Do the cords commanding rudder, motor, water ballast, and the shifting guide rope work freely?
Is the ballast properly weighed?
Looked on as a mere machine the air-ship requires no more care than an automobile, but, from the point of view of consequences, the need of faithful and intelligent surveillance is simply imperious. This very day all the highways of France are dotted with a thousand automobiles en panne, with their enthusiastic drivers crawling underneath them in the dust, oil-can and wrench in hand, repairing momentary accidents. They think no less of their automobile for this reason. Yet let the air-ship have the same trifling accident and all the world is likely to hear of the fact.
In the first years of my experiments I insisted on doing everything for myself. I "groomed" my balloons and motors with my own hands. My present aids understand my present air-ships, and nine times out of ten they hand them over to me in good condition for the voyage. Yet were I to begin experiments with a new type I should have to train them all anew, and during that time I should have to care for the air-ships with my own hands again.
On this occasion the air-ship left the aerodrome imperfectly weighed and inflated, not so much by the neglect of my men as by reason of the imperfect situation of the aerodrome. In spite of the care that had been given to designing and constructing it, from the very nature of its situation there was no space outside in which to send up the air-ship and ascertain if its ballast were properly distributed. Could this have been done the imperfect inflation of the balloon would have been perceived in time.
Looking back over all my varied experiences I reflect with astonishment that one of my greatest dangers passed unperceived, even by myself at the end of my most successful flight over the Mediterranean.
"MY PRESENT AIDS UNDERSTAND MY PRESENT AIRSHIPS"
MOTOR OF "No. 6"
It was at the time the prince attempted to grasp my guide rope and was knocked into the bottom of his steam chaloupe. I had entered the bay after flying homeward up the coast, and they were towing me toward the aerodrome. The air-ship had descended very close to the surface of the water, and they were pulling it still lower by means of the guide rope, until it was not many feet above the smoke-stack of the steam chaloupe—and that smoke-stack was belching red-hot sparks.