Edward Ellis - The Flying Boys in the Sky

“The impulse thus given to ballooning spread to other countries and it would be idle to attempt any record of their efforts. It may be said that for nearly a hundred years little or no progress was made in aerostation. Then came the second stage, the construction of dirigible or manageable balloons. All the structures which had hitherto left the earth were wholly under control of air currents, as much as a chip of wood is under the control of the stream into which it is flung. People began to experiment with a view of directing the course of the ships of the sky. While it was impossible to make headway against a gale or strong wind, it seemed that the aeronaut ought to be able to overcome a moderate breeze. The first attempt was by means of oars and a rudder, but nothing was accomplished until 1852, when Giffard used a small engine, but the difficulty of constructing a light motor of sufficient power checked all progress for awhile. It could not do so for long, however, as the inventive genius of mankind was at work and would not pause until satisfied. One of Giffard’s stupendous ideas was a balloon more than a third of a mile long with an engine weighing thirty tons, but the magnitude and expense involved were too vast to be considered.

“It would be tedious to follow the various steps in dirigible ballooning. It was not until 1882, that the Tissandier brothers, Gilbert and Albert – Frenchmen – built a dirigible cigar-shaped balloon substantially on the old lines, but it could not be made to travel more than five miles an hour in a dead calm, and was helpless in a moderate wind. None the less their attempts marked an epoch, for they introduced an electric motor. The ‘La France,’ when constructed some time later, was a hundred and sixty-five feet long, twenty-seven feet at its greatest diameter, and had a capacity of sixty-six thousand cubic feet. Many changes and improvements followed and an ascent was made in August, 1884, during which the balloon traveled two and a half miles, turned round and came back in the face of a gentle breeze to its starting point, the whole time in the air being less than half an hour. This was the first exploit of that nature.

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It is well to bear the following distinctions in mind: aerostation is the art of flying in a balloon; when the balloon is equipped with motor and propellers so as to be navigable, it is dirigible; an aerocar is any kind of a flying machine; an aeronaut is any one who navigates the air in a balloon; an aeroplane is a flying machine which is heavier than air; a monoplane is a one-planed and a biplane a two-planed flying machine; a triplane consists of three superposed planes; a quadruplane of four planes; airmen are either aeronauts or aviators; aviation is the art of flying in an aeroplane and an aviator is one who so flies; aeronef is an aeroplane as defined by International Congress; a hangar corresponds to a garage for an automobile; ornithopter is a heavier-than-air machine, with wings upon which it depends for support and propulsion; petrol is the European name for gasoline.