Alberto Santos-Dumont

“ I longed after the land where the first Montgolfière had been sent up in 1783, where the first aëronaut had made his first ascension, where the first hydrogen balloon had been let loose, where first an air-ship had been made to navigate the air with its steam-engine, screw propeller, and rudder. In my heart I had an admiring worship for the four men of genius—Montgolfière, Pilátre de Rozier, the physicist, Charles, and the engineer, Henry Giffard—who have attached their names forever to each of the great steps forward of aërial navigation. ”

“ And I do not believe that, without such previous study and experience, a man is capable of succeeding with an elongated balloon, whose handling is so much more delicate. Before attempting to direct an air-ship, it is necessary to have learned in an ordinary balloon the conditions of the atmospheric medium; to have become acquainted with the caprices of the wind, now caressing and now brutal, and to have gone thoroughly into the difficulties of the ballast problem, from the triple point of view of starting, of equilibrium in the air, and of landing at the end of the trip. ”

“ Such inventors are afraid of nothing, because they have no idea of the difficulties of the problem. Had they previously journeyed through the air at the wind’s will, and amid all the disturbing influences of atmospheric phenomena, they would understand that a dirigible balloon, to be practicable, requires, first of all, the utmost simplicity in all its mechanism. Curiously enough, last year’s constructors who began work on dirigible balloons (of which the least would be large enough, could it be filled, to lift up tons) had, for the most part, not made a single ascension in a free balloon. ”

“ Like all other human devices, however, the guide-rope, along with its advantages, has its inconveniences. As it trails along the uneven surface of the ground—over fields and meadows, hills and valleys, fences and forests, roads and houses, hedges and telegraph wires—the balloon receives violent shocks. Or it may happen that the guide-rope rapidly unraveling catches on some projection or winds itself around the branch of a tree. ”

“ It was impossible to disengage the remains of the balloon-envelope and suspension apparatus except in strips and pieces.
My escape was narrow; but it was not from the particular danger always present to my mind during this period of my experiments. The position of the Eiffel Tower as a central landmark, visible to everybody from considerable distances, makes it a unique winning-post for an aërial race. Yet this does not alter the other fact that the feat of rounding the Eiffel Tower possesses a unique element of danger. ”

“ There is no danger from illuminating gas in houses, although danger was predicted at the beginning by the scientific men of England and America. I do not fear fire while in the air so long as my motor works properly. Yet it is true that once in a long while an automobile blows up. When this happens on the highway the consequences are not necessarily serious; but I confess that such an explosion of a petroleum reservoir in the air would be a different thing. This, however, is a different risk from that of setting fire to the balloon’s hydrogen ”

“ Henri Rochefort has said: ‘‘The day when it is established that a man can direct an air-ship in a given direction and cause it to manœuver as he wills. . . there will remain little for the nations to do but to lay down their arms.’’
Experience with spherical war balloons in South Africa has shown that they may be shot at and pierced with bullets without other effect than to let out gas very slowly. It must be admitted that the case is not quite the same with dirigibles. The spherical balloon is under no pressure; the dirigible balloon is held tight as a drum-head by the interior pressure. ”

“ It is incredible and yet true that, in the kingdom of the wise, to which all of us flatter ourselves we belong, it is always the fools who finish by being in the right. I had read that Montgolfière was thought a fool, until the day when he stopped his insulters’ mouths by launching the first spherical balloon into the heavens. ”

“ No dining-room is so marvelous in its decoration. The sun sets the clouds in ebullition, and they send up rainbow-colored jets of cold vapor like great sheaves of fireworks all around the table, throwing out spangles of ice, while flakes of snow, forming moment by moment under our eyes, fall in our drinking glasses. ”

“ Naturally I am filled with amazement when I see inventors, who have never set foot in the basket, drawing out on paper—and even executing in whole or in part—fantastic air-ships whose balloons had cubic capacities of thousands of meters, loaded down with enormous motors, which they do not succeed even in raising up from the ground, and furnished with machinery so complicated that nothing works. ”

