My Airships Part 15

"I can race any air-s.h.i.+p that is likely to be built!" But when I found that, in spite of the forfeits I paid into the Aero Club's treasury, there was no one ready to race with me I determined to build a small air-s.h.i.+p runabout for my pleasure and convenience only. In it I would pa.s.s the time while waiting for the future to bring forth compet.i.tions worthy of my race craft.

So I built my "No. 9," the smallest of possible dirigibles, yet very practical indeed. As originally constructed, its balloons capacity was but 220 cubic metres (7770 cubic feet), permitting me to take up less than 30 kilogrammes (66 lbs.) of ballast--and thus I navigated it for weeks, without inconvenience. Even when I enlarged its balloon to 261 cubic metres (9218 cubic feet) the balloon of my "No. 6," in which I won the Deutsch prize, would have made almost three of it, while that of my "Omnibus" is fully eight times its size. As I have already stated, its 3 horse-power Clement motor weighs but 12 kilogrammes (26-1/2 lbs.). With such a motor one cannot expect great speed; nevertheless, this handy little runabout takes me over the Bois at between 20 and 25 kilometres (12 and 15 miles) per hour, and this notwithstanding its egg-shaped form (Fig. 15), which would seemingly be little calculated for cutting the air. Indeed, to make it respond promptly to the rudder, I drive it thick end first.

I have said that, as it was originally proportioned, the balloon of this smallest of possible dirigibles permitted me to take up less than 30 kilogrammes (66 lbs.) of ballast. As now enlarged its lifting power is greater; but when account is taken of my own weight and the weight of keel, motor, screw, and machinery, the whole system becomes neither lighter nor heavier than the surrounding atmosphere when I have loaded it with 60 kilogrammes (132 lbs.) of ballast; and it is just in this connection that it will be easiest to explain why I have called this little air-s.h.i.+p very practical. On Monday, 29th June 1903, I landed with it on the grounds of the Aero Club at St Cloud in the midst of six inflated spherical balloons. After a short call I started off again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 15]

"Can we not give you some gas?" politely asked my fellow-clubmen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "No. 9." SHOWING RELATIVE SIZE]

"You saw me coming all the way from Neuilly," I replied; "did I throw out any ballast?"

"You threw out no ballast," they admitted.

"Then why should I be in need of gas?"

As a matter of scientific curiosity I may relate that I did not either lose or sacrifice a cubic foot of gas or a single pound of ballast that whole afternoon--nor has that experience been at all exceptional in the very practical little "No. 9" or even in its predecessors. It will be remembered that on the day succeeding the winning of the Deutsch prize my chief mechanician found that the balloon of my "No. 6" would take no gas because none had been lost.

After leaving my fellow-clubmen at St Cloud that afternoon I made a typically practical trip. To go from Neuilly St James to the Aero Club's grounds I had already pa.s.sed the Seine. Now, crossing it again, I made the cafe-restaurant of "The Cascade," where I stopped for refreshments.

It was by this time 5 P.M. Not wis.h.i.+ng to return yet to my station I crossed the Seine for a third time and went in a straight course as close to the great fort of Mount Valerien as delicacy permitted. Then, returning, I traversed the river once again and came to earth in my own grounds at Neuilly.

During the whole trip my greatest alt.i.tude was 105 metres (346 feet).

Taking into consideration that my guide rope hangs 40 metres (132 feet) below me, and that the tops of the Bois trees extend up some 20 metres (70 feet) from the ground, this extreme alt.i.tude left me but 40 metres (140 feet) of clear s.p.a.ce for vertical manoeuvring.

It was enough; and the proof of it is that I do not go higher on these trips of pleasure and experiment. Indeed, when I hear of dirigibles going up 400 metres (1300 feet) in the air without some special justifying object I am filled with amazement. As I have already explained, the place of the dirigible is, normally, in low alt.i.tudes; and the ideal is to guide-rope on a sufficiently low course to be left free from vertical manoeuvring. This is what M. Armengaud, _Jeune_, referred to in his learned inaugural discourse delivered before the Societe Francaise de Navigation Aerienne in 1901, when he advised me to quit the Mediterranean and go guide-roping over great plains like that of La Beauce.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "No. 9" JUMPING MY WALL]

It is not necessary to go to the plain of La Beauce. One can guide-rope even in the centre of Paris if one goes about it at the proper moment. I have done it.

