by the wheel-like cross
bridges also allows the balloon to rear any amount without material
displacement of the gas, or dangerous increase of pressure; for it must
be remembered that a single hydrogen sac extending the full length of
an up-ended balloon of such length, would have an outward pressure of
about thirty pounds per square foot greater at the top than at the
bottom. The poise of the vessel is maintained by shifting weights, and
also by use of fins, or rudders, when driving through the air; but
those arrangements vary in the different machines. So much for the
general features of these wonderful ships, of which four were built
during the decade from 1898 to 1908, and several more since that period.
The construction and trial of Count Zeppelin’s first air ship proved a
formidable task, requiring all his resources of money and mechanical
skill. As it rivaled in size and fluid displacement a large ocean
liner, it could not well be launched and landed, except on the water.
It was therefore housed in a wooden shed 472 feet long, floating on 95
pontoons, and so anchored as to swing freely with the wind and assume
its direction. This shed, as well as the ship, was very costly, and
in an unfortunate hour was torn from its moorings by a tempest, which
did other damage entailing great expense and time for repairs. The
inventor’s resources were becoming strained; for, as reported, the shed
cost $50,000, while the first balloon cost more than twice that sum.
Finally, the first launching was officially set for June 30, 1900. The
lake was thronged with people massed along the shores, and dotting
its surface with every kind of craft, from the fisherman’s primitive
boat to the handsomest private yacht, or launch. All day the expectant
multitude waited, only to learn at dusk, that the inflation was not
completed. Next day they tarried again till evening, and merely saw
the raft on which the balloon rested, towed out of the floating house.
On the third day, July 2d, those who waited were rewarded with an
interesting spectacle. The long stiff air ship was drawn forth from
its shed, like a ram rod from a gun. Count Zeppelin, with two men,
occupied the front boat, while two others took the rear one. After
careful adjustment the vessel was liberated, at eight o’clock, rose
slowly and advanced over the water, accompanied by the droning of its
propellers and the shouts of the delighted spectators, who realized
that they might be witnessing the commencement of a new epoch in
aërial navigation. But the voyage was not an unqualified success.
The controlling mechanism became deranged, the framework was bent,
and the propellers could not be worked properly. A gentle wind was
blowing and the vessel drifted with it, having an independent speed
of only thirteen feet per second, at best. At eight-twenty she reached
Immenstadt and landed on the water, having voyaged three and one half
miles, and having attained a height of thirteen hundred feet on a part
of the journey.
At that date the _Zeppelin I_ was by far the largest and most
elaborate air ship ever constructed. Her hull measured 416 feet long,
38 feet across, cubed nearly 400,000 feet, weighed 9 tons, and had a
displacement of 10 tons. The trellised frame was made of aluminum, and
its body comprised seventeen compartments, of which fifteen were 26
feet long, and the other two 13 feet long. The outer cover was of linen
treated with pegamoid and tightly stretched. The hydrogen sacs were of
thin fabric. The propulsion was effected by two benzine motors, one in
either boat, which together developed 32 horse power, each driving,
by means of bevel gears and shafting, a pair of four-blade propellers
3.77 feet in diameter, at 1,100 revolutions per minute. Steering
sidewise was effected by means of vertical rudders, while the trim was
controlled by horizontal rudders at either side of the vessel, as also
by means of a sliding weight which could be drawn fore and aft by means
of a winch. Naturally some of these details were superseded ere long by
better devices suggested by subsequent experience.
On October 17, 1900, _Zeppelin I_ made her second voyage, and with much
better result. Starting from the same balloon house at Manzell, at
four-forty-five, she promptly rose a thousand feet, and maneuvered in
a seven-mile wind, steering in great curves at the will of the pilot.
At times the speed was nearly twenty miles an hour, as determined by
continuous observations of the balloon’s position, taken from three
points of a triangle, together with the velocity of the wind on its
course, duly recorded by an anemometer. Finally a landing on the water
was made at six o’clock, without mishap.
This last demonstration left the Count triumphant in other respects,
but without sufficient funds to bring his invention into practical
use. He must, therefore, look for additional money for the proper
continuation of his great work. The financial task thus ensuing
occupied much of his time during the next five years, but he finally
secured capital enough to continue his experiments and to build a
second airship. This was completed and ready for trial in the latter
part of 1905.
