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Santos-Dumont's Steerable Balloons

Among the inventors engaged in building flying machines the most famous, perhaps, is M. Santos-Dumont, whose thrilling adventures and noteworthy successes have given him world-wide fame. He was the first, indeed, to build a balloon that was really steerable with any degree of certainty, winning a prize of $20,000 for driving his great air-ship over a certain specified course in Paris and bringing it back to the starting-point within a specified time. Another experimenter who has had some degree of success is the German, Count Zeppelin, who guided a huge air-ship over Lake Geneva, Switzerland, in 1901.

Carl E. Myers, an American, an expert balloonist, has also built balloons of small size which he has been able to steer. And mention must also be made of M. Severo, the Frenchman, whose ship, Pax, exploded in the air on its first trip, dropping the inventor and his assistant hundreds of feet downward to their death on the pavements of Paris.

It will be most interesting and instructive to consider especially the work of Santos-Dumont, for he has been not only the most successful in making actual flights of any of the inventors who have taken up this great problem of air navigation, but his adventures have been most romantic and thrilling. In five years' time he has built and operated no fewer than ten great air-ships which he has sailed in various parts of Europe and in America. He has even crowned his experiences with more than one shipwreck in the air, an adventure by the side of which an ordinary sea-wreck is tame indeed, and he has escaped with his life as a result not only of good fortune but of real daring and presence of mind in the face of danger.

For an inventor, M. Santos-Dumont is a rather extraordinary character. The typical inventor – at least so we think – is poor, starts poor at least, and has a struggle to rise. M. Santos-Dumont has always had plenty of means. The inventor is always first a dreamer, we think. M. Santos-Dumont is first a thoroughly practical man, an engineer with a good knowledge of science, to which he adds the imagination of the inventor and the keen love and daring of the sportsman and adventurer, without which his experiments could never have been carried through.

It would seem, indeed, that nature had especially equipped M. Santos-Dumont for his work in aërial navigation. Supposing an inventor, having all the mental equipment of Santos-Dumont, the ideas, the energy, the means – supposing such a man had weighed two hundred pounds! He would have had to build a very large ship to carry his own weight, and all his problems would have been more complex, more difficult. Nature made Santos-Dumont a very small, slim, slight man, weighing hardly more than one hundred pounds, but very active and muscular. The first time I ever saw him, in Crystal Palace, London, where he was setting up one of his air-ships in a huge gallery, I thought him at first glance to be some boy, a possible spectator, who was interested in flying machines. His face, bare and shaven, looked youthful; he wore a narrow-brimmed straw hat and was dressed in the height of fashion. One would not have guessed him to be the inventor. A moment later he had his coat off and was showing his men how to put up the great fan-like rudder of the ship which loomed above us like some enormous Rugby football, and then one saw the power that was in him. Brazilian by nationality, he has a dark face, large dark eyes, an alertness of step and an energetic way of talking. His boyhood was spent on his father's extensive coffee plantation in Brazil; his later years mostly in Paris, though he has been a frequent visitor to England and America. He speaks Spanish, French, and English with equal fluency. Indeed, hearing his English one would say that he must certainly have had his training in an English-speaking country, though no one would mistake him in appearance for either English or American, for he is very much a Latin in face and form. One finds him most unpretentious, modest, speaking freely of his inventions, and yet never taking to himself any undue credit.

Santos-Dumont is still a very young man to have accomplished so much. He was born in Brazil, July 20, 1873. From his earliest boyhood he was interested in kites and dreamed of being able to fly. He says:

"I cannot say at what age I made my first kites; but I remember how my comrades used to tease me at our game of 'Pigeon flies'! All the children gather round a table, and the leader calls out: 'Pigeon flies! Hen flies! Crow flies! Bee flies!' and so on; and at each call we were supposed to raise our fingers. Sometimes, however, he would call out: 'Dog flies! Fox flies!' or some other like impossibility, to catch us. If any one should raise a finger, he was made to pay a forfeit. Now my playmates never failed to wink and smile mockingly at me when one of them called 'Man flies!' For at the word I would always lift my finger very high, as a sign of absolute conviction; and I refused with energy to pay the forfeit. The more they laughed at me, the happier I was."

