My Airships Part 9

This brings me to the Deutsch prize of aerial navigation, offered in the spring of 1900, while I was navigating my "No. 3," and after I had on at least one occasion--all unknowing--steered over what was to be its exact course from the Eiffel Tower to the Seine at Bagatelle (see page 127).

This prize of 100,000 francs, founded by M. Deutsch (de la Meurthe), a member of the Paris Aero Club, was to be awarded by the Scientific Commission of that organisation to the first dirigible balloon or air-ship that between 1st May and 1st October 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, and 1904 should rise from the Parc d'Aerostation of the Aero Club at St Cloud and, without touching ground and by its own self-contained means on board alone, describe a closed curve in such a way that the axis of the Eiffel Tower should be within the interior of the circuit, and return to the point of departure in the maximum time of half-an-hour.

Should more than one accomplish the task in the same year the 100,000 francs were to be divided in proportion to the respective times.

The Aero Club's Scientific Commission had been named expressly for the purpose of formulating these and such other conditions of the foundation as it might deem proper, and by reason of certain of them I had made no attempt to win the prize with my "Santos-Dumont, No. 4." The course from the Aero Club's Parc d'Aerostation to the Eiffel Tower and return was 11 kilometres (nearly 7 miles), and this distance, _plus the turning round the Tower_, must be accomplished in thirty minutes. This meant in a perfect calm a necessary speed of 25 kilometres (15-1/2 miles) per hour for the straight stretches--a speed I could not be sure to maintain all the way in my "No. 4."

Another condition formulated by the Scientific Commission was that its members, who were to be the judges of all trials, must be notified twenty-four hours in advance of each attempt. Naturally, the operation of such a condition would be to nullify as much as possible all minute time calculations based either on a given rate of speed through perfect calm or such air current as might be prevailing twenty-four hours previous to the hour of trial. Though Paris is situated in a basin, surrounded on all sides by hills, its air currents are peculiarly variable, and brusque meteorological changes are extremely common.

I foresaw also that when a compet.i.tor had once committed the formal act of a.s.sembling a Scientific Commission on a slope of the River Seine so far away from Paris as St Cloud he would be under a kind of moral pressure to go on with his trial, no matter how the air currents might have increased, and no matter in what kind of weather--wet, dry, or simply humid--he might find himself.

Again, this moral pressure to go on with the trial against the aeronaut's better judgment must extend even to the event of an unlucky change in the state of the air-ship itself. One does not convoke a body of prominent personages to a distant riverside for nothing, yet in the twenty-four hours between notification and trial even a well-watched elongated balloon might well lose a little of its tautness unperceived.

A previous day's preliminary trial might easily derange so uncertain an engine as the petroleum motor of the year 1900. And, finally, I saw that the compet.i.tor would be barred by common courtesy from convoking the Commission at the very hour most favourable for dirigible balloon experiments over Paris--the calm of the dawn. The duellist may call out his friends at that sacred hour, but not the air-ship captain.

In founding the Santos-Dumont prize with the 4000 francs awarded to me by the Aero Club for my work in the year 1900 it will be observed that I made no such conditions by the way. I did not wish to complicate the trial by imposing a minimum velocity, the check of a special committee, or any limitation of time of trial during the day. I was sure that even under the widest conditions it would be a great deal to come back to the starting-point after having reached a post publicly pointed out in advance--a thing that was unheard of before the year 1901.

The conditions of the Santos-Dumont prize, therefore, left compet.i.tors free to choose the state of the air least unfavourable to them, as the calm of late evening or early morning. Nor would I inflict on them the possible surprises of a period of waiting between the convocation and the meeting of a Scientific Commission, itself in my eyes quite unnecessary in these days, when the army of newspaper reporters of a great capital is always ready to mobilise without notice, at any hour and spot, on the bare prospect of news. The newspaper men of Paris would be my Scientific Commission.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "No. 5." LEAVING AeRO CLUB GROUNDS, JULY 12, 1901]

As I had excluded myself from trying for the Santos-Dumont prize I naturally wished to show that it would not be impossible to fulfil its conditions. My "No. 5"--composed of the enlarged balloon of the "No. 4"

and the new keel, motor, and propeller already described--was now ready for trial. In it, on the first attempt, I fulfilled the conditions of my own prize foundation.