_Zeppelin II_ resembled its predecessor in appearance, but embodied
many improvements suggested by the former trials. Its hull was 414
feet long, 38 feet in diameter, held 367,000 cubic feet of hydrogen
in its sixteen gas bags, and weighed with all appliances and cargo,
about nine tons. It was, therefore, about ten per cent smaller than
its predecessor; but at the same time it was far better powered than
the earlier one, and more effectively controlled. Each boat carried
an 85-horse-power Daimler benzine motor, actuating two enlarged
propellers. Ample steering surfaces, operated by the helmsman in the
front boat, served to turn the great ship about either of three axes
and, at the same time, to displace her bodily up and down in the air,
either by direct lift or by canting her hull so that her screw thrust
and the pressure on her sides would produce the desired translation.
Two trials of Zeppelin’s second air ship were made on the Borden-See,
one on November 30, 1906, the other on January 17, 1907; but both
met with serious accident. In the first trial the balloon was towed
by a motor boat some distance, then cut loose in the wind, which
was carrying it forward faster than the boat. But it soon became
unmanageable and plunged into the water, suffering considerable damage.
In the second trial it flew for a short time at a speed of thirty
feet per second, when the engines were developing 36 horse power.
Some maneuvering was effected in a strong wind, but presently the
propellers stopped, the vessel dropped to the shore and was anchored on
the ground. During the night it was so badly damaged by the wind that
Count Zeppelin ordered it to be taken to pieces to furnish material for
further construction.
The loss of two mammoth air ships after such brief trial seemed
enough to appall even a sturdy general of the Prussian army; but
Count Zeppelin was too resolute to waste time in futile tears and
hopeless dejection. Strong natures are usually stimulated by disaster,
and aroused to fuller energy, to grimmer determination, if not to
desperate hazard. However, not desperation, but buoyant hope and high
expectation, based on ample experience, were now his ruling motive. Had
not his ship attained thirty feet per second with less than one fourth
her motive power? The year began with disaster indeed, but he intended
it to terminate in glorious victory. And such, indeed, was the happy
issue.
October, 1907, witnessed the launching of _Zeppelin III_. She had the
same length as her immediate predecessor, but she was a luckier vessel
and better powered. On her official trial she voyaged at the height of
half a mile, carrying eleven persons sixty-seven miles in two hours
and seventeen minutes, or at more than twenty-nine miles per hour.
This was a record velocity exceeding that of the best military balloon
in France. At times she attained a velocity of fifty feet per second,
thus considerably outspeeding the swiftest ocean liner. Moreover, her
stability and steering qualities were excellent. With pardonable
elation, therefore, the illustrious inventor could report to the
Minister of War the complete success of his experiments. And with good
reason the German government now granted financial aid to test more
fully the merits of the rigid system of construction.
With this assistance the industrious aëronaut erected a new floating
house on the Borden-See at Friedrichshafen, and began the construction
of a still larger air ship embodying further improvements in various
details. _Zeppelin IV_ was 446 feet long, 42.5 in diameter, held
460,000 cubic feet of hydrogen in her sixteen compartments, and had a
total buoyancy of sixteen tons. She had a surplus buoyancy of over two
tons, carried a crew of 18 men, and had an estimated range of action
of eighteen hundred miles. When drawn from her shed in the autumn of
1907, her great buoyant hull resting lightly on the water supported by
her two floating cars, she had all the appearance of a royal passenger
express ready for important service. In general features the vessel
was like her three predecessors, but in the center of the keel, with
transparent floors and windowed sides, was a special stateroom designed
for passengers only. This seemed very suggestive, if not prophetic,
of the future trend of aërial navigation. Moreover, the mechanism of
propulsion and control were increased in power and effectiveness.
In each boat-like car was a 110-horse-power Daimler benzine engine,
actuating a pair of three-blade propellers about 15 feet in diameter.
A large vertical rudder, mounted on the extreme end of the stern, and
supplemented by a pair of smaller vertical rudders at either side of
the stern, served to steer the vessel right and left. For steering
up and down, as also for exerting a direct lift up or down, four
superposed planes like a Venetian blind were placed at either side of
the hull fore and aft, at about the same level as the propellers. In
addition the hull was provided, like a feathered arrow, with fixed
fin-like planes at the stern, both vertical and horizontal, for
securing steadiness of flight.
