CIRCLING EIFFEL TOWER IN AIR SHIP. 588 



will ho on the naiiio pattorii as tho old, exeopt with a slightly greater 

 cubic capacit}'. It can hardh^ 1)0 I'eady for a prize trial, however, 

 before the contests next spring. Still, Santos-Dumont knows now 

 that he can navigate the air, and he is mereh' going to do again what 

 he has already done. 



But M. Santos-Duniont will soon have competitors, among them M. 

 Deutsch himself, who expects to put in the field within a short time a 

 colossus (Jo yards long, with a cai)acity of over 2,.50(» cul)ic yards, and 

 a gasoline motor of 00 horsepower. 



A DESCRIPTION OF THE AIR SHIP. 



Recall the flying machine of your imagination, and you will have 

 ready-made for your mind's eye a likeness of this Santoti-Ihiiiiotit V. 

 It is simply that conventional creature pictured in the usual wild tale 

 of the future, the regulation cigar-shaped thing 'mid a vague compli- 

 cation of wings and rudders and cords and cjdinders. The gas bag is 

 a tremendous cigar, while the framework beneath for basket and 

 motor is a smaller tremendous cigar. Now, there is a reason for this 

 shape quite apart from the demands of twenty-first century romances. 

 It would l)e as absurd to try to steer a spherical balloon as to guide a 

 spherical steamboat. The spindle form offers less resistance to air 

 currents, so almost from their earliest experiments the fiying-machine 

 architects have adopted the cigar for a model. To secure i-igidity they 

 put an air lialloon, or ballonet, inside the gas balloon, and when a 

 cooling cloud or change of temperature contracts the gas, they pumj) 

 air as needed into the ballonet, which makes the entire bag tight and 

 snug. Santos -Dumont first fills his balloon as full as possible with pure 

 hydrogen, and the inner balloon lies empty in the 1)elly of the l)ig one. 

 He thus has as a margin against condensation the ballonet's capacity, 

 50 cubic yards. The ballonet fills with air automatically from a pump 

 worked by th(^ motor, and in case of expansion and too great pressure 

 the springs in the valves are forced open and the air is let out first, and 

 the gas afterwards, if necessary. In the photographs you may see the 

 air duct hanging fi-oni the balloon to the pump. 



The tiny steel threads that suspend the framework seem absurdly 

 inadequate. Near the ends they are twisted into springs, which allow 

 for a slight rocking caused by the motor's vil)ration. A few yards 

 away the fine piano wires are invisible, and then the man in his aerial 

 car appears to follow as a satellite under the balloon. The great 

 yellowish liag of hydrogen, 3Ti yards long, (Sh; yards in diameter, 

 with a capacity of 715 cubic 3'ards, looks sleek and peeled, like the 

 pigskin of an enormous Rugby football, and nothing at all like silk. 

 Each panel in the texture has l)een rigorously tested under pressure 

 and is capable of the maximum strain exacted. The elongated, trian- 

 gular car beneath is constructed of three slender unpainted i)ine 



