My Airships Part 14

Is there any possibility of a leak?

Is the rigging in condition?

Is the motor in condition?

Do the cords commanding rudder, motor, water ballast, and the s.h.i.+fting guide rope work freely?

Is the ballast properly weighed?

Looked on as a mere machine the air-s.h.i.+p requires no more care than an automobile, but, from the point of view of consequences, the need of faithful and intelligent surveillance is simply imperious. This very day all the highways of France are dotted with a thousand automobiles _en panne_, with their enthusiastic drivers crawling underneath them in the dust, oil-can and wrench in hand, repairing momentary accidents. They think no less of their automobile for this reason. Yet let the air-s.h.i.+p have the same trifling accident and all the world is likely to hear of the fact.

In the first years of my experiments I insisted on doing everything for myself. I "groomed" my balloons and motors with my own hands. My present aids understand my present air-s.h.i.+ps, and nine times out of ten they hand them over to me in good condition for the voyage. Yet were I to begin experiments with a new type I should have to train them all anew, and during that time I should have to care for the air-s.h.i.+ps with my own hands again.

On this occasion the air-s.h.i.+p left the aerodrome imperfectly weighed and inflated, not so much by the neglect of my men as by reason of the imperfect situation of the aerodrome. In spite of the care that had been given to designing and constructing it, from the very nature of its situation there was no s.p.a.ce outside in which to send up the air-s.h.i.+p and ascertain if its ballast were properly distributed. Could this have been done the imperfect inflation of the balloon would have been perceived in time.

Looking back over all my varied experiences I reflect with astonishment that one of my greatest dangers pa.s.sed unperceived, even by myself at the end of my most successful flight over the Mediterranean.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "MY PRESENT AIDS UNDERSTAND MY PRESENT AIRs.h.i.+PS"

MOTOR OF "No. 6"]

It was at the time the prince attempted to grasp my guide rope and was knocked into the bottom of his steam _chaloupe_. I had entered the bay after flying homeward up the coast, and they were towing me toward the aerodrome. The air-s.h.i.+p had descended very close to the surface of the water, and they were pulling it still lower by means of the guide rope, until it was not many feet above the smoke-stack of the steam _chaloupe_--and that smoke-stack was belching red-hot sparks.

Any one of those red-hot sparks might have, ascending, burned a hole in my balloon, set fire to the hydrogen, and blown balloon and myself to atoms.

CHAPTER XXI

THE FIRST OF THE WORLD'S AIR-s.h.i.+P STATIONS

Air-s.h.i.+p experimenters labour under one peculiar disadvantage, quite apart from the proper difficulties of the problem. It is due to the utter newness of travel in a third dimension, and consists in the slowness with which our minds realise the necessity of providing for the diagonal mountings and descents of the air-s.h.i.+ps starting from and returning to the ground.

When the Aero Club of Paris laid out its grounds at St Cloud it was with the sole idea of facilitating the vertical mounting of spherical balloons. Indeed, no provisions were made even for the landing of spherical balloons, because their captains never hoped to bring them back to the St Cloud balloon park otherwise than by rail, packed in their boxes. The spherical balloon lands where the wind takes it.

When I built my first air-s.h.i.+p house in the Club's grounds at St Cloud I dare say that the then novel advantages of possessing my own gas plant, workshop, and a shelter in which the inflated dirigibles could be housed indefinitely withheld my attention from this other almost vital problem of surroundings. It was already a great progress for me not to be obliged to empty the balloon and waste its hydrogen at the end of each trip. Thus I was content to build simply an air-s.h.i.+p house with great sliding doors without even taking precautions to guarantee a flat, open s.p.a.ce in front, and, less still, on either side of it. When, little by little, trenches something like a metre (yard) deep--vague foundation outlines for constructions that were never finished--began appearing here and there to the right of my open doors and on beyond I realised that my aids might risk falling into them in running to catch my guide rope when I should be returning from a trip.