Several trials of this leviathan were made preliminary to her official
government test which, if satisfactory, assured her purchase by the
German government for $500,000. At the builder’s suggestion this test
should include a voyage of 24 hours duration, a safe descent on land or
water, an ascent to 4,000 feet, and the fulfillment of various secret
requirements. In the autumn of 1907 a successful voyage of eight hours
was easily accomplished. In the early part of the next summer, 1908, a
series of voyages were made which aroused intense interest throughout
the civilized world. On June 13th the great ship, starting from her
harbor at Friedrichshafen, sailed over the Alps to Lucerne, steering
in among the mountains; here buffeted by eddies, and cross currents,
there stemming such stiff head winds that her shadow could hardly
creep forward over the ground, again driving through a dark lowering
hailstorm which pelted with ominous thunder on her resounding hull; but
at length reaching Lucerne safely, then returning in triumph to her
harbor at Friedrichshafen. For twelve hours the stanch vessel endured
the elements, by no means hospitable, and in that period voyaged 270
miles at an average speed of 22 miles an hour. It was a record journey
and a triumph in the art.
The following picturesque account of a flight in Count von Zeppelin’s
gigantic air ship, written by Emil Sandt, appeared in the _Scientific
American Supplement_ of August 15, 1908:
“Early in the morning Professor Hergesell, Freiherr von
Bassus, Dr. Stalberg, Herr Uhland, and myself set out in
Count Zeppelin’s launch for the shed in which the great air
ship is housed. When we arrived everything was in readiness
for us. Count Zeppelin is proud of the fact that his colossal
craft can be drawn in and out of the shed with very little
help. In seven minutes the huge gas bag had emerged, and a
few minutes later we were floating up to the sky. I took my
station in the central car or cabin, a comfortable room flooded
with the yellow light that filters through the translucent
balloon fabric of which the walls, the floor and the ceiling
are constituted. Comfortable seats suspended from fine chains
provide a seating capacity for a dozen passengers.
“For a great portion of their length the walls are provided
with celluloid panes. The floor is also transparent wherever
it is not used as a footway. Seated comfortably in the central
car, I could look down through my knees and see the green
earth, water, people, cities and castles far below. I could
also see birds circling around and fluttering anxiously,
evidently frightened by the strange giant of the air.
“We crossed over to the Ueberlinger See, traversed the
intermediate neck of land, and turned into the valley of the
Rhine at Konstanz. Here I left the central car and walked
toward the rear car along the keelway, which is flanked with
balloon cloth, and which is closed at the end of the keelway
by a celluloid door. I opened the door and stepped out on the
narrow aluminum gangway, which runs down sharply to the rear
car. The gangway has no protecting handrail. It is merely
ribbed to give a better foothold. That apparently flimsy
structure bridges a chasm of twenty feet between the end of the
keelway and the car. From below, the passage from the keelway
and the car must seem perilous indeed, but up in the air ship
itself no fear is felt. I stood on this narrow bridge and gazed
on the landscape. To the north I could see the Hohendtwiel.
Behind us lay the Swabian See glistening in the morning’s sun.
In the southeast I saw Thurgau wrapped in violet light. On the
horizon the lofty peak of the Saentis rose broad and jagged,
capped with ice and snow. Below us writhed the Rhine. I looked
across at the propellers. Count von Zeppelin had signaled full
speed ahead. The giant air ship trembled. The propellers seemed
like disks, revolving with furious speed and yet as transparent
as a locust’s wings. They gave out a note like that of a deep
organ, so loud that the human voice, even when lifted to a
shriek, could hardly be heard.
“I walked down to the rear car to obtain a better view. Here
the gigantic craft could be seen in a wonderful perspective.
The sensation was strange. The giant ship obediently sank and
rose. Obediently moved to the right or to the left, slavishly
following the slightest pressure of the human hand. Sometimes
its angle was such that the entire fabric seemed inclined like
a kite. At times the forward car lay below us; at times we had
to look up at it.
“As we neared the splendid falls of the Rhine at Schaffhausen,
the Count brought the air ship down, in order to ascertain
whether the eddies occasioned by the waterfall would have any
effect.
“We turned into the Reusstal, but were buffeted by the wind
all the way up the valley. To the south the sharp jutting
peak of Mount Pilatus hove in sight. Soon Lucerne appeared, a
jewel among cities. The lake itself shimmered brightly where
it was struck by the sun; its darker portions lay like an
emerald, held in a setting of heliotrope. It was like a melody
in colors. Below us in Lucerne itself there was a hubbub and
a great jubilation. The streets were crowded with gayly clad
people. The roads were a-swarm. Zeppelin guided his air ship
down, and allowed it to glide full speed over the city at the
height of a church steeple.
