My Airships/Chapter 18

by Alberto Santos-Dumont

FLIGHTS IN MEDITERRANEAN WINDS

IN my two previous experiments I had kept fairly within the wind-protected limits of the bay of Monaco, whose broad expanse afforded ample room both for guide-roping and practice in steering. Furthermore, a hundred friends and thousands of friendly spectators stood around it from the terraces of Monte Carlo to the shore of La Condamine and up the other side to the heights of Old Monaco. As I circled round and round the bay, mounted obliquely and swooped down, fetched a straight course, and then stopped abruptly to turn and begin again, their applause came up to me agreeably. Now, on my third flight, I steered for the open sea.

Out into the open Mediterranean I sped. The guide rope held me at a steady altitude of about 50 metres above the waves, as if in some mysterious way its lower end were attached to them.

In this way, automatically secure of my altitude, I found the work of aerial navigation become wonderfully easy. There was no ballast to throw out, no gas to let out, no shifting of the weights except when I expressly desired to mount or descend. So with my hand upon the rudder and my eye fixed on the far-off point of Cap Martin I gave myself up to the pleasure of this voyaging above the waves.

Here in these azure solitudes there were no chimney-pots of Paris, no cruel, threatening roof-corners, no tree-tops of the Bois de Boulogne. My propeller was showing its power, and I was free to let it go. I had only to hold my course straight in the teeth of the breeze and watch the far-off Mediterranean shore flit past me.

I had plenty of leisure to look about. Presently I met two sailing yachts scudding towards me down the coast. I noticed that their sails were full-bellied. As I flew on over them, and they beneath me, I heard a faint cheer, and a graceful female figure on the foremost yacht waved a red foulard. As I turned to answer the politeness I perceived with some astonishment that we were far apart already.

I was now well up the coast, about half-way to Cap Martin. Above was the limitless blue void. Below was the solitude of white-capped waves. From the appearance of sailing boats here and there I could tell that the wind was increasing to a squall, and I would have to turn in it before I could fly back upon it in my homeward trip.

Porting my helm I held the rudder tight. The air-ship swung round like a boat; then as the wind sent me flying down the coast my only work was to maintain the steady course. In scarcely more time than it takes to write it I was opposite the bay of Monaco again.

With a sharp turn of the rudder I entered the protected harbour, and amid a thousand cheers stopped the propeller, pulled in the forward shifting weight, and let the dying impetus of the air-ship carry it diagonally down to the landing-stage. This time there was no trouble. On the broad landing-stage stood my own men, assisted by those put at my disposition by the prince. The air-ship was grasped as it came gliding slowly to them, and, without actually coming to a stop, it was "led" over the sea wall across the Boulevard de la Condamine and into the aerodrome. The trip had lasted less than an hour, and I had been within a few hundred metres (yards) of Cap Martin.

Here was an obvious trip, first against and then with a stiff wind, and the curious may render themselves an account of the fact by glancing at the two photographs marked "Wind A" and "Wind B." As they happened to be taken by a Monte Carlo professional intent simply on getting good photographs they are impartial.

"Wind A" shows me leaving the bay of Monaco against a wind that is blowing back the smoke of the two steamers seen on the horizon.

"Wind B" was taken up the coast just before I met the two little sailing yachts which are obviously scudding toward me.

The loneliness in which I found myself in the middle of this first extended flight up the Mediterranean shore was not part of the programme. During the manufacture of the hydrogen gas and the filling of the balloon I had received the visits of a great many prominent people, several of whom signified their ability and readiness to lend valuable aid to these experiments. From Beaulieu, where his steam-yacht, Lysistrata, was at anchor, came Mr James Gordon Bennett, and Mr Eugene Higgins had already brought the Varuna up from Nice on more than one occasion. The beautiful little steam-yacht of M. Eiffel also held itself in readiness.

It had been the intention of these owners, as it had been that of the prince with his Princesse Alice, to follow the air-ship in its flights over the Mediterranean, so as to be on the spot in case of accident. This first flight, however, had been taken on impulse before any programme for the yachts had been arranged, and my next long flight, as will be seen, demonstrated that this kind of protection must not be counted on overmuch by air-ship captains.

