My Airships Part 5

At the present moment I have a Clement petroleum motor that weighs but 2 kilogrammes (4-1/2 lbs.) per horse-power. This is my 60 horse-power "No.

7," whose total weight is but 120 kilogrammes (264 lbs.). Compare this with the new steel-and-nickel battery of Mr Edison, which promises to weigh 18 kilogrammes (40 lbs.) per horse-power.

The light weight and the simplicity of the little tricycle motor of 1897 are, therefore, responsible for all my trials. I started from this principle: To make any kind of success it would be necessary to economise weight, and so comply with the pecuniary, as well as the mechanical, conditions of the problem.

Nowadays I build air-s.h.i.+ps in a large way. I am in it as a kind of lifework. Then I was but a half-decided beginner, unwilling to spend large sums of money in a doubtful project.

Therefore I resolved to build an elongated balloon just large enough to raise, along with my own 50 kilogrammes (110 lbs.) of weight, as much more as might be necessary for the basket and rigging, motor, fuel, and absolutely indispensable ballast. In reality I was building an air-s.h.i.+p to fit my little tricycle motor.

I looked for the workshop of some small mechanic near my residence in the centre of residential Paris where I could have my plans executed under my own eyes and could apply my own hands to the task. I found such an one in the Rue du Colisee. There I first worked out a tandem of two cylinders of a tricycle motor--that is, their prolongation, one after the other, to work the same connecting-rod while fed by a single carburator.

To bring everything down to a minimum weight, I cut out from every part of the motor whatever was not strictly necessary to solidity. In this way I realised something that was interesting in those days--a 3-1/2 horse-power motor that weighed 30 kilogrammes (66 lbs.).

I soon had an opportunity to test my tandem motor. The great series of automobile road-races, which seems to have had its climax in Paris-Madrid in 1903, was raising the power of these wonderful engines by leaps and bounds year after year. Paris-Bordeaux in 1895 was won with a 4 horse-power machine at an average speed of 25 kilometres (15-1/2 miles) per hour. In 1896 Paris-Ma.r.s.eilles-and-return was accomplished at the rate of 30 kilometres (18-1/2 miles) per hour. Now, in 1897, it was Paris-Amsterdam. Although not entered for the race it occurred to me to try my tandem motor attached to its original tricycle. I started, and to my contentment found that I could keep well up with the pace.

Indeed, I might have won a good place in the finish--my vehicle was the most powerful of the lot in proportion to its weight, and the average speed of the winner was only 40 kilometres (25 miles) per hour--had I not begun to fear that the jarring of my motor in so strenuous an effort might in the long run derange it, and I imagined I had more important work for it to do.

For that matter, my automobiling experience has stood me in good stead with my air-s.h.i.+ps. The petroleum motor is still a delicate and capricious thing, and there are sounds in its spitting rumble that are intelligible only to the long-experienced ear. Should the time come in some future flight of mine when the motor of my air-s.h.i.+p threatens danger I am convinced that my ear will hear, and I shall heed, the warning. This almost instinctive faculty I owe only to experience.

Having broken up the tricycle for the sake of its motor I purchased at about this time an up-to-date 6 horse-power Panhard, with which I went from Paris to Nice in 54 hours--night and day, without stop--and had I not taken up dirigible ballooning I must have become a road-racing automobile enthusiast, continually exchanging one type for another, continually in search of greater speed, keeping pace with the progress of the industry, as so many others do, to the glory of French mechanics and the new Parisian sporting spirit.

But my air-s.h.i.+ps stopped me. While experimenting I was tied down to Paris. I could take no long trips, and the petroleum automobile, with its wonderful facility for finding fuel in every hamlet, lost its greatest use in my eyes. In 1898 I happened to see what was to me an unknown make of light American electric buggy. It appealed alike to my eye, my needs, and my reason, and I bought it. I have never had cause to regret the purchase. It serves me for running about Paris, and it goes lightly, noiselessly, and without odour.