“We traveled over the Vierwaldstaetter See, and crossed to
Knessnacht, to Zug Lake, and up northward to Zug itself. Then
came the most difficult task which Professor Hergesell had
assigned to the air ship. The craft was to carry us straight
across to Lake Zurich, through a narrow pass where it would be
caught in a veritable cyclone. The motors groaned and rattled.
The propellers howled a deep groaning song. The air ship did
all that it could. The wind was dead against us, traveling
with a velocity of nearly thirty-one miles an hour. The Count
could easily have arisen and escaped the fury of the blast,
but it was his purpose not to avoid obstacles, but to court
them. Whenever the great air ship showed signs of swerving, it
was brought back to its course. Far below us in the valley the
sharply marked shadow of the air ship, crawling slowly from
tree to tree, showed us how hard it was struggling. There were
minutes when it seemed as if we stood stock still, despite the
infernal music of the propellers. Gradually the nose of the
craft was thrust forward; once more the air ship mastered the
winds. We had forced our way through the pass, and were dashing
on at full speed. The vast shadow below us traveled with the
velocity of a bird over the mountain, valleys, cliffs and rocky
points, over railway embankments and road, over water and land.”
Two attempts were made in July, 1908, to complete the government test;
but they proved abortive, and in the second one the hull was damaged by
the wind pushing it sidewise against the shed, as it was being towed
out by motor boat. This accident caused a delay of two weeks, much
to the disappointment of the expectant populace. As a consequence
Zeppelin resolved to begin the next attempt unheralded. He had the
repairs made quickly and all was ready early in August.
On Tuesday, August 4th, at six forty-five in the morning, the great
twenty-four hour test for the government began, without previous
announcement, but with fairest prospect of success. Sailing from
Friedrichshafen, Zeppelin purposed to follow the Rhine as far down
as Mayence, then return in a direct line to his starting point. All
went splendidly at first. He passed Constance at seven o’clock in
the morning, Basle at nine-thirty, Strassburg about noon, then with
slower speed passed Mannheim at two-fifty and Darmstadt at four-thirty.
At about six o’clock a descent was made at Oppenheim, eleven and a
quarter hours after starting. The air ship had voyaged 270 miles at the
average speed of 22 miles an hour. A wonderful demonstration it was
for the inhabitants of that historic valley, and a glorious tour for
the brave old sailor and his crew. Resuming the voyage, Mayence, the
turning point, was reached at eleven o’clock at night, and the vessel
was headed for home. But now the engines, being overworked, could
not maintain the usual speed, which therefore was lowered to twelve
miles an hour. Next morning at eight o’clock, after Stuttgart had been
passed, a descent had to be made at the village of Echterdingen, to
adjust and overhaul the machinery. Ninety-five miles of the return had
been made in nine hours.
It was most unfortunate that a landing had to be made without a harbor,
particularly as a gale was in pursuit of the vessel. Ere long she was
torn from her moorings by a squall, carried into the air, and set on
fire, probably by an electric discharge. Immediately the great hull was
enveloped in flame and completely destroyed, leaving a tangled network
of distorted framing. It was a dismal termination to the greatest motor
balloon voyage in the world’s history up to that date; for the vessel
had been in the air continuously for twenty and three-fourths hours and
had traveled 378 miles.
The hardy and venerable hero of so many voyages and long continued
experiments quite broke down at the sight of his grandest vessel in
ruin. But an unlooked for and a sudden turn of events brought him the
greatest triumph in his darkest hour. While the world expressed its
grief and sympathy his loyal countrymen hastened to his relief in an
admirable burst of enthusiasm. Within twenty-four hours the government
had made him a grant of $125,000, and subscriptions offered in all
parts of Germany brought the sum to over $500,000. By October, 1908,
the total gift amounted to $1,500,000, which was paid to the Zeppelin
Air Ship Company, formed for developing and building air ships on a
large scale. A tract of 300 acres was secured at Friedrichshafen for
an air ship factory. Here was erected the necessary shops, hydrogen
plant, balloon harbor, and everything necessary to enable the company
to construct several mammoth air ships each year. To these new grounds
the Count’s former interests were gradually conveyed, while his old
station, with its air ship dock on Lake Constance, was converted into a
military post by the German government.
After the destruction of _Zeppelin IV_, its predecessor, the Count’s
third air ship, was again prepared for service and for new triumphs.