I have guide-roped round the Arc de Triomphe and down the Avenue des Champs Elysees at as low an alt.i.tude as the house-tops on either side, fearing no ill and finding no difficulty. My first flight of this kind occurred when I sought for the first time to land in my "No. 9" in front of my own house door, at the corner of the Avenue des Champs Elysees and the Rue Was.h.i.+ngton, on Tuesday, 23rd June 1903.

Knowing that the feat must be accomplished at an hour when the imposing pleasure promenade of Paris would be least enc.u.mbered, I had instructed my men to sleep through the early part of the night in the air-s.h.i.+p station at Neuilly St James so as to be able to have the "No. 9" ready for an early start at dawn. I myself rose at 2 A.M., and in my handy electric automobile arrived at the station while it was yet dark. The men still slept. I climbed the wall, waked them, and succeeded in quitting the earth on my first diagonally upward course over the wall and above the River Seine before the day had broken. Turning to the left, I made my way across the Bois, picking out the open s.p.a.ces so as to guide-rope as much as possible.

When I came to trees I jumped over them. So, navigating through the cool air of the delicious dawn, I reached the Porte Dauphine and the beginning of the broad Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, which leads directly to the Arc de Triomphe. This carriage promenade of Tout-Paris was empty.

"I will guide-rope up the avenue of the Bois," I said to myself gleefully.

What this means you will perceive when I recall that my guide-rope's length is barely 40 metres (132 feet), and that one guide-ropes best with at least 20 metres (66 feet) of it trailing along the ground. Thus at times I went lower than the roofs of the houses on each side. I call this practical air-s.h.i.+p navigation because:

(_a_) It leaves the aerial navigator free to steer his course without pitching and without care or effort to maintain his steady alt.i.tude.

(_b_) It can be done with absolute safety from falling, not only to the navigator, but also to the air-s.h.i.+p--a consideration not without its merit when the cost, both of repairs and hydrogen gas, is taken into count; and

(_c_) When the wind is against one--as it was on this occasion--one finds less of it in these low alt.i.tudes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "No. 9." GUIDE-ROPING ON A LEVEL WITH THE HOUSETOPS]

So I guide-roped up the avenue of the Bois. So, some day, will explorers guide-rope to the North Pole from their ice-locked steams.h.i.+p after it has reached its farthest point north. Guide-roping over the ice pack, they will make the very few hundreds of miles to the Pole at the rate of from 60 to 80 kilometres (40 to 50 miles) per hour. Even at the rate of 50 kilometres (30 miles), the trip to the Pole and back to the s.h.i.+p could be taken between breakfast and supper time. I do not say that they will land the first time at the Pole, but they will circle round about the spot, take observations, and return ... for supper.

I might have guide-roped under the Arc de Triomphe had I thought myself worthy. Instead, I rounded the national monument to the right, as the law directs. Naturally, I had intended to go on straight down the Avenue des Champs Elysees, but here I met a difficulty. All the avenues meeting at the great "Star" look alike from the air-s.h.i.+p. Also, they look narrow. I was surprised and confused for a moment, and it was only by looking back to note the situation of the Arc that I could find my avenue.

Like that of the Bois, it was deserted. Far down its length I saw a solitary cab. As I guide-roped along it to my house at the corner of the Rue Was.h.i.+ngton I thought of the time, sure to come, when the owners of handy little air-s.h.i.+ps will not be obliged to land in the street, but will have their guide ropes caught by their domestics on their own roof gardens. But such roof gardens must be broad and unenc.u.mbered.