I had already handed the plan of my balloon envelope to the constructors. It was that of a cylindrical balloon terminating fore and aft in cones, 25 metres (82-1/2 feet) long, with a diameter of 35 metres (11-1/2 feet) and a gas capacity of 180 cubic metres (6354 cubic feet). My calculations had left me only 30 kilogrammes (66 lbs.) for both the balloon material and its varnish. Therefore I gave up the usual network and _chemise_, or outer cover; indeed, I considered this second envelope, holding the balloon proper within it, to be not only superfluous but harmful, if not dangerous. Instead I attached the suspension cords of my basket directly to the balloon envelope by means of small wooden rods introduced into long horizontal hems sewed on both sides to its stuff for a great part of the balloon's length. Again, in order not to pa.s.s my 30 kilogrammes (66 lbs.), including varnish, I was obliged to have recourse to my j.a.panese silk, which had proved so staunch in the "Brazil."

After glancing at this order for the balloon envelope M. Lachambre at first refused it plumply. He would not make himself a party to such rashness. But when I recalled to his memory how he had said the same thing with respect to the "Brazil," and went on to a.s.sure him that, if necessary, I would cut and sew the balloon with my own hands, he gave way to me and undertook the job. He would cut and sew and varnish the balloon according to my plans.

The balloon envelope being thus put under way I prepared my basket, motor, propeller, rudder, and machinery. When they were completed I made many trials with them, suspending the whole system by a cord from the rafters of the workshop, starting the motor, and measuring the force of the forward swing caused by the propeller working on the atmosphere behind it. Holding back this forward movement by means of a horizontal rope attached to a dynamometer, I found that the traction power developed by the motor in my propeller with two arms, each measuring one metre across, was as high as 114 kilogrammes (25 lbs.). This was a figure that promised good speed to a cylindrical balloon of my dimensions, whose length was equal to nearly seven times its diameter.

With 1200 turns to the minute the propeller, which was attached directly to the motor shaft, might easily, if all went well, give the air-s.h.i.+p a speed of not less than 8 metres (26-1/2 feet) per second.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 3.]

The rudder I made of silk, stretched over a triangular steel frame.

There now remained nothing to devise but a system of s.h.i.+fting weights, which from the very first I saw would be indispensable. For this purpose I placed two bags of ballast, one fore and one aft, suspended from the balloon envelope by cords. By means of lighter cords each of these two weights could be drawn into the basket (see Fig. 3), thus s.h.i.+fting the centre of gravity of the whole system. Pulling in the fore weight would cause the stem of the balloon to point diagonally upward; pulling in the aft weight would have just the opposite effect. Besides these I had a guide rope some 60 metres (200 feet) long, which could also be used, at need, as s.h.i.+fting ballast.

All this occupied several months, and the work was all carried on in the little machine-shop of the Rue du Colisee, only a few steps from the place where later the Paris Aero Club was to have its first offices.

CHAPTER VII

MY FIRST AIR-s.h.i.+P CRUISES (1898)

In the middle of September 1898 I was ready to begin in the open air.

The rumour had spread among the aeronauts of Paris, who formed the nucleus of the Aero Club, that I was going to carry up a petroleum motor in my basket. They were sincerely disquieted by what they called my temerity, and some of them made friendly efforts to show me the permanent danger of such a motor under a balloon filled with a highly inflammable gas. They begged me instead to use the electric motor--"which is infinitely less dangerous."

I had arranged to inflate the balloon at the Jardin d'Acclimatation, where a captive balloon was already installed and furnished with everything needful daily. This gave me facilities for obtaining, at one franc per cubic metre, the 180 cubic metres (6354 cubic feet) of hydrogen which I needed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "SANTOS-DUMONT No. 1"

FIRST START]

On September 18th my first air-s.h.i.+p--the "Santos-Dumont No. 1," as it has since been called to distinguish it from those which followed--lay stretched out on the turf amid the trees of the beautiful Jardin d'Acclimatation, the new Zoological Garden of the west of Paris. To understand what happened I must explain the starting of spherical balloons from such places where groups of trees and other obstructions surround the open s.p.a.ce.

When the weighing and balancing of the balloon are finished and the aeronauts have taken their place in the basket the balloon is ready to quit the ground with a certain ascensional force. Thereupon aids carry it toward an extremity of the open s.p.a.ce in the direction from which the wind happens to be blowing, and it is there that the order: "Let go all!" is given. In this way the balloon has the entire open s.p.a.ce to cross before reaching the trees or other obstructions which may be opposite and toward which the wind would naturally carry it. So it has s.p.a.ce and time to rise high enough to pa.s.s over them. Moreover, the ascensional force of the balloon is regulated accordingly: it is very little if the wind be light; it is more if the wind be stronger.