Her hull was lengthened by the addition of a cylindrical section having
the length of one compartment, or about 26 feet. This alteration gave
a considerable increase of net buoyancy with but slight increase of
resistance. The dimensions now were: length 446 feet, diameter 38
feet, volume 423,768 cubic feet. The gas was contained in sixteen
sacs, twelve in the cylindrical part and two at each end. The ship
was propelled by two 85-horse-power engines, supplied with sufficient
gasoline for a forty-one hour voyage at 25 miles per hour. The loss of
gas by leakage was less by weight than the loss of fuel. The famous old
cruiser, thus remodeled, was operated in the autumn of 1908 with her
usual precision and grace; thus winning new distinction and renown. On
one occasion she had as passengers the Crown Prince and the Kaiser’s
brother, Prince Henry. The Emperor himself witnessed the demonstration,
and decorated the Count, referring to him as “the greatest German of
the century.” Soon afterward the ship was taken over by the government
and assigned to the Prussian Battalion of Aëronauts, being christened
_Zeppelin I_, since it was the first vessel of the kind taken into the
military service.
Beginning with March 9, 1909, the military _Zeppelin I_ was kept in
active operation by the officers, and subjected to a wide variety of
tests day by day. She was driven through rain and snowstorms, at all
elevations up to a mile; she was anchored over land and over water,
sometimes exposed for hours to a gale; she was steered in and out of
her shed without the aid of her floating raft; she was sent on long
trips, landed in the open country, by day and by night, and returned to
harbor in safety. On one occasion she carried twenty-six passengers for
over an hour and a half; again she made an endurance flight of thirteen
hours. These maneuvers exhibited for the first time many capabilities
of the ship, which all along had been stoutly affirmed by the inventor,
but questioned by his critics.
On April 1, 1909, at four o’clock in the morning, the renowned
_Zeppelin I_, with the Count as helmsman, started through the rain
and wind on a voyage from Friedrichshafen to Munich, a hundred miles
distant. The ship followed the railway as far as Ulm, guided by the
station lights, which were kept burning all night to mark the route. As
she approached Munich, at the appointed hour of nine next morning, her
approach was announced from afar by the droning of her machinery and
propellers, whereupon she was welcomed by loud music from many bands
and the joyous ringing of all the bells in the city. The Prince Regent
of Bavaria and a great throng of applauding citizens awaited her at the
Teresenhohe park. Presently the swift cruiser approached, sailing over
the steeple tops like a monstrous arrow. She halted before the Regent
and dipped her bow three times, in graceful salute. Then she circled
widely over the city, intending to land at the Oberwiesenfeld Parade
Grounds, where part of the garrison troops were drawn up to receive
her. But now, while so near the goal, she found it difficult to stem
the increasing gale, and unsafe to land; so, with her bow pointed to
the city, and propellers humming furiously, she gradually yielded to
the storm, and drifted slowly backward toward the northeast.
The crucial hour had come for this stanch vessel and her audacious
captain. They wrestled with the storm bravely and obstinately, but
were beaten back steadily, with no port in view. The Count determined
to weather the gale till it should spend its fury. He coolly sent an
aërogram to Munich, saying that all was well and that he might reach
the city late in the day. Observing a suitable place to land, near
the village of Loiching, he pointed the prow of his ship downward,
approached the earth and cast anchor. As the front car touched the
ground it was grasped by the willing hands of thronging peasants and
villagers. Presently the ship was taken in charge by a military
relief party which the Count had hailed on the way, at Guendelkoven,
and which had hastened to his aid in automobiles. Fifty soldiers, in
regular shifts, that night held the bow of the vessel by a short leash.
The anchor was firmly fastened, and additional ropes secured the bow
to an unwheeled wagon loaded with stones. Thus all night long that
mighty hull swayed to and fro in the passing storm, securely as a ship
anchored at sea.
PLATE XI.
[Illustration: ZEPPELIN DIRIGIBLE RESTING ON THE WATER.
_Photo E. Levick, N. Y._]
[Illustration: ZEPPELIN DIRIGIBLE OVER ZÜRICH.