It was on the 12th of February 1902. One steam chaloupe and two petroleum launches, all three of them swift goers, together with three well-manned row-boats, had been stationed at intervals down the coast to pick me up in case of accident. The steam chaloupe of the Prince of Monaco, carrying His Highness, the Governor-General, and the captain of the Princesse Alice, had already started on the course ahead of time. The 40 horse-power Mors automobile of Mr Clarence Grey Dinsmore and the 30 horse-power Panhard

"WIND A"

"WIND B"

of M. Isidore Kahenstein were prepared to follow along the lower coast road.

Immediately on leaving the bay of Monaco I met the wind head on as I steered my course straight down the coast in the direction of the Italian frontier. Putting on all speed I held the rudder firm and let myself go. I could see the ragged outlines of the coast flit past me on the left. Along the winding road the two racing automobiles kept abreast with me, being driven at high speed.

"It was all we could do to follow the air-ship along the curves of the coast road," said one of Mr Dinsmore's passengers to the reporter of a Paris journal, "so rapid was its flight. In less than five minutes it had arrived opposite the Villa Camille Blanc, which is about a kilometre (${\tfrac {3}{4}}$ of a mile) distant from Cap Martin as the crow flies.

"At this moment the air-ship was absolutely alone. Between it and Cap Martin I saw a single row-boat, while far behind was visible the smoke from the prince's chaloupe. It was really no commonplace sight to see the air-ship thus hovering isolated over the immense sea."

The wind instead of subsiding had been increasing. Here and there around the horizon I could see the bent white sails of yachts driven before it. The situation was new to me, so I made an abrupt turn and started back on the home stretch.

Now again the wind was with me, stronger than it had been on the preceding flight down the coast. Yet it was easy steering, and I remarked with pleasure that going thus with the wind the pitching or tangage of the air-ship was much less. Though going fast with my propeller, and aided by the wind behind me, I felt no more motion, indeed even less, than before.

For the rest, how different were my sensations from those of the spherical balloonist! It is true that he sees the earth flying backward beneath him at tremendous speed. But he knows that he is powerless. The great sphere of gas above him is the plaything of the air current, and he cannot change his direction by a hair's-breadth. In my air-ship I could see myself flying over the sea, but I had my hands on a helm that made me master of my direction in this splendid course. Once or twice, merely to give myself an account of it, I shoved the helm around a short arc. Obedient, the air-ship's stem swung to the other side, and I found myself speeding in a new diagonal course. But these manœuvres only occupied a few instants each, and each time I swung myself back on a straight line to the entrance to the bay of Monaco, for I was flying homeward like an eagle, and must keep my course.

To those watching my return, from the terraces of Monte Carlo and Monaco town, as they told me afterwards, the air-ship increased in size at every instant, like a veritable eagle bearing down upon them. As the wind was coming toward them they could hear the low, crackling rumble of my motor a long distance off. Faintly, now, their own shouts of encouragement came to me. Almost instantly the shouts grew loud. Around the bay a thousand handkerchiefs were fluttering. I gave a sharp turn to the helm, and the air-ship leaped into the bay amid the cheering and the waving just as great raindrops were beginning to fall. ^[1]

I had first slowed and then stopped the motor. As the air-ship now gently approached the landing-stage, borne on by its dying momentum, I gave the usual signal for those in the boats to seize my guide rope. The steam chaloupe of the prince, which had turned back midway between Monte Carlo and Cap Martin after I had overtaken and passed it on my out trip, had by this time reached the bay. The prince, who was still on board, desired to catch the guide rope; and those with him, having no experience of its weight and the force with which the air-ship drags it through the water, did not seek to dissuade him. Instead of catching the heavy floating cordage as the darting chaloupe passed it His Highness managed to get struck by it on the right arm, an accident which knocked him fairly to the bottom of the little vessel and produced severe contusions.

A second attempt to catch the guide rope was more successful, and the air-ship was easily drawn to the sea wall, over it, and into its house. Like everything in this new navigation, the particular manœuvre was new. I was still going faster than I appeared to be, and such attempts to catch and stop an air-ship even on its dying momentum are apt to upset someone. The only way not to get too abrupt a shock is to run with the machine and slow it down gently.

1. * "Half-an-hour after the aeronaut's return the wind became violent, a heavy storm followed, and the sea became very rough." (Paris edition, New York Herald, 13th February 1902.)