



Produced by Chris Curnow, Charlie Howard, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)









MY AIRSHIPS

[Illustration: ALBERTO SANTOS-DUMONT]




    MY AIRSHIPS

    The Story of My Life


    BY

    ALBERTO SANTOS-DUMONT


    ILLUSTRATED


    LONDON
    GRANT RICHARDS
    1904


    THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH




CONTENTS


                                                                 PAGE

           INTRODUCTORY FABLE                                       1

    CHAPTER

        I. THE COFFEE PLANTATION                                   10

       II. PARIS--PROFESSIONAL BALLOONISTS--AUTOMOBILES            24

      III. MY FIRST BALLOON ASCENT                                 33

       IV. MY "BRAZIL"--SMALLEST OF SPHERICAL BALLOONS             42

        V. THE REAL AND THE IMAGINARY DANGERS OF BALLOONING        51

       VI. I YIELD TO THE STEERABLE BALLOON IDEA                   63

      VII. MY FIRST AIR-SHIP CRUISES (1898)                        74

     VIII. HOW IT FEELS TO NAVIGATE THE AIR                        82

       IX. EXPLOSIVE ENGINES AND INFLAMMABLE GASES                100

        X. I GO IN FOR AIR-SHIP BUILDING                          114

       XI. THE EXPOSITION SUMMER                                  133

      XII. THE DEUTSCH PRIZE AND ITS PROBLEMS                     153

     XIII. A FALL BEFORE A RISE                                   164

      XIV. THE BUILDING OF MY "NO. 6"                             180

       XV. WINNING THE DEUTSCH PRIZE                              190

      XVI. A GLANCE BACKWARD AND FORWARD                          205

     XVII. MONACO AND THE MARITIME GUIDE ROPE                     217

    XVIII. FLIGHTS IN MEDITERRANEAN WINDS                         232

      XIX. SPEED                                                  243

       XX. AN ACCIDENT AND ITS LESSONS                            256

      XXI. THE FIRST OF THE WORLD'S AIR-SHIP STATIONS             264

     XXII. MY "NO. 9," THE LITTLE RUNABOUT                        282

    XXIII. THE AIR-SHIP IN WAR                                    303

     XXIV. PARIS AS A CENTRE OF AIR-SHIP EXPERIMENTS              318

           CONCLUDING FABLE                                       327




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


                                                                 PAGE

    Alberto Santos-Dumont                              _Frontispiece_

    Santos-Dumont Coffee Plantation--Railway                       11

    Santos-Dumont Coffee Plantation--The Works                     15

    Henriques Santos-Dumont                                        25

    The "Brazil"--Smallest of Spherical Balloons                   43

    Motor of "No. 1"                                               62

    The "Santos-Dumont No. 1"--First Start                         75

    "No. 4"--Free Diagonal Movement up                             83

    "No. 6"--Free Diagonal Movement down                           86

    "The Housetops look so Dangerous"                              94

    Over the Bois de Boulogne. "An Ocean of Greenery soft
        and safe"                                                  97

    The Question of Physical Danger                               101

    "No. 9" catches Fire over the Ile de Puteaux                  111

    Accident to "No. 2," May 11, 1899 (First Phase)               115

    Accident to "No. 2," May 11, 1899 (Second Phase)              119

    Accident to "No. 2," May 11, 1899 (Third Phase)               123

    Accident to "No. 2," May 11, 1899 (Finale)                    127

    Start of "No. 3," November 13, 1899                           131

    "No. 4"                                                       135

    Motor of "No. 4"                                              139

    Visit of Professor Langley                                    143

    "No. 4"--Flight before Professor Langley                      147

    "Santos-Dumont No. 5"                                         152

    "No. 5" leaving Aero Club Grounds, July 12, 1901              158

    "No. 5" returning from the Eiffel Tower                       161

    "No. 5"--Accident in the Park of M. Edmond de Rothschild      165

    An Accident                                                   170

    Phase of an Accident                                          175

    "No. 6"--First Trip                                           181

    An Accident to "No. 6"                                        187

    Scientific Commission of Aero Club at the Winning of the
        Deutsch Prize                                             191

