PROGRESS WITH AIR SHIPS/' 



By Maj. B. Baden-Powell, treats Guards. 



The advent of a really practical machine for accomplishino- the nav- 

 igation of the air is awaited with much interest, and tlie .somewhat mea- 

 ger and unreliable information that one can pick up from the daily press 

 is apt only to increase our anxiet}^ to know what is realh^ being done 

 in this line. In the Illustrated Scientific News of June, I gave a brief 

 sketch of the histor}^ of mechanically propelled balloons and what had 

 been accomplished up to recent years. During this summer some dis- 

 tinct progress has been achieved in this line. 



SANTOS DUMONT NO. 9. 



M. Santos Dumont has, of course, been well to the fore, and though 

 he has only been using his little iSIo. 9 balloon, which may be likened 

 to a motor bicycle as compared to a large motor car, 3^et he has been 

 able to steer this apparatus and drive it about so easily that the 

 accounts of his trips read as if practical aerial navigation had been 

 achieved. But, so far as his particular performances go, we are still 

 some way from this. It has only been during the calmest of weather 

 that he has dared to venture forth, f(jr his little 3-horsepower engine is 

 incapable of propelling the vessel at any great speed. This machine is of 

 a pointed ovoid shape, the length being 49 feet and the greatest diam- 

 eter 18 feet. This compact form gives better sta])ility than the more 

 usual cigar shape, if it detracts from speed. The volume of the main 

 gas vessel is 9,200 cubic feet; but this does not imply that so nuich gas 

 is available for levitation, for of this 1,566 cubic feet is occupied by 

 the "ballonet," which is kept partially full of air by a ventilating 

 fan, so as to keep the whole balloon tightly distended. Along each 

 side of the balloon a strip of canvas is sewn, in which is inclosed a 

 number of short battens of wood, and from slings attached to these 

 some 46 steel wires depend to support the frame. The latter, which 

 is 29 feet long, is composed of pine rods of triangular section, braced 

 with steel wires and kept apart by wooden triangles of varying size. 

 Toward the front of this frame is the little basket car in which the 

 aeronaut stands, and to the after side of this is fixed the motor. This 



« Reprinted, after revision by tlie author, from the Illustrated Scientifie News, 

 London, Vol. I, No. 12, September, 1903. 



SM 1908 12 ^''' 