Of course he read Jules Verne's stories and was carried away in imagination in that author's wonderful balloons and flying machines. He also devoured the history of aërial navigation which he found in the works of Camille Flammarion and Wilfrid de Fonvielle. He says, further:

"At an early age I was taught the principles of mechanics by my father, an engineer of the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures of Paris. From childhood I had a passion for making calculations and inventing; and from my tenth year I was accustomed to handle the powerful and heavy machines of our factories, and drive the compound locomotives on our plantation railroads. I was constantly taken up with the desire to lighten their parts; and I dreamed of air-ships and flying machines. The fact that up to the end of the nineteenth century those who occupied themselves with aërial navigation passed for crazy, rather pleased than offended me. 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."

Upon going to Paris Santos-Dumont at once took up the work of making himself familiar with ballooning in all of its practical aspects. He saw that if he were ever to build an air-ship he must first know all there was to know about balloon-making, methods of filling with gas, lifting capacities, the action of balloons in the air, and all the thousand and one things connected with ordinary ballooning. And Paris has always been the centre of this information. He regards this preliminary knowledge as indispensable to every air-ship builder. He says:

"Before launching out into the construction of air-ships I took pains to make myself familiar with the handling of spherical balloons. I did not hasten, but took plenty of time. In all, I made something like thirty ascensions; at first as a passenger, then as my own captain, and at last alone. Some of these spherical balloons I rented, others I had constructed for me. Of such I have owned at least six or eight. 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. 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."

His first ascent in a balloon was made in 1897, when he was 24 years old, as a passenger with M. Machuron, who had then just returned from the Arctic regions, where he had helped to start Andrée on his ill-fated voyage in search of the North Pole. He found the sensations delightful, being so pleased with the experience that he subsequently secured a small balloon of his own, in which he made several ascents. He also climbed the Alps in order to learn more of the condition of the air at high altitudes.

In 1898 he set about experimentation in the building of a real air-ship or steerable balloon. Efforts had been made in this direction by former inventors, but with small success. As far back as 1852 Henri Gifford made the first of the familiar cigar-shaped balloons, trying steam as a motive power, but he soon found that an engine strong enough to propel the balloon was too heavy for the balloon to lift. That simple failure discouraged experimenters for a long time. In 1877 Dupuy de Lome tried steering a balloon by man power, but the man was not strong enough. In 1883 another Frenchman, Tissandier, experimented with electricity, but, as his batteries had to be light enough to be taken up in the balloon, they proved effective only in helping to weigh it down to earth again. Krebs and Renard, military aëronauts, succeeded better with electricity, for they could make a small circuit with their air-ship, provided only that no air was stirring. Enthusiasts cried out that the problem was solved, but the two aëronauts themselves, as good mathematicians, figured out that they would have to have a motor eight times more powerful than their own, and that without any increase in weight, which was an impossibility at that time.

Santos-Dumont saw plainly that none of these methods would work. What then was he to try? Why, simple enough: the petroleum motor from his automobile. The recent development of the motor-vehicle had produced a light, strong, durable motor. It was Santos-Dumont's first great claim to originality that he should have applied this to the balloon. He discovered no new principles, invented nothing that could be patented. The cigar-shaped balloon had long been used, so had the petroleum motor, but he put them together. And he did very much more than that. The very essence of success in aërial navigation is to secure light weight with great strength and power. The inventor who can build the lightest machine, which is also strong, will, other things being equal, have the greatest success. It is to Santos-Dumont's great credit that he was able to build a very light motor, that also gave a good horse-power, and a light balloon that was also very strong. The one great source of danger in using the petroleum motor in connection with a balloon is that the sparking of the motor will set fire to the inflammable hydrogen gas with which the balloon is filled, causing a terrible explosion. This, indeed, is what is thought to have caused the mortal mishap to Severo and his balloon. But Santos-Dumont was able to surmount this and many other difficulties of construction.

