Accordingly he constructed one machine after another, gaining fresh knowledge by each new experience, and profiting by the accidents and failures which continually beset him in his dangerous and daring work. Before long also he received an additional incentive to his labours. Early in the year of 1900 it was announced by the Paris Aero Club, a society of Frenchmen interested in aeronautical matters, that one of its members, M. Deutsch, had offered a prize of 100,000 francs—about £4000—to the man who, starting from the Aero Club grounds at Longchamps in a balloon or flying machine, should steer his course right round the Eiffel Tower and back to the starting-place—a distance of three and a half miles—within half an hour. If the prize were not won within a certain time, his offer was to be withdrawn, and meanwhile he promised a certain sum of money every year for the encouragement of aeronautical experiments.
The offer of this reward set many inventors to work upon the construction of various aerial vessels of all kinds, but from the beginning Santos Dumont was well to the fore. By the middle of 1901 he had completed what was his sixth airship—a cigar-shaped balloon, 100 feet long, its propeller worked by a motor-car engine of fifteen horse-power—and with it, on July 15th, he made a splendid attempt for the prize. Starting from the Club grounds, he reached the Eiffel Tower in thirteen minutes, and, circling round it, started back on his homeward journey. But this time his voyage was against the wind, which was really too strong for the success of his experiment; part of his engine broke down, and the balance of the vessel became upset; and although he managed to fight his way back to the starting point, he arrived eleven minutes behind time, and so failed to fulfil M. Deutsch’s conditions.
Again, on the 9th of August, having in the meantime made further trials with his machine, he embarked on another attempt to carry off the prize. He chose the early hours of the morning, starting shortly after six from the Club grounds, where only a few friends, among them the keenly interested M. Deutsch, were present. The day was apparently perfect, and when, after the lapse of five minutes only, he had reached the Tower and swung gracefully round it, every one was convinced that this time the prize was certain to be won. But the homeward journey was all against the wind, which was blowing more powerfully aloft than on the ground, and suddenly the onlookers were horrified to see the fore part of the balloon double right back. By so doing the silken envelope became torn and the gas began escaping. Rapidly the balloon appeared to wither up and shrink together. The engine was seen still to be working, though no progress was now being made. Then the whole apparatus collapsed utterly, and fell with sickening speed upon the house-tops.
Deutsch and his companions watched the fall horror-struck, and jumping into their motorcars hurried to the spot, convinced that a fatal accident must have occurred. But they found that, although the airship was smashed to pieces, its plucky inventor had almost miraculously escaped unhurt. The wrecked machine had fallen upon the roof of a house in such a way that the keel had caught upon a corner, and the car, which was fastened to it, hung at a perilous angle down the side of a wall. Fortunately Dumont was secured to his car by a leather belt, and he managed to hold on, though in considerable danger lest the keel should break and let him fall, until rescued by a fireman with a rope. His machine was hopelessly ruined; but when asked what he intended to do next he merely answered: “Begin again. Only a little patience is necessary.”
A new machine, “Santos Dumont VII.,” was ready in less than a month, and tested on the 6th of September. It behaved beautifully, and all went well until the trail-rope caught in a tree. In liberating it the framework became bent, and the airship was being towed back to its shed when a sudden gust of wind tore it away from those who held it. It immediately rose into the air, and on Dumont opening the valve the whole collapsed and fell to earth with a great shock. Again the lucky inventor escaped unhurt, though owning this time that he had “felt really frightened.” Ten days later, in another trial, the airship came in contact with some trees, which pierced the silk and let out the gas, so that it fell precipitately twenty feet. But the aeronaut appeared to bear a charmed life, for once more he was none the worse for the fall. Several other unsuccessful trials followed, and then, on the 19th of October, Santos Dumont made another grand attempt for the prize.
Starting with the wind in his favour, his machine travelled at the rate of thirty miles an hour, and rounded the Eiffel Tower in nine minutes. But in the journey homewards the airship had to struggle with a wind blowing at thirteen miles an hour. In endeavouring to “tack” the machinery became upset, and Dumont, leaving his car, crawled along the framework to the motor, which he succeeded in putting in order again. But this naturally occasioned some delay, and though he accomplished the rest of his journey in eight minutes, the Committee at first decided he had exceeded the allotted time by forty seconds, and so had lost the prize. Great popular indignation was excited by this decision, for public sympathy was all with the daring and persistent young Brazilian, and M. Deutsch himself was most anxious he should receive the award. Finally, he was considered to have fairly won it, and the money, which he afterwards divided among the poor, was formally presented to him.
Early in the next year Santos Dumont continued his experiments at Monaco, and on one occasion came down in the sea, and had to be rescued in the Prince of Monaco’s own steam yacht. After this there was a talk of further voyages being made in England, but the project came to nothing, and although Dumont made other ascents in Paris in the summer of 1903, he does not appear to have eclipsed his previous record.
But although Santos Dumont came through all his accidents and perils so happily, his example led to terrible disaster on the part of a luckless imitator. In 1902 M. Severo, also a Brazilian, was fired with a desire to share his fellow-countryman’s fame, and he also constructed an airship with which he proposed to do great things. But while Dumont was a skilled aeronaut of large experience, as well as a mechanician, Severo knew scarcely anything about the subject, and had only been aloft once or twice. Proof of his ignorance is shown by the fact that his motor-engine was placed only a few feet away from the valve through which the gas from the balloon would escape.
The ascent took place in Paris early in the morning of the 12th of May, and was witnessed, unhappily, by Severo’s wife and son. Bidding them good-bye, he stepped into the car, and, accompanied by an assistant, rose above the town. The balloon rose steadily, and appeared to steer well. Then Severo commenced to throw out ballast, and when the airship had risen 2000 feet it was suddenly seen to burst into a sheet of flame. A terrible explosion followed, and then the whole fell to the ground a hopeless wreck, and the two men were dashed to pieces in the fall. It is believed that this dreadful disaster, which recalls the fate of Pilâtre de Rozier, was caused by the hydrogen gas, which escaped from the valve during the rapid rise, becoming ignited by the engine, which, as has been said, was placed dangerously close.
Nor was this, unhappily, the only accident of the kind in Paris during the year. Only five months later, on the 13th of October, Baron Bradsky ascended with an assistant in a large airship of his own invention. Through faulty construction, the steel wires which fastened the car to the balloon broke, the two became separated, the car fell, and its occupants were killed on the spot.