And when the gigantic skeleton of M. Henry Deutsch's air-s.h.i.+p house, designed to shelter the air-s.h.i.+p he built on the lines of my "No. 6,"

and called "La Ville de Paris," rose directly in front of my sliding doors, scarcely two air-s.h.i.+ps' lengths distant from them, it dawned on me at last that here was something of a peril, and more than a simple inconvenience due to natural crowding in a club's grounds. In spite of the new peril the Deutsch prize was won. Returning from the Eiffel Tower I pa.s.sed high above the skeleton. I may say here, however, that the foundation trenches innocently caused the painful controversy about my time, to which I have made a brief allusion in the chapter. Seeing that they might easily break their legs by stumbling into those foundation trenches I had positively forbidden my men to run across that s.p.a.ce to catch my guide rope with their eyes and arms up in the air. Not dreaming that such a point could be raised, my men obeyed the injunction.

Observing that I was quite master of my rudder, motor, and propeller, able to turn and return to the spot where the judges stood, they let me pa.s.s on over their heads without seeking to catch and run along with the guide rope, a thing they might have done easily--at the risk of their legs.

Again, at Monaco, after a well-planned air-s.h.i.+p house had been erected in what seemed an ideal spot, we have seen what dangers were, nevertheless, threatened by the sea wall, the Boulevard de la Condamine with its poles, wires, and traffic, and the final disaster, due entirely to the absence of a weighing ground beside the aerodrome. These are dangers and inconveniences against which we come in time to be on our guard by actual and often dire experience.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SANTOS-DUMONT No. 5"

SHOWING HOW AeRO CLUB GROUNDS WERE CUT UP]

During the spring and summer of 1902 I took trips to England and the United States, of which I shall have a word to say later. Returning from those trips to Paris I at once set about selecting the site of an aerodrome that should be all my own and in which the experience gained at such cost should be taken advantage of. This time I resolved my air-s.h.i.+p house should have an ample s.p.a.ce around it. And, succeeding in a way, I realised--if I may say it--the first of the air-s.h.i.+p stations of the future.

After long search I came on a fair-sized lot of vacant ground surrounded by a high stone wall, inside the police jurisdiction of the Bois de Boulogne, but private property, situated on the Rue de Longchamps, in Neuilly St James. First, I had to come to an understanding with its owner; then I had to come to an understanding with the Bois authorities, who took time to give a building permit to such an unusual construction as a house from which air-s.h.i.+ps would go and come.

The Rue de Longchamps is a narrow suburban street, little built on at this end, that gives on the Bagatelle Gate to the Bois de Boulogne, beside the training ground of the same name. To go and come in my air-s.h.i.+ps from this side is, however, inconvenient because of the walls of the various properties, the trees that line the Bois so thickly, and the great park gates. To the right and left of my little property are other buildings. Behind me, across the Boulevard de la Seine, is the river itself, with the Ile de Puteaux in it. It is from this side that I must go and come in my air-s.h.i.+ps. Mounting diagonally in the air from my own open grounds I pa.s.s over my wall, the Boulevard de la Seine, and turn when well above the river. Regularly I turn to the left and make my way, in a great arc, to the Bois by way of the training ground, itself a fairly open s.p.a.ce.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIRST OF THE WORLD'S AIRs.h.i.+P STATIONS (NEUILLY ST JAMES)]

There it stands in its grounds, the first of the air-s.h.i.+p stations of the future, capable of housing seven air-s.h.i.+ps all inflated and prepared to navigate at an instant's notice! But in spite of all the needs that I attempted to provide for in it what a small and hampered place it is compared with the great, highly-organised stations which the future must produce for itself, with their high-placed and s.p.a.cious landing-stages, to which air-s.h.i.+ps will descend with complete safety and convenience, like great birds that seek nests on flat rocks! Such stations may have little car tracks running out from their interior to the wide landing-s.p.a.ces. The cars that run over them will pull the air-s.h.i.+ps in and out by their guide ropes, without loss of time or the aid of a dozen or more men. Their observation towers will serve for judges timing stations in aerial races; fitted with wireless telegraph apparatus they may be able to communicate with distant goals and, perhaps, even with the air-s.h.i.+ps in motion. Attached to their air-s.h.i.+p stations there will be gas-generating plants. There may be a casemated workshop for the testing of motors. There will certainly be sleeping-rooms for experimenters who desire to make an early start and profit by the calm of the dawn. It is quite probable that there will also be balloon envelope workshops for repairs and changes, a carpenter shop, and a machine shop, with intelligent and experienced workmen ready and able to seize an idea and execute it.

