The Romance of Aircraft

by Laurence Yard Smith

THE ROMANCE OF AIRCRAFT

BY
LAURENCE YARD SMITH
WITH SIX DIAGRAMS AND THIRTY-THREE
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS, LTD.
ST. MARTIN'S STREET
MDCCCCXIX
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY
THE PROSPECT PRESS

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CONTENTS

PART I
CHAPTER		PAGE
I	The Conquest of the Air	[3]
II	“A B C's” of a Balloon	[14]
III	Early Balloon Adventures	[20]
IV	The Parachute	[28]
V	Ballooning in the Great War	[36]
PART II
I	Development of the Dirigible	[47]
II	Forerunners of the Allied Dirigibles	[60]
III	Dirigibles in the World War	[68]
PART III
I	Early Experiments with Heavier-than-Air Machines	[77]
II	First Principles of an Airplane	[91]
III	The Pioneers	[99]
IV	The Airplane in the World War	[128]
V	Some of the Problems the Inventors Had to Solve	[150]
VI	Famous Allied Airplanes	[170]
VII	German Airplanes in the World War	[189]
VIII	Heroes of the Air	[205]
IX	The Birth of an Airplane	[223]
X	The Training of an Aviator	[232]
XI	The Future Story of the Air	[244]
	Reading List	[256]
	Index	[259]

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Seaplanes NC-1, NC-3 and NC-4 of the U. S. Navy starting the trans-Atlantic flight from Rockaway. The NC-4 on its victorious trans-Atlantic flight, sixty miles at sea	[Frontispiece]
	FACING PAGE
Montgolfier experiment at Versailles, 1783	[10]
The first cross-channel trip	[11]
Diagram showing the main features of the spherical balloon	[16]
Cocking's parachute	[30]
A German Zeppelin	[31]
Inflating a service balloon on the field	[40]
Army balloon ready to ascend	[41]
Giffard's airship	[54]
Santos-Dumont rounding the Eiffel Tower	[55]
Baldwin U. S. “Dirigible No. 1”	[66]
The British Army “Baby” dirigible	[67]
Cross section of the gas bag of the Astra-Torres, showing method of car suspension	[70]
“The Blimp,” C-1, the largest dirigible of the American Navy	[72]
The balloon of the U. S. S. Oklahoma	[73]
Diagram showing the essential parts of an airplane	[95]
Wright starting with passenger	[98]
An early Farman machine prior to start	[99]
Wright machine rising just after leaving the rail	[114]
An early Wright machine, showing its method of starting from a rail	[114]
The propeller department in one of the great Curtiss factories	[115]
A photograph of northern France taken at a height of three thousand feet	[138]
An airplane view of the city of Rheims, showing the cathedral	[139]
Diagram of an internal combustion engine cylinder, showing principle on which it works	[157]
This photograph shows the relative size of the giant Caproni bombing plane and the French baby Nieuport, used as a speed scout	[170]
The Spad, the pride of the French air fleet	[171]
A Handley-Page machine tuning up for a flight	[182]
The launching of a Langley, a giant bombing airplane	[183]
Side view of a Sopwith triplane	[187]
An American built Caproni airplane	[188]
This Curtiss triplane has a speed of one hundred and sixty miles an hour	[189]
A giant Gotha bombing plane brought down by the French	[198]
German Fokker plane captured by the French	[199]
Captain Eddie Rickenbacker	[218]
The first bag of mail carried by the U. S. Aero Mail Service	[219]
A photograph made ten thousand feet in the air, showing machines in “V” formation at bombing practise	[242]
A group of De Havilland planes at Bolling Field near Washington	[243]