The inventor finally succeeded in making a motor – remarkable at that time – which, weighing only 66 pounds, would produce 3½ horse-power. It is easy to understand why a petroleum motor is such a power-producer for its size. The greater part of its fuel is in the air itself, and the air is all around the balloon, ready for use. The aëronaut does not have to take it up with him. That proportion of his fuel that he must carry, the petroleum, is comparatively insignificant in weight. A few figures will prove interesting. Two and one-half gallons of gasoline, weighing 15 pounds, will drive a 2½ horse-power autocycle 94 miles in four hours. Santos-Dumont's balloon needs less than 5⅓ gallons for a three hours' trip. This weighs but 37 pounds, and occupies a small cigar-shaped brass reservoir near the motor of his machine. An electric battery of the same horse-power would weigh 2,695 pounds.

Santos-Dumont tested his new motor very thoroughly by attaching it to a tricycle with which he made some record runs in and around Paris. Having satisfied himself that it was thoroughly serviceable he set about making the balloon, cigar-shaped, 82 feet long.

"To keep within the limit of weight," he says, "I first gave up the network and the outer cover of the ordinary balloon. I considered this sort of second envelope, holding the first within it, to be superfluous, and even harmful, if not dangerous. To the envelope proper I attached the suspension-cords of my basket directly, by means of small wooden rods introduced into horizontal hems, sewed on both sides along the stuff of the balloon for a great part of its length. Again, in order not to pass the 66 pounds weight, including varnish, I was obliged to choose Japan silk that was extremely fine, but fairly resisting. Up to this time no one had ever thought of using this for balloons intended to carry up an aëronaut, but only for little balloons carrying light registering apparatus for investigations in the upper air.

"I gave the order for this balloon to M. Lachambre. At first he refused to take it, saying that such a thing had never been made, and that he would not be responsible for my rashness. I answered that I would not change a thing in the plan of the balloon, if I had to sew it with my own hands. At last he agreed to sew and varnish the balloon as I desired."

After repeated trials of his motor in the basket – which he suspended in his workshop – and the making of a rudder of silk he was able, in September, 1898, to attempt real flying. But, after rising successfully in the air, the weight of the machinery and his own body swung beneath the fragile balloon was so great that while descending from a considerable height the balloon suddenly sagged down in the middle and began to shut up like a portfolio.

"At that moment," he said, "I thought that all was over, the more so as the descent, which had already become rapid, could no longer be checked by any of the usual means on board, where nothing worked.

"The descent became a rapid fall. Luckily, I was falling in the neighborhood of the soft, grassy pélouse of the Longchamps race-course, where some big boys were flying kites. A sudden idea struck me. I cried to them to grasp the end of my 100-meter guide-rope, which had already touched the ground, and to run as fast as they could with it against the wind! They were bright young fellows, and they grasped the idea and the guide-rope at the same lucky instant. The effect of this help in extremis was immediate, and such as I had expected. By this manœuvre we lessened the velocity of the fall, and so avoided what would otherwise have been a terribly rough shaking up, to say the least. I was saved for the first time. Thanking the brave boys, who continued to aid me to pack everything into the air-ship's basket, I finally secured a cab and took the relic back to Paris."

His life was thus saved almost miraculously; but the accident did not deter him from going forward immediately with other experiments. The next year, 1899, he built a new air-ship called Santos-Dumont II., and made an ascension with it, but it dissatisfied him and he at once began with Santos-Dumont III., with which he made the first trip around the Eiffel Tower.