I had thought that my air-s.h.i.+p would be able to go against the wind that was then blowing, therefore I had intended to place it for the start at precisely the other end of the open s.p.a.ce from that which I have described--that is, down stream, and not up stream in the air current with relation to the open s.p.a.ce surrounded by trees. I would thus move out of the open s.p.a.ce without difficulty, having the wind against me--for under such conditions the relative speed of the air-s.h.i.+p ought to be the difference between its absolute speed and the velocity of the wind--and so by going against the air current I should have plenty of time to rise and pa.s.s over the trees. Evidently it would be a mistake to place the air-s.h.i.+p at a point suitable for an ordinary balloon without motor and propeller.

And yet it was there that I did place it, not by my own will, but by the will of the professional aeronauts who came in the crowd to be present at my experiment. In vain I explained that by placing myself "up stream"

in the wind with relation to the centre of the open s.p.a.ce I should inevitably risk precipitating the air-s.h.i.+p against the trees before I would have time to rise above them, the speed of my propeller being superior to that of the wind then blowing.

All was useless. The aeronauts had never seen a dirigible balloon start off. They could not admit of its starting under other conditions than those of a spherical balloon, in spite of the essential difference between the two. As I was alone against them all I had the weakness to yield.

I started off from the spot they indicated, and within a second's time I tore my air-s.h.i.+p against the trees, as I had feared I should do. After this deny if you can the existence of a fulcrum in the air.

This accident at least served to show the effectiveness of my motor and propeller in the air to those who doubted it before.

I did not waste time in regrets. Two days later, on September 20th, I actually started from the same open s.p.a.ce, this time choosing my own starting-point.

I pa.s.sed over the tops of the trees without mishap, and at once began sailing around them, to give on the spot a first demonstration of the air-s.h.i.+p to the great crowd of Parisians that had a.s.sembled. I had their sympathy and applause then, as I have ever had it since; the Parisian public has always been a kind and enthusiastic witness of my efforts.

Under the combined action of the propeller impulse, of the steering rudder, of the displacement of the guide rope, and of the two sacks of ballast sliding backward and forward as I willed, I had the satisfaction of making my evolutions in every direction--to right and left, and up and down.

Such a result encouraged me, and, being inexperienced, I made the great mistake of mounting high in the air to 400 metres (1300 feet), an alt.i.tude that is considered nothing for a spherical balloon, but which is absurd and uselessly dangerous for an air-s.h.i.+p under trial.

At this height I commanded a view of all the monuments of Paris. I continued my evolutions in the direction of the Longchamps racecourse, which from that day I chose for the scene of my aerial experiments.

So long as I continued to ascend the hydrogen increased in volume as a consequence of the atmospheric depression. So by its tension the balloon was kept taut, and everything went well. It was not the same when I began descending. The air pump, which was intended to compensate the contraction of the hydrogen, was of insufficient capacity. The balloon, a long cylinder, all at once began to fold in the middle like a pocket knife, the tension of the cords became unequal, and the balloon envelope was on the point of being torn by them. At that moment I thought that all was over, the more so as the descent, which had begun, could no longer be checked by any of the usual means on board, where nothing worked.

The descent became a fall. Luckily, I was falling in the neighbourhood of the gra.s.sy turf of Bagatelle, where some big boys were flying kites.

A sudden idea struck me. I cried to them to grasp the end of my guide rope, which had already touched the ground, and to run as fast as they could with it _against the wind_.

They were bright young fellows, and they grasped the idea and the rope at the same lucky instant. The effect of this help _in extremis_ was immediate, and such as I had hoped. By the manoeuvre we lessened the velocity of the fall, and so avoided what would have otherwise have been a bad shaking-up, to say the least.

I was saved for the first time. Thanking the brave boys, who continued aiding me to pack everything into the air-s.h.i.+p's basket, I finally secured a cab and took the relics back to Paris.

CHAPTER VIII

HOW IT FEELS TO NAVIGATE THE AIR

Notwithstanding the breakdown I felt nothing but elation that night. The sentiment of success filled me: I had navigated the air.

I had performed every evolution prescribed by the problem. _The breakdown itself had not been due to any cause foreseen by the professional aeronauts._

I had mounted without sacrificing ballast. I had descended without sacrificing gas. My s.h.i.+fting weights had proved successful, and it would have been impossible not to recognise the capital triumph of these oblique flights through the air. No one had ever made them before.