    "No. 6" making for Eiffel Tower--Altitude 1000 feet           195

    Round Eiffel Tower                                            199

    Rounding Eiffel Tower                                         203

    Returning to Aero Club Grounds above Aqueduct                 207

    Medal awarded by the Brazilian Government                     211

    "No. 9"--Showing Captain leaving Basket for Motor             215

    In the Bay of Monaco                                          219

    From the Balloon House of La Condamine at Monaco,
        February 12, 1902                                         227

    Wind A. Wind B                                                237

    "Santos-Dumont No. 7"                                         249

    "My present Aids understand my present Airships"--Motor
        of "No. 6"                                                261

    "Santos-Dumont No. 5"--Showing how Aero Club Grounds
        were cut up                                               267

    First of the World's Airship Stations (Neuilly St James)      271

    "No. 7"                                                       275

    "No. 10"--without Passenger Keel                              279

    "Santos-Dumont No. 9"                                         283

    "No. 9"--Showing relative Size                                287

    "No. 9"--Jumping my Wall                                      291

    "No. 9"--Guide-roping on a Level with the Housetops           295

    "No. 9"--M. Santos-Dumont lands at his own Door               299

    "No. 9" over Bois de Boulogne                                 305

    "No. 9" at Military Review, July 14, 1903                     309

    "No. 9" seen from Captive Balloon, June 11, 1903              325




MY AIRSHIPS




INTRODUCTORY FABLE

THE REASONING OF CHILDREN


Two young Brazilian boys strolled in the shade, conversing. They were
simple youths of the interior, knowing only the plenty of the primitive
plantation where, undisturbed by labour-saving devices, Nature yielded
man her fruits at the price of the sweat of his brow.

They were ignorant of machines to the extent that they had never seen a
waggon or a wheelbarrow. Horses and oxen bore the burdens of plantation
life on their backs, and placid Indian labourers wielded the spade and
the hoe.

Yet they were thoughtful boys. At this moment they discussed things
beyond all that they had seen or heard.

"Why not devise a better means of transport than the backs of horses and
of oxen?" Luis argued. "Last summer I hitched horses to a barn door,
loaded it with sacks of maize, and hauled in one load what ten horses
could not have brought on their backs. True, it required seven horses to
drag it, while five men had to sit around its edges and hold the load
from falling off."

"What would you have?" answered Pedro. "Nature demands compensations.
You cannot get something from nothing or more from less!"

"If we could put rollers under the drag, less pulling power would be
needed."

"Bah! the force saved would be used up in the labour of shifting the
rollers."

"The rollers might be attached to the drag at fixed points by means of
holes running through their centres," mused Luis. "Or why should not
circular blocks of wood be fixed at the four corners of the drag?...
Look, Pedro, yonder along the road. What is coming? The very thing I
imagined, only better! One horse is pulling it at a good trot!"

The first waggon to appear in that region of the interior stopped, and
its driver spoke with the boys.

"These round things?" he answered to their questions; "they are called
wheels."

Pedro accepted his explanation of the principle slowly.

"There must be some hidden defect in the device," he insisted. "Look
around us. Nowhere does Nature employ the device you call the wheel.
Observe the mechanism of the human body; observe the horse's frame;
observe...."

"Observe that horse and man and waggon with its wheels are speeding from
us," replied Luis, laughing. "Cannot you yield to accomplished facts?
You tire me with your appeals to Nature. Has man ever accomplished
anything worth having except by combating Nature? We do violence to her
when we chop down a tree! I would go further than this invention of the
waggon. Conceive a more powerful motive force than that horse...."

"Attach two horses to the waggon."

"I mean a machine," said Luis.

"A mechanical horse with powerful iron legs!" suggested Pedro.

"No; I would have a motor waggon. If I could find an artificial force
I