_Photo E. Levick, N. Y._]
Next morning the vessel was well replenished and headed for home, by
way of Munich. The return was easy, for the wind had nearly reversed
its course. Sailing at 32 miles an hour, with a quartering current,
the stormbeaten ship soon reached Munich, where she was hailed with
boundless enthusiasm. The Prince Regent entertained the Count during
his sojourn of three hours, and decorated him with a gold medal. The
ship then sailed for Friedrichshafen, with the full speed of the wind
and of her propellers, at one time attaining 68 miles an hour. At
nightfall she landed gently on the lake near Manzell, having weathered
that tempestuous voyage without serious mishap.
This was a splendid proof of her stanchness; but a few days later
she was put through other tests quite as severe, one being a night
voyage of thirteen and a third hours, after a day of busy maneuvering.
Following this came her still longer voyage, to Metz, where she was
stationed as a frontier war vessel, and one of a considerable fleet
contemplated by the German government.
In the meantime the energetic Count had started his fifth vessel, or
military _Zeppelin II_, which now was nearing completion at the works
of the Zeppelin Air Ship Construction Company. Her hull measured 446
feet in length, had a diameter of 42½ feet, and a volume of over
half a million cubic feet. It also had a ladder running through one
of the compartments to a platform on its top. Her motors of 220 horse
power were taken uninjured from the wreck of the old _Zeppelin IV_ at
Echterdingen.
Without previous notice this new air ship set forth in a rain on the
evening of May 29, 1909, headed toward Berlin, having on board the
Count and seven other men. The purpose of the voyage was merely to
exercise the ship; not to reach any definite goal; but by mistake she
was reported on her way to Berlin, so that the Kaiser and his retinue
waited some hours in vain to receive her. She voyaged bravely past
Nuremberg and Leipsic to Bitterfeld, within 85 miles of the capital;
then turned for home, the Count being unaware of the hopes he was
disappointing. She returned successfully past Weimar and Stuttgart,
then, near Goeppingen, descended on an open plain to take on gasoline
from a neighboring petroleum refinery. As they were nearing the ground
in a heavy rain, Count Zeppelin, who was acting as pilot, suddenly
beheld, just before them, a half dead pear tree, with gaunt bare limbs.
He gave a sharp order to starboard the helm; but his aëronaut, worn by
too long service, thrust the helm to port, and the ship, impelled by a
sudden gust, plunged head on against the tree. Her prow was wrecked,
the frame and envelope being wrenched and torn for a distance of 100
feet.
The disaster seemed complete, but the dauntless Count was equal to the
emergency. Twenty workmen were summoned from Friedrichshafen, sixty
miles away, and sped to the rescue in automobiles. Electric wires from
a nearby plant were stretched to furnish light for night repairs. The
grounds were guarded by police and troops. The hull was detached from
the tree; furnished with a temporary prow of young firs covered with
balloon cloth; relieved of the forward motors and other impedimenta;
furnished with fresh supplies; and, in exactly 28 hours from the
mishap, was ready for the homeward voyage.
Slowly the crippled air ship sailed for Friedrichshafen, followed by
the white-haired inventor in an automobile, unmoved and triumphant.
A mighty shout ascended from the immense crowd of witnesses who had
assembled from many quarters. All Germany was elated and jubilant. The
great voyage and the prompt recovery from apparent disaster were a
triumph of the whole people, for they had helped their hero to build
this ship, and now participated in his victory over the spite of
fortune and the elements. The Emperor telegraphed his congratulations,
affirming his renewed confidence in the rigid system. Without further
difficulty the vessel reached her port at an easy gait of ten miles an
hour, thus completing a memorable voyage of seven hundred miles—one of
the most glorious in the history of aëronautics.
If the citizens of Berlin were disappointed on this occasion,
they had not long to wait for an aërial visit from the wizard of
Friedrichshafen. On August 27th, at 4.45 A.M., his crew of five men
sailed for Berlin via Nuremberg and Leipsic in his sixth air ship,
his latest and largest, hurriedly finished for the Berlin voyage.
It cubed 533,000 feet, and was driven by two Daimler engines of 150
nominal horse power each. In the afternoon they reached Nuremberg,
circled over the city and landed for the night. Starting at 2.15 next
morning they battled their way toward Leipsic against a strong wind,
and at 6.45 P.M. landed for the night at Bitterfeld, where they arrived
with a broken propeller. Here Count Zeppelin joined them. The next
morning, after a good night’s rest and some repairs, they started at
half past seven, in a dense fog, which, however, soon cleared. Finally
they arrived at Berlin at half past twelve o’clock, as the people were
returning from church. They circled over the city, to the delight of
the multitude of spectators who thronged the house tops, parks, and
thoroughfares, finally reaching the parade ground at Tegel. Here,
after saluting the Emperor, the happy navigator maneuvered before the
imperial tribune, greeted by the thunderous Hoch! Hoch! of a hundred
thousand throats, and the ringing of all the church bells of the
nation’s capital. The venerable Count was graciously received by the
Emperor and members of the royal family. After spending the day at
Berlin, the crew sailed for Friedrichshafen, about midnight, where,
after various accidents and delays, they arrived in safety on September
6th.
