THE CENTURY MAGAZINE
done must be done promptly. But I shall not want a nervous passenger, a fearful passenger, or even a useless passenger. Also I want more motive power for my propeller; for when I have obtained a more complete mastery of the air-ship I shall wish to begin the great battle with the wind. But, as a model, I consider my Nos, 5 and 6 already perfect. The rudder, which was the last part to persist in giving trouble, now works beautifully.”
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FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY P. RAFFAELE.
ASCENDING PROM THE LONGCHAMPS RACETRACK, JULY 19-10, 1901.
On the occasion of the first trial, M. Santos-Dumout, after a few evolutions to gain control of his machine, proeeeded from the grounds of the Aéro Club to the near-by race-track of Longchamps. There, before mounting in the upper air for a long flight, he tried his paces around the track. He went around the circular course a number of times, and on each occasion descended and alighted exactly in front of the grand stand. In this picture he is seen just after mounting again, the stem of the balloon being still pointed upward.—S. H.
RESULTS AND PROSPECTS.
“BEFORE we get any further,” was my next question, “what do you consider you have accomplished?”
“Everything I set out to accomplish, I have gone up dozens of times and, in the presence of half Paris, I have followed the route laid down in advance and returned to my starting-point. I was nine minutes late in my first trial for the Deutsch Prize.[1] Put
- ↑ M. Henry Deutsch (de la Meurthe), a wealthy petroleum-refiner and a pillar of the Aéro Club, has offered a prize of one hundred thousands francs for the first dirigible balloon or air-ship that, between May 1 and October 1 of 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903, and 1904, shall rise from the Parc d'Aérostation of the Aéro Club at St. Cloud, and without touching ground and by its own self-contained means describe a closed curve in such a way that the axis of the Eiffel Tower shall be within the interior of the circuit, and return to the point of departure in the maximum time of half an hour. A special committee of prominent Aéro Club members, sometimes called the Technical Committee, was named to formulate M. Deutsch’s conditions and judge of their fulfilment. By reason of certain of these conditions, trying for the prize is a more formidable undertaking than would appear at first glance. Tho course from the Aéro Club's grounds to the Eiffel Tower and back is eleven kilometers; and these eleven kilometers plus the turning round the tower must be accomplished in thirty minutes, no matter what the force of contrary winds may be. ‘This means, in a perfect calm, a necessary speed of thirty kilometers an hour for the straight stretches. Then the Technical Committee must be informed twenty-four hours in advance of each intended trial; and when it has met together at St. Cloud there is a kind of moral pressure to go on, no matter how the weather may have changed or in what condition the balloon or its machinery may be found to be. Yet a previous day's preliminary spin may easily derange so uncertain an engine as the present-day petroleum motor. When M. Santos-Dumont last spring won the four thousand francs annual Prize of Encouragement of the Aéro Club, he handed the money back to the club for the foundation of a Santos-Dumont Prize clogged by no such vexatious conditions. The Santos-Dumont Prize is to go to the first dirigible balloon or flying-machine (other than the founder's) that shall navigate the air from the Aéro Club's grounds to the Eiffel Tower, turn round it, and return to the Aéro Club's grounds, in no matter what time and under the observation of no matter what witnesses.—S. H.
