Part 12 (1/2)

”I am astonished that the capital importance of this matter has not yet been grasped by all the professionals of aerostation. To mount in a balloon that one has not constructed, and which one is not in a state to guide, const.i.tutes the easiest of performances. A little cat has done it at the Folies-Bergere.”

Now in war service overland the air-s.h.i.+p will, doubtless, have often to mount to considerable heights to avoid the rifle fire of the enemy, but, as the maritime auxiliary described by the expert of the French Navy, its scouting _role_ will for the most part be performed at the end of its guide rope, comparatively close to the waves, and yet high enough to take in a wide view. Only when for easily-imagined reasons it is desired to mount high for a short time will it quit the convenient contact of its guide rope with the surface of the sea.

For these considerations--and particularly the last--I was anxious to do a great deal of guide-roping over the Mediterranean. If the maritime experiment promises so much to spherical ballooning it is doubly promising to the air-s.h.i.+p, which, from the nature of its construction, carries comparatively little ballast. This ballast ought not to be currently sacrificed, as it is by the spherical balloonist, for the remedying of every little vertical aberration. Its purpose is for use in great emergencies. Nor ought the aerial navigator, particularly if he be alone, be forced to rectify his alt.i.tude continually by means of his propeller and s.h.i.+fting weights. He ought to be free to navigate his air-s.h.i.+p; if on pleasure bent, with ease and leisure to enjoy his flight; if on war service, with facility for his observations and hostile manoeuvres. Therefore any _automatic_ guarantee of vertical stability is peculiarly welcome to him.

You know already what the guide rope is. I have described it in my first experience of spherical ballooning. Overland, where there are level plains or roads or even streets, where there are not too many troublesome trees, buildings, fences, telegraph and trolley poles and wires and like irregularities, the guide rope is as great an aid to the air-s.h.i.+p as to the spherical balloon. Indeed, I have made it more so, for with me it is the central feature of my s.h.i.+fting weights (Figs. 8 and 9, page 148).

Over the uninterrupted stretches of the sea my first Monaco flight proved it to be a true _stabilisateur_. Its very slight dragging resistance through the water is out of all proportion to the considerable weight of its floating extremity. According to its greater or less immersion, therefore, it ballasts or unballasts the air-s.h.i.+p (Fig. 11). The balloon is held by the weight of the guide rope down to a fixed level over the waves without danger of being drawn into contact with them. For the moment that the air-s.h.i.+p descends the slightest distance nearer to them that very moment it becomes relieved of just so much weight, and must naturally rise again by that amount of momentary unballasting. In this way an incessant little tugging toward and away from the waves is produced, infinitely gentle, an automatic ballasting and unballasting of the air-s.h.i.+p without loss of ballast.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 11]

My first flight over the Mediterranean, which was made on the morning of 29th January 1902, proved more than this, unfortunately. It was seen that a miscalculation had been made with respect to the site of the aerodrome itself. In the navigation of the air, where all is new, such surprises meet the experimenter at every turn. This ought to be remembered when one takes account of progress. In the Paris-Madrid automobile race of 1903 what minute precautions were not taken to secure the compet.i.tors against the perils of quick turnings and grade crossings? And yet how notably insufficient did they not turn out to be.

As the air-s.h.i.+p was being taken out from its house for its first flight on the morning of 29th January 1902 the spectators could see that nothing equivalent to the landing-stages which the air-s.h.i.+ps of the future must have built for them existed in front of the building. The air-s.h.i.+p, loaded with ballast until it was a trifle heavier than the surrounding atmosphere, had to be towed, or helped, out of the aerodrome and across the Boulevard de la Condamine before it could be launched into the air over the sea wall.

Now that sea wall proved to be a dangerous obstruction. From the side walk it was only waist high, but on the other side of it the surf rolled over pebbles from four to five metres below.