In some respects this was Von Zeppelin’s crowning voyage of the year,
though effected with a hurriedly finished vessel, not yet thoroughly
adjusted. In mechanical execution this journey was equaled on many
other occasions; for those great air ships were kept in active service
and were everywhere hailed with enthusiasm. Both the Emperor and his
people were proud to number those grand cruisers among the nation’s
aërial warships. With general commendation, therefore, was received
the announcement that four large _Zeppelins_ were ordered for the use
of the German navy. And not surprising was the announcement that other
inventors were at work on designs for dirigibles of the rigid type.
The projects of these new rivals, who began to appear in 1909, are set
forth in the following account:[17]
“Count Zeppelin, who proved that air ships have a practical
future, is no longer undisputed ‘king of the air.’ His rivals
have taken his pattern, and improved it until soon air ships
will be able to keep afloat for many days and in that case to
cross oceans. A type of this modern ship is the first Schütte
leviathan of wood and steel bracing, now nearly finished at
Mannheim. It is expected to lift its twenty-four and one-fifth
tons one and a quarter miles, because its beam is sixty feet
as compared with the forty-four feet of the _Zeppelin II_.
The car is one hundred and thirty feet long, with a cabin to
accommodate thirty passengers. The new ship displaces nineteen
thousand cubic meters, as against fifteen thousand in the
_Zeppelin III_. It is expected to carry a cargo of five to six
tons supported by ten spherical sustaining chambers, and eight
ring-shape reservoir chambers connected by a secret apparatus.
These eight reservoirs automatically receive all expanding gas
that escapes from the sustaining chambers, thus conserving the
entire supporting power. Four motors of combined five hundred
and forty horse power will drive the propellers. Expert opinion
predicts a speed of thirty-seven to forty-three miles an hour,
three miles faster than the _Gross III_, at this writing the
fastest air ship in the world. The whole enterprise is backed
by Mr. Lanz, a rich manufacturer, who is president of the
German Air-Navy League. A wooden-braced ship of equal equipment
and size, designed by the Engineer Rettich, is well under way.
“Another rival of the _Zeppelin_, so far only projected, has
been designed by the Engineers Radinger and Wagner, and is
intended to be an advance in endurance. It should float for
fifty days without replenishing gas. It is planned to have a
rigid hull of hollow paper tubes and steel bracing and to be
thirty per cent lighter than a _Zeppelin_ built of aluminum,
in any equal size. Drum-shape compartments are to hold the
sustaining hydrogen, none of which is to be lost through
expansion by the sun, as any surplus will be compressed by
automatic pumps into the hollow tubes.[18] Having six thousand
meters less displacement than the _Zeppelin III_, it will carry
a reserve of seven hundred cubic meters of gas. Thirty-two
per cent of its weight-carrying capacity will be given up to
passengers, fuel, and baggage. Engines of two hundred and
forty-two combined horse power are expected to develop a speed
of forty to fifty miles an hour. Larger craft of the same type
would, of course, carry much heavier cargoes and have higher
speed. This type of ship, soon to be placed in the construction
cradle, is expected to cross the ocean easily with fifteen
passengers.”
In keeping with the lively growth of these great ships was the
formation of the German aërial transportation company, with a capital
stock of $750,000, reported in _l’Aérophile_ for December, 1909. A line
of large _Zeppelins_ was to connect Baden-Baden, Mannheim, Munich,
Leipsic, Cologne, Düsseldorf, Berlin, Dresden, Essen and Frankfort.
The first two auto balloons of this line were to be the _Zeppelin
IV_ and _Zeppelin V_, to be put in commission in the spring of 1910.
The _Zeppelin IV_ was to cube 706,000 cubic feet, and carry twenty
passengers in three cars, each containing a motor. The _Zeppelin V_ was
to be constructed of a remarkably light rigid alloy “electrometal,”
and was to carry at least thirty passengers. This enterprise certainly
formed an appropriate termination to the first decade of practical auto
ballooning.
