Sterling Heilig

“ Showing its construction, the inflated balloon, and the pennant with its mystic letters The little Bay of Monaco, sheltered from behind against wind and cold by mountains, and from the wind and sea on both sides by the heights of Monte Carlo and Monaco Town, seemed to offer an ideal situation for a balloon-house. The airship would be always ready, filled with hydrogen gas. ”

“ Again, while the maritime guide-rope affords the airship even a certain amount of lateral stability in presence of side gusts, this stability is by no means complete, and is purchased at the price of so much more dragging back, as of a brake. The fact that without the guide-rope the airship would be bound to lose time on a much more erratic course, to say nothing of the navigator’s extra labor, proves only that the device is, on the whole, immensely serviceable. In either case, with or without maritime guide-rope, the speed calculation has its own practically insurmountable difficulties. ”

“ MANŒVERING ABOVE THE BAY It is true that, in the present instance, one of the greatest difficulties regularly standing in the way of such speed calculation—the ’’shoot the chutes’’ of ever-varying altitude—was very much done away with by the maritime guide-rope. On the other hand, the dragging of the guide-rope’s weight against the wind is something very different from its petty tugging in calm weather, and the absence of all such resistance, to say the least, when speeding before the wind, which sometimes bellies it like a sail. ”

“ This manœuver of itself makes enough work for one man. To be freed from it, except when one desires to mount or descend, and to go forward on a chosen level automatically, is the ideal realizable from maritime guide-roping.
Over land, where there are level plains without the troublesome and really dangerous drawbacks of trees, rocks, fences, and buildings, and telegraph or trolley-wires, the guide-rope might be thought useful to the dirigible balloonist; but over the uninterrupted stretches of the sea, these Monaco experiments have proved it to be a true stabilisateur. ”

“ Vertical stability is the life of any balloon, but to the balloon airship that may not waste the little ballast it carries, the problem becomes doubly complicated. Caused by changes in temperature and atmospheric pressure, condensation and dilatation continually react upon each other in the spherical balloon, necessitating continual losses of gas and ballast.
’’Suppose you are in equilibrium at a desired height,’’ M. Santos-Dumont once explained to me. ‘‘Suddenly a small cloud hides the sun for a few moments, and the temperature of the gas in the balloon cools down a little. ”

“ Floating over the sea, it can be at once a bird’s-eye scout and an offensive auxiliary of so delicate a character that the general service of the navy has not yet allowed itself to pronounce upon the matter. ”

“ LOSING ITS GAS AND SINKING The intrepid aëronaut, who had lost neither his cool head nor his balance, could still have righted himself had he not perceived with dismay that the up-pointing of the airship had caused the oil in the motor to overflow and the ballast itself to shift. To permit the flame-spitting motor to continue working under these circumstances would be to risk a fatal explosion. To stop the motor and remain in the air would mean the certainty of being cast by the wind on the telegraph wires, trees, and houses of Monte Carlo. ”

“ It is much more significant to dwell on the picture of the fast steam-launches overtaken and left far behind, one after the other, the Prince’s chaloupe utterly outdistanced, and the forty horse-power road racing automobiles keeping up with the airship only by being driven at their high speed.
During the manufacture of the hydrogen gas and the filling of the balloon, the new Aërodrome received the visits of a great number of prominent people, several of whom signified their willingness to lend valuable aid to the experiments. ”

“ According to its greater or less immersion, therefore, it ballasts or unballasts the airship. The balloon is held by its weight down to almost a fixed level over the waves, yet without danger of its being drawn into contact with them. Every extra foot of guide-rope floating means so much less weight for the balloon to lift and so much automatic remounting into the air. In this way an incessant little tugging toward and away from the waves is produced, an automatic ballasting and unballasting accomplished without loss of ballast. ”

“ To the sight-seeing crowd it made an exhilarating show of M. Santos-Dumont’s control of his airship; while to the inventor, to his aids and intimates, the maritime experiment had peculiar interests, both technical and general.
Over-sea ballooning has become the temptation of all European aëronauts. Lieutenant Tapissier, Director of the Toulon Maritime Ballooning Station, who accompanied Count Henry de La Vaulx in his recent highly subsidized but unsuccessful Mediterranean venture, says: ‘‘The balloon can render the navy immense services, on condition always that its direction can be assured. ”

“ Mr. Santos-Dumont, during his last winter's flights over the Mediterranean, was occupied with experiments quite different from those which took him around the Eiffel Tower in Paris. There, for a time, he went aside from his steadfast practice, to accomplish a set task and win a prize. ”

“ From Beaulieu, where his steam-yacht ‘‘Lysistrata’’ was at anchor, came Mr. James Gordon Bennett, and Mr. Eugene Higgins twice brought his ‘‘Varuna’’ up from the harbor of Nice. The beautiful little steam-yacht of M. Eiffel also held itself in readiness. ”

“ Showing the sea-wall and the landing stage After the first flight of the airship, it was seen that some serious miscalculations had been made with respect to the site of the Aërodrome. In the navigation of the air all is new, and surprises meet the experimenter at every turn. As we stood watching the ’’Santos-Dumont No. 6’’ steered out of its balloon-house, Mr. ”