This was on July 12th, 1901, after a practice flight the day before.

At 4.30 A.M. I steered my air-ship from the park of the Aero Club at St Cloud to the Longchamps racecourse. I did not at that moment take time to ask permission of the Jockey Club, which, however, a few days later placed that admirable open s.p.a.ce at my disposition. Ten times in succession I made the circuit of Longchamps, stopping each time at a point designed beforehand.

After these first evolutions, which altogether made up a distance of about 35 kilometres (22 miles), I set out for Puteaux, and after an excursion of about 3 kilometres (2 miles), done in nine minutes, I steered back again to Longchamps.

I was by this time so well satisfied with the dirigibility of my "No.

5" that I began looking for the Eiffel Tower. It had disappeared in the mists of the morning, but its direction was well known to me, so I steered for it as well as I might.

In ten minutes I had come within 200 metres (40 rods) of the Champ de Mars. At this moment one of the cords managing my rudder broke.

It was absolutely necessary to repair it at once, and to repair it I must descend to earth. With perfect ease I pulled forward the guide rope, shifted my centre of gravity, and drove the air-ship diagonally downward, landing gently in the Trocadero Gardens. Good-natured workmen ran to me from all directions.

Did I need anything? they asked.

Yes; I needed a ladder. And in less time than it takes to write it a ladder was found and placed in position. While two of these discreet and intelligent volunteers held it I climbed some twenty rounds to its top, and was able to repair the damaged rudder connection.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "No. 5." RETURNING FROM THE EIFFEL TOWER]

I started off again, mounting diagonally to my chosen alt.i.tude, turned the Eiffel Tower in a wide curve, and returned to Longchamps in a straight course without further incident after a trip which, including the stop for repairs, had lasted one hour and six minutes. Then after a few minutes' conversation I took my flight back to the St Cloud Aerodrome, pa.s.sing the Seine at an alt.i.tude of 200 metres (over 600 feet), and housing the still perfectly-inflated air-ship in its shed as though it were a simple automobile.

CHAPTER XIII

A FALL BEFORE A RISE

My "No. 5" had proved itself so much more powerful than its predecessors that I now found courage to inscribe myself for the Deutsch prize compet.i.tion.

Having taken this decisive step I at once convoked the Scientific Commission of the Aero Club for a trial in accordance with the regulations.

The Commission a.s.sembled in the grounds of the Aero Club at St Cloud on July 13th, 1901 at 6.30 A.M. At 6.41 I started off. I turned the Eiffel Tower in the tenth minute and came back against an unexpected head wind, reaching the timekeepers at St Cloud in the fortieth minute, at an alt.i.tude of 200 metres, and after a terrific struggle with the element.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "No. 5." ACCIDENT IN THE PARK OF M. EDMOND DE ROTHSCHILD]

Just at this moment my capricious motor stopped, and the air-ship, bereft of its power, was carried off, and fell on the tallest chestnut-tree in the park of M. Edmond de Rothschild. The inhabitants and servants of the villa, who came running, very naturally imagined that the air-ship must be wrecked and myself probably hurt. They were astonished to find me standing in my basket high up in the tree, while the propeller touched the ground. Considering the force with which the wind had blown when I was battling with it on the home stretch I was myself surprised to note how little the balloon was torn. Nevertheless, all its gas had left it.

This happened very near the house of the Princess Isabel, Comtesse d'Eu, who, hearing of my plight, and learning that I must be occupied some time in disengaging the air-ship, sent a lunch to me up in my tree, with an invitation to come and tell her the story of my trip. When the story was finished the daughter of Dom Pedro said to me:

"Your evolutions in the air make me think of the flight of our great birds of Brazil. I hope you will do as well with your propeller as they do with their wings, and that you will succeed for the glory of our common country."