He now made ready to compete for the Deutsch prize of $20,000. The winning of this prize demanded that the trip from Saint-Cloud to the Eiffel Tower, around it and back to the starting place, a distance of some eight miles, should be made in half an hour. For this purpose he finished a much larger air-ship, Santos-Dumont V., in 1901. After a trial, made on July 12, which was attended by several accidents, the inventor decided to make a start early on the following morning, July 13. As early as four o'clock he was ready, and a crowd had begun to gather in the park.

At 6.20 the great sliding doors of the balloon-house were pushed open, and the massive inflated occupant was towed out into the open space of the park. The big pointed nose of the balloon and its fish-like belly resembled a shark gliding with lazy craft from a shadow into light waters. In the basket of the car stood the coatless aëronaut, who laughed and chatted like a boy with the crowd around him.

From the very first the conditions did not show themselves favourable for the attempt. The wind was blowing at the rate of six or seven yards a second. The change of temperature from the balloon-house to the cool morning air had somewhat condensed the hydrogen gas of the balloon, so that one end flapped about in a flabby manner. Air was pumped into the air reservoir, inside the balloon, but still the desired rigidity was not attained. But, more discouraging yet, when the motor was started, its continuous explosions gave to the practised ear signs of mechanical discord.

Nevertheless, Santos-Dumont, with his sleeves rolled up, fixed himself in his basket. His eye took a careful survey of the entire air-ship lest some preliminary had been overlooked. He counted the ballast bags under his feet in the basket, he looked to the canvas pocket of loose sand at either hand, then saw to his guide-rope.

There is a very great deal to look after in managing such a ship, and it requires a calm head and a steady hand to do it.

"Near the saddle on which I sat," he writes, "were the ends of the cords and other means for controlling the different parts of the mechanism – the electric sparking of the motor, the regulation of the carburetter, the handling of the rudder, ballast, and the shifting weights (consisting of the guide-rope and bags of sand), the managing of the balloon's valves, and the emergency rope for tearing open the balloon. It may easily be gathered from this enumeration that an air-ship, even as simple as my own, is a very complex organism; and the work incumbent on the aëronaut is no sinecure."

Several friends shook his hand, among them Mr. Deutsch. The place was very still as the man holding the guide-rope awaited the signal to let go. Then the little man in the basket above them raised his hands and shouted.

At first it did not look like a race against time. The balloon rose sluggishly, and Santos-Dumont had to dump out bag after bag of sand, till finally the guide-rope was clear of the trees. All this gave him no opportunity to think of his direction, and he was drifting toward Versailles; but while yet over the Seine he pulled his rudder ropes taut. Then slowly, gracefully, the enormous spindle veered round and pointed its nose toward the Eiffel Tower. The fans spun energetically, and the air-ship settled down to business-like travelling. It marked a straight, decided line for its goal, then followed the chosen route with a considerable speed. Soon the chug-chugging of the motor could be heard no longer by the spectators, and the balloon and car grew smaller and smaller in its halo of light smoke. Those in the park saw only the screw and the rear of the balloon, like the stern of a steamer in dry dock. Before long only a dot remained against the sky. Gradually he came nearer again, almost returning to the park, but the wind drove him back across the river Seine. Suddenly the motor stopped, and the whole air-ship was seen to fall heavily toward the earth. The crowd raced away expecting to find Santos-Dumont dead and his air-ship a wreck. But they found him on his feet, with his hands in his pockets, reflectively looking up at his air-ship among the top branches of some chestnut trees in the grounds of Baron Edmund de Rothschild, Boulevard de Boulogne.

"This," he says, "was near the hôtel of Princesse Ysabel, Comtesse d'Eu, who sent up to me in my tree a champagne lunch, with an invitation to come and tell her the story of my trip.

"When my story was over, she said to me:

"'Your evolutions in the air made me think of the flight of our great birds of Brazil. I hope that you will succeed for the glory of our common country.'"

And an examination showed that the air-ship was practically uninjured.

