Flying the Atlantic : 397 



degrees north. Even photographs of the expedition were recovered 

 and developed. 



The airship which could be controlled in flight was clearly a more 

 advanced and valuable idea but it was one that was destined for slow 

 development since it really depended upon the availability of adequate 

 mechanical power. As early as 1852 Henri Giffard equipped an air- 

 ship with mechanical power. The only practical source of power avail- 

 able to him at that time was the steam engine, and he actually con- 

 trived and mounted in his ship a boiler and engine that supplied 

 approximately three horsepower and drove an air propeller at no rev- 

 olutions per minute. 



Considering the power obtained, the engine was very heavy indeed, 

 yet the gas bag was able to sustain the load and Giflard was able to 

 demonstrate that with this hmited power he was able to control the 

 motion of the ship and even to direct it on a curved course. This was 

 a wonderful effort for its time. It did demonstrate that power was 

 important but it also demonstrated that for use in the air the power 

 had to be greater and the weight less. It turned out later that the 

 internal combustion motor, operating on gasoline, was the first prac- 

 tical and effective source of power for use in airships and later in air- 

 planes. Before this was demonstrated many proposals were made and 

 many experiments carried out. 



It is said that in 1872 a Frenchman named Dupuy de Lome tried 

 to drive an airship by the use of electric batteries and that later he 

 also employed a motor using benzene as fuel. In the same year a Ger- 

 man by the name of Paul Haenlein was using a four-cylinder internal 

 combustion motor. Attempts were even made to develop a motor 

 that could be operated on the same kind of gas that was used to 

 inflate the envelope of the airship. 



In 1898, two years after Major Andree had attempted to reach the 

 Pole by balloon, a diminutive BraziHan named Santos-Dumont, then 

 resident in Paris, demonstrated that a cigar-shaped balloon could be 

 steered and driven through the air by a gasoline motor. His early air- 

 ship could be steered but it could not resist a stiff wind and it was 

 far from being a rigid structure. Five years later his ship and his 

 motor had both progressed to a point where he was able to fly his ship 

 on a closed course. From a suburb of Paris he flew to the Eiffel 

 Tower, made a sharp turn around it and returned to his starting 

 point, six and three-quarter miles away. He remained in the air for 

 a period of about an hour and a half. This flight won for him a sub- 



