Such were my fears while on the ground; while in the air I had no time for fear. I have always kept a cool head. Alone in the air-ship I am always busy, for there is more than enough work for one man. Like the captain of a yacht, I must not let go the rudder for an instant. Like its chief engineer, I must watch the motor. The balloon's rigidity of form must be preserved. And with this capital detail is connected the whole complex problem of the air-ship's altitude, the manœuvring of guide rope and shifting weights, the economising of ballast, and the surveillance of the air pump attached to the motor. Besides all this occupation there is also the strong joy of commanding rapid movement. The pleasurable sensations of aerial navigation experienced in my first air-ships were intensified in the powerful "No. 5." As M. Jaurès has well put it, I now felt myself a man in the air, commanding movement. In my spherical balloons I had felt myself to be only the shadow of a man!
[CHAPTER XIV]
THE BUILDING OF MY "NO. 6"
On the very evening of my fall to the roof of the Trocadero hotels I gave out the specifications of a "Santos-Dumont, No. 6," and after twenty-two days of continuous labour it was finished and inflated.
Fig. 10
The new balloon had the shape of an elongated ellipsoid (Fig. 10), 33 metres (110 feet) by its great axis and 6 metres (20 feet) by its small axis, terminated fore and aft by cones.
