The two brothers and their brother-in-law went up in the apparatus and succeeded in describing a curve of one kilometre radius, which showed, at any rate, that they could deviate slightly from the direction of the feeble wind then prevailing.
The development of the steam-engine was potent with suggestions for aerial navigation of a dirigible. Thus, on December 24, 1852, Henry Gifford, another Frenchman, first ascended in a dirigible balloon. It was spindle-shaped, 143 feet long and 39 feet in diameter. It was driven by a 3 horse-power steam-engine and an 11-foot screw propeller. He went out from the Hippodrome in Paris and made six miles per hour relative to the air and several successful landings. This was the first recorded dirigible flight.
A decade later, Tissandier, with a spindle-shaped balloon, much on the lines of those of his predecessors, succeeded in reaching a speed of eight miles an hour with the aid of an electric motor and a bichromate-of-potash battery.
Captain Charles Renard brought the airship another stage toward realization by building an envelope with a true stream-line. The method of suspending the car was of the type adopted by later builders, namely, to place an enormous sheet over the back of the airship and to attach suspensory cords to its edges. This airship had a cubic capacity of 66,000 feet, and was kept rigid by means of an internal air balloonet or interior gas-bag which was confined to a definite shape by an outer framework or cover. This balloonet was kept full by a fan-blower coupled to the motor.
The car was 108 feet long, and really served as a spar employed in later airships of what became known as the semirigid type.
An electric motor was installed, weighing 220 pounds, which developed 9 horse-power. The battery composed of chlorochromic salts, delivered one shaft horse-power for each 88 pounds, and this great weight seriously handicapped the performance of the airship. The first trials were made in 1884, and apparently within the limits of its propulsive power the airship was an unqualified success, so far as navigation was concerned. On one occasion it flew around Paris at an average speed of 14½ miles an hour.
As early as 1872 Herr Hanlein, in Germany, built an airship of quite reasonable proportions, propelled by a 6 horse-power Lenoir gas-engine. Apparently the engine was run on gas from the envelope. A speed of 10 miles an hour or so was achieved.
In 1879 Baumgartner and Wolfert built an airship with a Daimler benzine motor. An ascent was made at Leipzig in 1880, but owing to improper load distribution the vessel got out of control and was smashed on the ground.
The first rigid dirigible with aluminum framework was built by an Austrian named Schwartz in 1897. This was the prototype of the Zeppelin, and no practical rigid lighter-than-air ship could now be lifted by hydrogen unless it had an aluminum framework.
The invention of the gasoline engine was another tremendous advantage to the Zeppelin.