So he escaped death a second time. Less than a month later he had a still more terrible mishap, best related in his own words. He says:

"And now I come to a terrible day – August 8, 1901. At 6.30 A.M., I started for the Eiffel Tower again, in the presence of the committee, duly convoked. I turned the goal at the end of nine minutes, and took my way back to Saint-Cloud; but my balloon was losing hydrogen through the automatic valves, the spring of which had been accidentally weakened; and it shrank visibly. All at once, while over the fortifications of Paris, near La Muette, the screw-propeller touched and cut the 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 manœuvre-valve, and sent my balloon downward.

"At 32 metres (106 feet) above the ground, and with the noise of an explosion, it struck the roof of the Trocadero Hotels. The balloon-envelope was torn to rags, and fell into the courtyard of the hotels, while I remained hanging 15 metres (50 feet) above the ground in my wicker basket, which had been turned almost over, but was supported by the keel. The keel of the Santos-Dumont V. saved my life that day.

"After some minutes a rope was thrown down to me; and, helping myself with feet and hands up the wall (the few narrow windows of which were grated like those of a prison), I was hauled up to the roof. The firemen from Passy had watched the fall of the air-ship from their observatory. They, too, hastened to the rescue. 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. What I feared when on the ground – I had no time to fear while in the air – was that, by some mistake of steering, or by the influence of some side-wind, I might be dashed against the Tower. The impact would burst my balloon, and I should fall to the ground like a stone. Though I never seek to fly at a great height – on the contrary, I hold the record for low altitude in a free balloon – in passing over Paris I must necessarily move above all its chimney-pots and steeples. The Eiffel Tower was my one danger – yet it was my winning-post!

"But in the air I have no time to fear. I have always kept a cool head. Alone in the air-ship, I am always very busy. I must not let go the rudder for a single instant. Then there is the strong joy of commanding. What does it feel like to sail in a dirigible balloon? While the wind was carrying me back to the Eiffel Tower I realised that I might be killed; but I did not feel fear. I was in no personal inconvenience. I knew my resources. I was excessively occupied. I have felt fear while in the air, yes, miserable fear joined to pain; but never in a dirigible balloon."

Even this did not daunt him. That very night he ordered a new air-ship, Santos-Dumont VI., and it was ready in twenty-two days. The new balloon had the shape of an elongated ellipsoid, 32 metres (105 feet) on its great axis, and 6 metres (20 feet) on its short axis, terminated fore and aft by cones. Its capacity was 605 cubic metres (21,362 cubic feet), giving it a lifting power of 620 kilos (1,362 pounds). Of this, 1,100 pounds were represented by keel, machinery, and his own weight, leaving a net lifting-power of 120 kilos (261 pounds).

On October 19, 1901, he made another attempt to round the Eiffel Tower, and was at last successful in winning the $20,000 prize. Following this great feat, Santos-Dumont continued his experiments at Monte Carlo, where he was wrecked over the Mediterranean Sea and escaped only by presence of mind, and he is still continuing his work.

The future of the dirigible balloon is open to debate. Santos-Dumont himself does not think there is much likelihood that it will ever have much commercial use. A balloon to carry many passengers would have to be so enormous that it could not support the machinery necessary to propel it, especially against a strong wind. But he does believe that the steerable balloon will have great importance in war time. He says:

"I have often been asked what present utility is to be expected of the dirigible balloon when it becomes thoroughly practicable. I have never pretended that its commercial possibilities could go far. The question of the air-ship in war, however, is otherwise. Mr. Hiram Maxim has declared that a flying machine in South Africa would have been worth four times its weight in gold. 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 manœuvre as he wills … there will remain little for the nations to do but to lay down their arms.'"

But such experiments as Santos-Dumont's, whether they result immediately in producing an air-ship of practical utility in commerce or not, have great value for the facts which they are establishing as to the possibility of balloons, of motors, of light construction, of air currents, and moreover they add to the world's sum total of experiences a fine, clean sport in which men of daring and scientific knowledge show what men can do.