“ I often think I might have had one of the first places at the finish (the average speed was only 40 kilometers, or 25 miles per hour) , had I not begun to fear that the jarring of my motor in so long and strenuous an effort might at last derange it and delay the more important work on my air-ship. I, therefore, fell out of the race while still at the head of the procession; I had given my new motor the best test it could have.
My experience with automobiles has stood me in good stead for my air-ship experiments. The petroleum motor is still a delicate and capricious organism ”

“ He who wishes to navigate an air-ship should first practice landing in an ordinary balloon, that is, if he wishes to land without breaking motor and propeller. The wind being rather strong, it was necessary to profit by a moment of comparative calm, and seek a shelter. ”

“ Thus, the push of the propeller sent the air-ship obliquely upward. It had been cool inside the shaded Aërodrome. Outside the direct rays of the sun immediately expanded the hydrogen. The balloon being imperfectly filled, the gas in its upward-pointing end became heated first, causing an upward rush of still more hydrogen and further exaggerating the inclination. That nothing should be lacking, the effect of all this was to react powerfully on the center of gravity of the whole system: ordinarily the keel is held rigidly parallel with the balloon, by piano wires tightly stretched ”

“ We regained our equilibrium at 3,000 meters (1, miles) , above a plateau of clouds. The sun cast the shadow of the balloon on this screen of dazzling whiteness, while our own profiles appeared in the center of a triple rainbow. As we could no longer see the earth, all sensation of movement ceased. We might be going at storm-speed and not know it. We could not even discover the direction we were taking, save by descending below the clouds to take our bearings.
BASKET OF “SANTOS-DUMONT NO, 1”
Showing propeller and motor A joyous peal of bells mounted up to us. ”

“ Little gusts pushed the balloon to right and left, up and down. From time to time the guide-rope (a great rope hanging 100 meters long from our basket) touched the earth; and soon the basket itself grazed the tops of trees.
My first experience of what is called ‘‘guide-roping’’ was thus had under conditions peculiarly instructive. We had a sack of ballast at hand; and when some special obstacle rose in our path we threw out a few handfuls of the sand to pass over it. More than fifty meters (165 feet) of the guide-rope dragged behind us on the ground ”

“ To ascertain the practical value of my new motor, I attached it to an ordinary petroleum tricycle, from which I had removed its original 1 horse-power motor. I have always been handy in mechanics; as I have already said, my father—himself an engineer of the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures of Paris—taught me the principles from my tenderest years, and while yet a boy I was accustomed to handle machines and modify their parts. ”

“ To go up in an ordinary balloon, at least a dozen times, seems to me an indispensable preliminary for acquiring an exact notion of the requisites for the construction and handling of an elongated balloon, furnished with its motor and propeller. ”

“ And when I reflect that it is enough to rise a few yards only above the ground to be out of the way of all the obstacles and dangers threatening the foot traveler below, and to visit unfatigued and gently rocked in a basket all the infinitely varied panoramas of a land so rich, it seems to me—as it has always seemed from my earliest childhood—a necessity of Nature to become an aëronaut. ”

“ The screw almost came to a stop; and the air-ship, a trifle heavier than the air, was rapidly falling. Up to this moment I had not used my ballast. Now I threw out enough sand to reëstablish my equilibrium. The balloon, buffeted by the wind, advanced with difficulty. From time to time a pitching movement must have been visibie to those below. Some day I may be able to correct such pitching by means of a horizontal rudder; it is due to the irregular motion of the petroleum motor. Were the electric motor possible, it would be altogether avoided. ”

“ Landing in Paris, in general, is something next to impossible for any kind of balloon.
Considerations of this order made it desirable for me to have a plant of my own. The Aëro Club had acquired some land on the newly opened Côteaux de Longchamps, at Saint-Cloud; and I decided to become my own master by building on it a great shed, high enough to contain my air-ship with the balloon fully inflated, and furnished with a hydrogen generator. This Aërodrome, which I built at my own expense, was 30 meters (99 feet) long, 7 meters (23 feet) wide, and 11 meters (36 feet) high. ”