The projected passenger line of the German Air Ship Society was
inaugurated the following summer with serene audacity and fairy-like
magnificence. The first ship employed, _Zeppelin VII_, was a huge
vessel of unusual power, speed and elegance of appointment. She was
485 feet long by 46 in diameter, cubed 690,000 feet, and carried three
engines totaling 420 horse power and competent to drive her 35 miles
per hour. Midway beneath her hull and rigidly joined to it, was a
passenger car thirty-five feet long, having a vestibule at one end, a
lavatory at the other, and five compartments between them, with seats
for twenty persons. Beyond the ends of the car were open decks leading
to the boats fore and aft containing the machinery.
At three o’clock on the morning of June 22, 1910, with Count Zeppelin
in charge, and a dozen passengers aboard, this majestic auto balloon
sailed from Friedrichshafen up the Rhine Valley for Düsseldorf, three
hundred miles, and after a prosperous voyage of nine hours, made an
easy landing. Next morning at eight thirty she voyaged from Düsseldorf
to Dortmund, thirty-seven miles north, sailing at a general height of
one thousand feet, over some of the finest industrial parts of Germany.
Then she returned to Düsseldorf with her delighted passengers who were
all enthusiasm for the new mode of travel so auspiciously begun. Of the
thirty-two persons aboard, the majority were regular public passengers
who had paid fifty dollars each for the trip, several of them tourists
from various countries, and ten of them women.
The maiden voyage of this first air liner was a marvel and dream
of delight to the fortunate few traveling in such celestial style.
The comforts and splendors of the service quite surpassed their
expectations. Seated in that fairy car of aluminum framing lined with
mahogany and rosewood inlaid with pearl, they looked from spacious
windows over the beautiful German landscape gliding beneath them, and
enjoyed visions fit for itinerating gods. Along the shining waters of
the Rhine, and over its castellated crags, and among its rolling hills
terraced with luxuriant vineyards, now lapped in the glory of summer,
and above stately cities murmuring with multitudinous life, they sailed
in serenest comfort and security, marveling at their own strange
career through the sky, and equally regarded with wonder by all the
inhabitants below, not to say written and read about by millions in all
parts of the civilized world. The delights of land and sea travel were
happily mingled, without their inconvenience. Neither dust nor smoke
was here, nor rattle of iron rails, nor lurching and rolling from heavy
seas. Quite otherwise. The senses were charmed with the fanning of
fragrant winds forever and uniformly blowing, with the melodious drone
of the swift propeller wheels, with the green glories of the earth and
purple splendors of the sky. When the tourist was sated with these he
could turn to his book; when tired of his chair he could stroll to and
fro in the car on a soft carpet, or along the trellised deck beyond;
when his appetite called, he could answer with the choicest food and
wine; for every convenience of an ample buffet was available. It was
all so enchanting if only practical.
Encouraged by these trials the company announced, and hoped to make,
voyages at frequent intervals. But in this they promptly encountered
difficulties. On June 28th the _Deutschland_ started from Düsseldorf on
a four-hour cruise, with nearly a score of passengers, mostly newspaper
representatives. But she remained in the air longer than intended.
Passing Solingen she tried to reach Eberfeld, but ineffectually; nor
could she find a landing place. Toward five o’clock she was caught in
a great rising wind and carried one mile aloft like a passive balloon
in a vortex or thunderhead. Here much gas was lost by expansion, and
presently, as the ship emerged from a snow cloud in the upper vortex,
with cooled gas and hull laden with precipitation, she descended at a
terrible velocity. With crippled motive power, the vessel could not be
supported dynamically by the impact of the air against her sustaining
planes and against her canted hull, for lack of forward speed. At
length with a terrific crash she struck upon the forest of Teutoberg,
80 miles from Dusseldorf, a great tree trunk piercing the rear boat and
projecting among the terrified crew. Here the vessel lodged with her
stern and controlling gear badly wrecked, and here she was abandoned
by the passengers, with her huge hull resting on the branches forty
feet from earth. Ere long she was retrieved by a company of infantry
who sawed down the trees, dismantled the ship, and returned the parts
on railway trucks to Friedrichshafen, to be used in building another
vessel.
Thus in both civil and military aëronautics the pioneers had to endure
many losses and grievous hardships; but the direst disasters often mark
the way to the greatest victories.
PART II
GROWTH OF AVIATION