Basket of "Santos-Dumont No. 1."
Showing propeller and motor.
"I gave the order for this balloon to M. Lachambre. At first he refused to take it, saying that such a thing had never been made, and that he would not be responsible for my rashness. I answered that I would not change a thing in the plan of the balloon, if I had to sew it with my own hands. At last he agreed to sew and varnish the balloon as I desired."
After repeated trials of his motor in the basket—which he suspended in his workshop—and the making of a rudder of silk he was able, in September, 1898, to attempt real flying. But, after rising successfully in the air, the weight of the machinery and his own body swung beneath the fragile balloon was so great that while descending from a considerable height the balloon suddenly sagged down in the middle and began to shut up like a portfolio.
"At that moment," he said, "I thought that all was over, the more so as the descent, which had already become rapid, could no longer be checked by any of the usual means on board, where nothing worked.
"Santos-Dumont No. 1."
Showing how it began to fold up in the middle.
"The descent became a rapid fall. Luckily, I was falling in the neighborhood of the soft, grassy pélouse of the Longchamps race-course, where some big boys were flying kites. A sudden idea struck me. I cried to them to grasp the end of my 100-meter guide-rope, which had already touched the ground, and to run as fast as they could with it against the wind! They were bright young fellows, and they grasped the idea and the guide-rope at the same lucky instant. The effect of this help in extremis was immediate, and such as I had expected. By this manœuvre we lessened the velocity of the fall, and so avoided what would otherwise have been a terribly rough shaking up, to say the least. I was saved for the first time. Thanking the brave boys, who continued to aid me to pack everything into the air-ship's basket, I finally secured a cab and took the relic back to Paris."
His life was thus saved almost miraculously; but the accident did not deter him from going forward immediately with other experiments. The next year, 1899, he built a new air-ship called Santos-Dumont II., and made an ascension with it, but it dissatisfied him and he at once began with Santos-Dumont III., with which he made the first trip around the Eiffel Tower.