The air-s.h.i.+p had to be lifted over the sea wall more than waist high; also, not to risk damaging the arms of its propeller, and when half over, there was no one to sustain it from the other side. Its stem pointed obliquely downward, while its stern threatened to grind on the wall. Scuffling among the pebbles below, on the sea side, half-a-dozen workmen held their arms high toward the descending keel as it was let down and pushed on toward them by the workmen in charge of it on the boulevard in front of the wall, and they were at last able to catch and right it only in time to prevent me from being precipitated from the basket.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FROM THE BALLOON HOUSE OF LA CONDAMINE AT MONACO, FEB.

12, 1902]

For this reason my return to the aerodrome after this first flight became the occasion of a real triumph, for the crowd promptly took cognisance of the perils of the situation and foresaw difficulties for me when I should attempt to re-enter the balloon house. As there was no wind, however, and as I steered boldly, I was able to make a sensational entry without damage--and without aid. Straight as a dart the air-s.h.i.+p sped to the balloon house. The police of the prince had with difficulty cleared the boulevard between the sea wall and the wide-open doors. a.s.sistants and supernumeraries leaned over the wall with outstretched arms waiting for me; below on the beach were others, but this time I did not need them. I slowed the speed of the propeller as I came to them. Just as I was half way over the sea wall, well above them all, I stopped the motor. Carried onward by the dying momentum, the air-s.h.i.+p glided over their heads on toward the open door. They had grasped my guide rope to draw me down, but as I had been coming diagonally there was no need of it. Now they walked beside the air-s.h.i.+p into the balloon house, as its trainer or the stable-boys grasp the bridle of their racehorse after the course and lead him back in honour to the stable with his jockey in the saddle.

It was admitted, nevertheless, that I ought not to be obliged to steer so closely on returning from my flights--to enter the aerodrome as a needle is threaded by a steady hand--because a side gust of wind might catch me at the critical moment and dash me against a tree or lamp-post, or telegraph or telephone pole, not to speak of the sharp-cornered buildings on either side of the aerodrome. When I went out again for a short spin that same afternoon of 29th January 1902 the obstruction of the sea wall made itself only too evident. The prince offered to tear down the wall.

”I will not ask you to do so much,” I said. ”It will be enough to build a landing-stage on the sea side of the wall at the level of the boulevard.”

This was done after twelve days of work, interrupted by persistent rain, and the air-s.h.i.+p, when it issued for its third flight, 10th February 1902, had simply to be lifted a few feet by men on each side of the wall. They drew it gently on until its whole length floated in equilibrium over the new platform that extended so far out into the surf that its farthermost piles were always in six feet of water.

Standing on this platform they steadied the air-s.h.i.+p while its motor was beings started, while I let out the overplus of water ballast and s.h.i.+fted my guide rope so as to point for an oblique drive upward. The motor began spitting and rumbling. The propeller began turning.

”Let go all!” I cried, for the third time at Monaco.

Lightly the air-s.h.i.+p slid along its oblique course, onward and upward.

Then as the propeller gathered force a mighty push sent me flying over the bay. I s.h.i.+fted forward the guide rope again to make a level course.

And out to sea the air-s.h.i.+p darted, its scarlet pennant fluttering symbolic letters as upon a streak of flame. They were the initial letters of the first line of Camoens' ”Lusiad,” the epic poet of my race:

Por mares nunca d'antes navegados!

(O'er seas hereto unsailed.)

CHAPTER XVIII

FLIGHTS IN MEDITERRANEAN WINDS

In my two previous experiments I had kept fairly within the wind-protected limits of the bay of Monaco, whose broad expanse afforded ample room both for guide-roping and practice in steering. Furthermore, a hundred friends and thousands of friendly spectators stood around it from the terraces of Monte Carlo to the sh.o.r.e of La Condamine and up the other side to the heights of Old Monaco. As I circled round and round the bay, mounted obliquely and swooped down, fetched a straight course, and then stopped abruptly to turn and begin again, their applause came up to me agreeably. Now, on my third flight, I steered for the open sea.

Out into the open Mediterranean I sped. The guide rope held me at a steady alt.i.tude of about 50 metres above the waves, as if in some mysterious way its lower end were attached to them.