Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-06-01

PARIS, May 10, 1907.
It would be difficult to find two more
hardened ballooning sports than Alfred
Leblanc and Rene Cashier designated by
the managing committee of the Aero Club
de France to defend it's blue-and-buttercup
ensign at the international balloon race of
st. Louis.
The two were picked out for their
chilled-steel iridium-pointed sporting
nerve at the last committee meeting, and
while the third place is left open for the
Count de La Vaulx to take care of his
worlds record es-Korostychew,
1,194 miles the bird flies and without
touching ground) 1t is whispered that,
chivalry not being dead in France. de La
Vaulx may trust to Cashier and Leblanc
to maintain French credit This would
be on the point-of-honor principle that as
America, being entitled to three champions,
won the cup in France with only. two,
France ought to try to win it back with
the same number
AS everybody knows, the two American
champions in Paris last September were
Frank P. Lahm and Santos-Dumont, but
1t Is probably not known how near we
came to being reduced to Santos alone; it
was not easy to find American amateur
ballOonfsts in Paris then. ;,
Originally, Lieut.. Lahm had no idea of
competing for the cup. Up to a month
before the race he was not even an ex-
pert amateur balloonist. but simply an alert
and receptive young American army officer
doing the foreign student in the Saumur
postgraduate cavalry school of the F. ench
army. The expert baloonist his father,
Frank S. Lahm.
A Parisianized American.
Frank S. Lahm, the father. proprietor
of the balloon Katie Hamilton is a
ParisianiZed American of twenty years
standing. He has been long a leading
member of the Aero Club de France; he is
one Of it's Oldest pilots, and he is, indeed,
a member of the managing directorate.
When the Aero Club of America was
looking about for three champions it was
Lahm, the father, who accepted the second
appointment. Then, at the last moment,
he was forced to make a hurried journey
to New York.
MY will take my place." he said
with pride, and the lieutenant, who had
not held his pilots certificate a year,
started in dozen almost daily train
Ing trips.
The high Importance Of such training
trips is known to the French amateurs,
and some one having assured Alfred Lee
blanc and Rene Cashier that the prevailing
American winds in October blow steadily
at high altitudes-and very swiftly
from ST Louis to the northeast and the
east northeast over the great lakes and
down the valley of the ST. Lawrence to
Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. the break
neck Gauls are actually training over
water and, by preference, In hurricanes.
Thus Alfred Leblanc and Rene Cashier
count on arriving at st. Louis hardened
by experience to any emergencies that
may arise from lakes and stormy winds.
In truth, the famous voyage of John Wise
from ST. Louis to Henderson, N. Y, in
1859 is continually in their minds
Wise sacrificed the movable bottom of
his boat to keep his balloon from being
dashed down to the surface of Lake Erie,
so the two Frenchmen are studying partial
ballast appliances in the form of similar
boats to hang beneath their cars
Wise, after he had crossed Lake Erie,
was heading down the valley Of the ST.
Lawrence in trip that would have beaten
Vincennes- Korostychew forty years before
it was established had not his balloon
dashed against a tree as he tried to land a
frightened passenger in a wind storm.
The two Frenchmen are prepared for the
wind storm-without the passenger. They
hope not only to win the cup, but even to
beat the worlds record in this likeliest of
directions from St. Louis
Won the Gaulois Cup.
One of Leblancs recent training trips
was more than piece of pure audacity-
it won him the present custody of the
Gaulois cup.
Taking with him Edgard Mix, the cleo
trical engineer, in his new balloon, the
"Limousin.' they started from the Aero
Clubs park at St Cloud in strong. wet
squall, at $50 o'clock in the evening.
The next morning before olcock they
landed with fracas on the Isle of Rugen
in the Baltic, distance as the bird flies
of $50 MILESTONE in thirteen hours.
Even for the straight line, this makes
an average of nearly fifty miles per hour
for the whole thirteen hours, and 1t con-
stitutes the most sensational aerial raid
AS they call such long distance dashes-
since de La Vaulx and Paul Tissandier
did ST. Cloud-Pretzch on April II, 1906.
executed at fifty miles per hour during
one of his learners trips already men
toned, is noted in the archives Of the
to breakneck, long distance horseback
races done in time of peace by European
cavalry officers training for exploits in
war-when raid" means really raid
ricane, Leblanc had thoughtfully entered
himself for the challenge cup @f the
Gaulois newspaper, which is finally to
become the property of the Aero Club
consecutive months.
1t is a massive work Of the sculptor
Blondat. founded in block-tin by the Slot
Decauville master founders. 1t first holder
was Count de La Vaulx, doing PIT miles
The Count d'Oultremont took 1t from him
by doing 267 miles. He lost 1t when NJ. Da-
vid accomplished 430 miles; when de La
Vaulx won it back in the st. Cloud Pretzch
raid just mentioned.
AS they started off in the car of the
'Limousin," Leblanc and Mix saw that they
We're in for ideally rough time of It.
At the low altitude where the squall caught
them, their direction was distinctly to the
northeast-for Denmark or Norway by the
North sea-as was done in the first great
amateur record by the Count Castillon de
saint-Nictor, when he made Paris-Vester-
wick 1925 mi'es) in 1898
Making leap for observation a few
thousand feet higher they found even a too
great water hazard-the higher currents
being so much more frankly toward the
north that TO stay in them would be taking
simpte-trip ticket to the Arctic ocean,
Into a Black Abyss.
Down they dived again-into the black