A few days later I received the following letter:--

"_1st August 1901._

"MONSIEUR SANTOS-DUMONT,--Here is a medal of St Benedict that protects against accidents.

"Accept it, and wear it at your watch-chain, in your card-case, or at your neck.

"I send it to you, thinking of your good mother, and praying G.o.d to help you always and to make you work for the glory of our country.

(Signed) "ISABEL, COMTESSE D'EU."

As the newspapers have often spoken of my "bracelet" I may say that the thin gold chain of which it consists is simply the means I have taken to wear this medal, which I prize.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN ACCIDENT]

The air-ship, as a whole, was damaged very little, considering the force of the wind and the nature of the accident. When it was ready to be taken out again I nevertheless thought it prudent to make several trials with it over the gra.s.sy lawn of the Longchamps racecourse. One of these trials I will mention, because it gave me--something rare--a fairly accurate idea of the air-ship's speed in perfect calm. On this occasion Mr Maurice Farman followed me round the racecourse in his automobile at its second speed. His estimate was between 26 and 30 kilometres (16 and 18-1/2 miles) per hour with my guide rope dragging. Of course, when the guide rope drags it acts exactly like a brake. How much it holds one back depends upon the length that actually drags along the ground. Our calculation at the time was about 5 kilometres (3 miles) per hour, which would have brought my proper speed up to between 30 and 35 kilometres (18-1/2 and 21-1/2 miles) per hour. All this encouraged me to make another trial for the Deutsch prize.

And now I come to a terrible day--8th August 1901. At 6.30 A.M., in presence of the Scientific Commission of the Aero Club, I started again for the Eiffel Tower.

I turned the Tower at the end of nine minutes and took my way back to St Cloud; but my balloon was losing hydrogen through one of its two automatic gas valves, whose spring had been accidentally weakened.

I had perceived the beginning of this loss of gas even before reaching the Eiffel Tower, and ordinarily, in such an event, I should have come at once to earth to examine the lesion. But here I was competing for a prize of great honour, and my speed had been good. Therefore I risked going on.

The balloon now shrunk visibly. By the time I had got back to the fortifications of Paris, near La Muette, it caused the suspension wires to sag so much that those nearest to the screw propeller caught in it as it revolved.

I saw the propeller cutting and tearing at the wires. I stopped the motor instantly. Then, as a consequence, the air-ship was at once driven back toward the Tower by the wind, which was strong.

At the same time I was falling. The balloon had lost much gas. I might have thrown out ballast and greatly diminished the fall, but then the wind would have time to blow me back on the Eiffel Tower. I, therefore, preferred to let the air-ship go down as it was going. It may have seemed a terrific fall to those who watched it from the ground, but to me the worst detail was the air-ship's lack of equilibrium. The half-empty balloon, fluttering its empty end as an elephant waves his trunk, caused the air-ship's stem to point upward at an alarming angle.

What I most feared, therefore, was that the unequal strain on the suspension wires would break them one by one and so precipitate me to the ground.

Why was the balloon fluttering an empty end and causing all this extra danger? How was it that the rotary ventilator was not fulfilling its purpose in feeding the interior air balloon and in this manner swelling out the gas balloon around it? The answer must be looked for in the nature of the accident. The rotary ventilator stopped working when the motor itself stopped, and I had been obliged to stop the motor to prevent the propeller from tearing the suspension wires near it when the balloon first began to sag from loss of gas. It is true that the ventilator, which was working at that moment, had not proved sufficient to prevent the first sagging. It may have been that the interior air balloon refused to fill out properly. The day after the accident, when my balloon constructor's man came to me for the plans of a "No. 6"

balloon envelope, I gathered from something he said that the interior air balloon of the "No. 5," not having been given time for its varnish to dry before being adjusted, might have stuck together or stuck to the sides or bottom of the outer balloon. Such are the rewards of haste.

I was falling. At the same time the wind was carrying me toward the Eiffel Tower. It had already carried me so far that I was expecting to land on the Seine embankment beyond the Trocadero. My basket and the whole of the keel had already pa.s.sed the Trocadero hotels, and had my balloon been a spherical one, it too would have cleared the building.