Rensselaer Journal, Volume 11, Number 7, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1901 — Control of Balloons, [ARTICLE]

Control of Balloons,

A cable dispatch from Paris described how Santos Dumont, the Brasilian aeronaut, steered a cigar-shaped balloon around the Longechamps race course several times, and, after circling around the Eiffel tower, went back to his starting point. The statement, on its face, indicates that one great difficulty in the navigation of thq air has been surmounted. Long voyages in balloons were made forty or fifty years ago. Professor Wise and three others started in a balloon from St. Louis in 1859 and traveled nearly 1,200 miles, landing in New York. Long voyages were also made by other American aeronauts and by balloonists in Great Britain and France, but in every case the aeronaut was helpless. The balloon carried him, not where he wanted to go, but where the winds willed. The problem of sustaining a man in air and of flying through the air was solved, but ballooning of that time was simply a matter of adventure. All the efforts of aeronauts were then directed to controlling the large balloons in use. No one succeeded. Then came experiments looking to the construction of a balloon that would sustain itself in midair and to the use in connection therewith of a motive power and controlling apparatus that would make the aeronaut the master of his machine. Many of the new balloons were controllable in Quiet air, but were utter failures when it came to tests of a practical nature.