So I reached my corner, to which I pointed my stem, and descended very gently. Two servants caught, steadied, and held the air-s.h.i.+p, while I mounted to my apartment for a cup of coffee. From my round bay window at the corner I looked down upon the air-s.h.i.+p. Were I to receive the munic.i.p.al permission it would not be difficult to build an ornamental landing-stage out from that window.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "No. 9." M. SANTOS-DUMONT LANDS AT HIS OWN DOOR]

Projects like these will const.i.tute work for the future. Meanwhile the aerial idea is making progress. A small boy of seven years of age has mounted with me in the "No. 9," and a charming young lady has actually navigated it alone for something like a mile. The boy will surely make an air-s.h.i.+p captain if he gives his mind to it. The occasion was the children's _fete_ at Bagatelle 26th June 1903. Descending among them in the "No. 9," I asked:

"Does any little boy want to go up?"

Such were the confidence and courage of young France and America that instantly I had to choose among a dozen volunteers. I took the nearest to me.

"Are you not afraid?" I asked Clarkson Potter as the air-s.h.i.+p rose.

"Not a bit," he answered. The cruise of the "No. 9" on this occasion was, naturally, a short one; but the other, in which the first woman to mount, accompanied or unaccompanied, in any air-s.h.i.+p, actually mounted alone and drove the "No. 9" free from all human contact with its guide rope for a distance of considerably over a kilometre (half-mile), is worthy of preservation in the annals of aerial navigation.

The heroine, a very beautiful young Cuban lady, well known in New York society, having visited my station with her friends on several occasions, confessed an extraordinary desire to navigate the air-s.h.i.+p.

"Would you have the courage to be taken up in the free air-s.h.i.+p with no one holding its guide rope?" I asked. "Mademoiselle, I thank you for the confidence."

"Oh, no," she said; "I do not want to be taken up. I want to go up alone and navigate it freely, as you do."

I think that the simple fact that I consented on condition that she would take a few lessons in the handling of the motor and machinery speaks eloquently in favour of my own confidence in the "No. 9." She had three such lessons, and then on 29th June 1903, a date that will be memorable in the Fasti of dirigible ballooning, rising from my station grounds in the smallest of possible dirigibles, she cried: "Let go all!"

From my station at Neuilly St James she guide-roped to Bagatelle. The guide rope, trailing some 10 metres (30 feet), gave her an alt.i.tude and equilibrium that never varied. I will not say that no one ran along beside the dragging guide rope, but, certainly, no one touched it until the termination of the cruise at Bagatelle, when the moment had arrived to pull down the intrepid girl navigator.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE AIR-s.h.i.+P IN WAR

On Sat.u.r.day morning, 11th July 1903, at about 10 A.M., the wind blowing at the time in gusts, I accepted a wager to go to luncheon at the sylvan restaurant of "The Cascade" in my little "No. 9" air-s.h.i.+p. While the "No. 9," with its egg-shaped balloon, and motor of but 3 horse-power, was not built for speed--or, what amounts to the same thing, for battling with the wind--I thought that I could do it. Reaching my station at Neuilly St James at about 11.30 A.M. I had the little craft brought out and carefully weighed and balanced. It was in perfect condition, having lost none of its gas from the previous day. At 11.50 I started off. Fortunately, the wind came to me head-on as I steered for "The Cascade." My progress was not rapid, but I, nevertheless, met my friends on the lawn of that cafe-restaurant of the Bois de Boulogne at 12.30 noon. We took our luncheon, and I was preparing to depart when began an adventure that may take me far.

As everybody knows, the restaurant of "The Cascade" is close to Longchamps. While we lunched, officers of the French army engaged in marking out the positions of the troops for the grand review of the 14th of July observed the air-s.h.i.+p on the lawn and came to inspect it.

"Shall you come to the review in it?" they asked me. The year previous there had been question of such a demonstration in presence of the army, but I had hesitated for reasons that may be readily divined. After the visit of the King of England I was asked on every hand why I had not brought out the air-s.h.i.+p in his honour, and the same questions had arisen in antic.i.p.ation of the visit of the King of Italy, who had been expected to be present at this review.

I answered the officers that I could not make up my mind; that I was not sure how such an apparition would be viewed; and that my little "No.

9"--the only one of my fleet actually "in commission"--not being built for battling with high winds I could not be sure to keep an engagement in it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "No. 9." OVER BOIS DE BOULOGNE]