Flying the Atlantic : 395 



1793. President Washington was apparently still actively interested in 

 air navigation for on this occasion he not only issued a safe conduct 

 to Blanchard, dated January 9, but also went out to join the crowd 

 watching the balloon make its departure. 



Air transportation, which stirred the interest of Franklin and 

 Washington, went beyond the mere ability to raise a human being in 

 the air and to keep him floating there. Transportation implies the 

 ability to get from a present spot, called the point of departure, to 

 some other selected or desirable spot called the destination. The bal- 

 loon was an exciting beginning which could, after all, get a man into 

 the air and, with good luck and good management,. it could keep him 

 there. It could even move him to another position on the earth's sur- 

 face and deposit him back on the ground. However, once the traveler 

 was in the air he was at the mercy of the winds and had little or no 

 control over the direction of his travel and even a very limited control 

 over the length of his flight. This was hardly transportation. It is 

 not surprising, therefore, that the idea of controlling the movement 

 of a balloon or airship was almost as old as the balloon itself. 



The year after the first hot-air balloons were sent aloft, that is as 

 early as 1784, the Robert brothers created a hydrogen balloon which 

 they intended to propel through the air. With this in mind, they gave 

 the balloon a shape something like that of an American football, sus- 

 pended six men under it in a long car and equipped them with aerial 

 oars or fans with which they were supposed to row the ship through 

 the air. Thus there grew up at the very beginning two methods of 

 air travel and two kinds of air traveler whose interests differed one 

 from the other. There were the free balloonists who wanted to rise 

 high or go far even if this involved being more or less at the mercy 

 of the wind. On the other hand, there were the guided-airship people 

 who were content with quite limited flights and slow progress pro- 

 vided they could exercise some control over the airship that carried 

 them. 



For a long time the balloonists had the best of it and received the 

 chief public acclaim, while it was very uncertain whether the con- 

 trolled airship would ever be practical or even possible. The balloons 

 began to make long flights. In 1836 three Englishmen, namely, Rob- 

 ert Holland, Monck Mason and Charles Green, ordered a great bal- 

 loon built in which they took their departure from London on Novem- 

 ber 7. They not only crossed the Channel but traveled to a point in 

 Nassau, approximately 500 miles away. Their balloon was thereafter 