“ Balloons with an electric motor, especially with the battery as it was twenty years ago, could not lead to any good result ; and that is why the Tissandier brothers gave up after trying them thoroughly. Their well-conducted experiments had the great merit of showing that trials along that line had no chance of success ; and, as their trials were very expensive, no one else has been tempted to lose his money in similar ventures. Only one government has run the risk, at great expense; but after two years, it was obliged to give up the trials ”

“ A hexagonal rudder—silk stretched over wooden rods—in spite of its great surface of 7 square meters, was light enough to be placed quite at the extremity of the balloon, on the stuff of the envelope itself. The balloon was rather elliptical in form; and though not at all a return to the slender straightness of No. 1, it had so little of No. 3’s podgy compactness that I thought it prudent to put the compensating air-balloon inside it again, this time fed by a rotary ventilator. Being smaller than No. 3, it would have less lifting-power; but this I would make up by going back to hydrogen gas. ”

“ It threatened to reach heights from which the fall would have been terrible, considering the little ballast we had remaining in store. It was time to have recourse to effective means—to open the valve so that the excess of gas over our lessened weight, which was taking us upward might escape.
It was the work of a moment. The balloon was stopped in its flight, and began descending to earth, and soon the guide-rope again rested on the ground. It was time to bring the trip to an end, for only a few handfuls of sand remained as ballast. ”

“ In this way the balloon has the entire open space to cross before reaching the trees or other obstructions which may be opposite, and toward which the wind would naturally carry the balloon. So it has time to rise high enough to pass over them. Moreover, the ascensional force of the balloon is regulated accordingly: it is very little if the wind be light; while it is more if the wind be stronger. I had thought that my air-ship would be able to go against the wind that was then blowing ”

“ All at once, while over the fortifications of Paris, near La Muette, the screw-propeller touched and cutthe suspension-cords, which were sagging behind. I was obliged to stop the motor instantly; and at once I saw my air-ship drift straight back to the Eiffel Tower. I had no means of avoiding the terrible danger, except to wreck myself on the roofs of the Trocadero quarter. Without hesitation I opened the manœuver-valve, and sent my balloon downward.
SANTOS-DUMONT NO. 4 At 32 meters (106 feet) above the ground, and with the noise of an explosion, it struck the roof of the Trocadero Hotels. ”

“ There one of the cords managing my rudder broke; and I was obliged to navigate diagonally downward and land in the Trocadero Gardens. A ladder was brought to me; and a few men at my request held it upright. I climbed up to its highest round and repaired the damage. Then I started off again, turned hastily round the Eiffel Tower, and came back to Longchamps after a trip, which, including the stop, had lasted one hour and six minutes. After a few minutes rest, I took a flight over to my Aërodrome, crossed the Seine at an altitude of 200 meters, and brought back my air-ship to its habitation. ”

“ Therefore, the tricycle with its sixty-six pound motor of 3 horse-power worked well, although the adjustment had been made with my own hands.
1 soon had an opportunity to test it. The great series of automobile road-races, which had its climax in the Paris-Berlin race of 1901, had begun with the Paris-Bordeaux race in 1895, won with a 4 horse-power machine at an average speed of 25 kilometers (15 miles) per hour. In 1896, the Paris-Marseilles-and-return run, was accomplished at the rate of 30 kilometers (18 miles) per hour. Now, in 1898, it was the Paris-Amsterdam contest. ”

“ But we might as well say that because men have gone to their deaths in unsafe vessels, a Columbus should not be encouraged to sail out upon unknown seas.
↑ In the early morning of May 12, 1902, M. Augusto Severo, a Brazilian like M. Santos-Dumont, accompanied by his mechanician, Sachet, started from Paris on a first trial trip with the dirigible ‘‘Pax,’’ the invention and construction of M. Severo. The ‘‘Pax’’ rose at once to a height almost double that of the Eiffel Tower, when, for reasons unknown, it exploded and came crashing down with its two passengers. ”

“ M. Severo, who was a theoretical but certainly not a practical aëronaut, actually stopped up one of these valves with wax before starting on his first and last voyage. In view of the decreasing pressure of the air as one goes higher, the ascent of a dirigible balloon should always be slow; gas will expand on the rise of a few yards. ”