Meanwhile my air-s.h.i.+p station of the present is said to resemble a great square tent, striped red and white, set in the midst of a vacant lot surrounded by a high stone wall. Its tent-like appearance is due to the fact that, being in a hurry to utilise it, I saw no reason to construct its walls or roof of wood. The framework consists of long rows of parallel wooden pillars. Across their tops is stretched a canvas roof, and the four sides are made of the same striped canvas. This makes a construction stronger than it at first appears, the outside tent stuff weighing some 2600 kilogrammes (5720 lbs.), and being sustained between the pillars by metallic cordage.

Inside, the central stalls are 9-1/2 metres (31 feet) wide, 50 metres (165 feet) long, and 13-1/2 metres (44-1/2 feet) high, affording room for the largest dirigibles without permitting them to come into contact with each other. The great sliding doors are but a repet.i.tion of those of Monaco.

When in the spring of 1903 I found my air-s.h.i.+p station completed I had three new air-s.h.i.+ps ready to house in it. They were:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "No. 7"]

My "No. 7." This I call my racing air-s.h.i.+p. It is designed and reserved for important compet.i.tions, the mere cost of filling it with hydrogen being more than 3000 francs (120). It is true that, once filled, it may be kept inflated for a month at the expense of 50 francs (2) per day for hydrogen to replace what is lost by the daily play of condensation and dilatation. Having a gas capacity of 1257 cubic metres (nearly 45,000 cubic feet) it possesses twice the lifting power of my "No. 6," in which the Deutsch prize was won; and such is the necessary weight of its 60 horse-power, water-cooled, four-cylinder motor and its proportionally strong machinery that I shall probably take up no more ballast in it than I took up in the "No. 6." Comparing their sizes and lifting powers, it would make five of

My "No. 9," the novel little "runabout," which I shall describe in the succeeding chapter. The third of the new air-s.h.i.+ps is

My "No. 10," which has been called "The Omnibus." Its gas capacity of 2010 cubic metres (nearly 80,000 cubic feet) makes its balloon greater in size and lifting power than even the racing "No. 7"; and should I, indeed, desire at any time to s.h.i.+ft to it the latter's keel, all furnished with the racing motor and machinery, I might combine a very swift air craft capable of carrying myself, several aids and a large supply of both petroleum and ballast--not to speak of war munitions were the sudden need of a belligerent character.

The prime purpose of my "No. 10," however, is well indicated in its name: "The Omnibus." Its keel, or, rather, keels, as I have fas.h.i.+oned them, are double--that is to say, hanging underneath its usual keel, in which my basket is situated, there is a pa.s.senger keel that holds three similar baskets and a smaller basket for my aid. Each pa.s.senger basket is large enough to contain four pa.s.sengers; and it is to carry such pa.s.sengers that "The Omnibus" has been constructed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 13.--"No. 10" rising]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "No. 10"

WITHOUT Pa.s.sENGER KEEL]

Indeed, after mature reflection, it seemed to me that this must be the most practical and rapid way to popularise aerial navigation. In my other air-s.h.i.+ps I have shown that it is possible to mount and travel through the air on a prescribed course with no greater danger than one risks in any racing automobile. In "The Omnibus" I shall demonstrate to the world that there are very many men--and women--possessed of sufficient confidence in the aerial idea to mount with me as pa.s.sengers in the first of the air omnibuses of the future.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 14.--"No. 10" descending]

CHAPTER XXII

MY "NO. 9," THE LITTLE RUNABOUT

Once I was enamoured of high-power petroleum automobiles: they can go at express-train speed to any part of Europe, finding fuel in any village.

"I can go to Moscow or Lisbon!" I said to myself. But when I discovered that I did not want to go to Moscow or to Lisbon the small and handy electric runabout in which I do my errands about Paris and the Bois proved more satisfactory.

Speaking from the standpoint of my pleasure and convenience as a Parisian my air-s.h.i.+p experience has been similar. When the balloon and motor of my 60 horse-power "No. 7" were completed I said to myself:

[Ill.u.s.tration: "SANTOS-DUMONT No. 9"]