Smyrna times., 1910-10-26
WHY BALLOON
WAS ABANDONED
WeIIman Says the EQuiIiDratOr
Made the Trouble.
IT HELD DIRIGIBLE BACK
Says Airship Was In Good Condition
When Abandoned - Jack IrWin's
Graphic Story of the Adventure.

Walter Wellman and his five COM |
paniOns, who were rescued at sea from |
the dirigible balloon America by the |
steamship Trent, Captain Charles E. |
Down, of the Royal Mail Steam Packet |
company, about 375 miles east of Nor
folk, Va, Tuesday morning while at |
tempting to fly from Atlantic City to
Europe, reached New York aboard the |
Trent
Mr.. Wellman. still wearing the |
khaki aviation clothes which he has |
worn since sailing from Atlantic City !
in the balloon last Saturday morning, |
showed no more i'll effects of the voy-
age than did his cOmpaIions, other
than that he was somewhat pale and
carried one arm in a sling owing to
! an injury to the little finger of his
right hand
After Mr.. Wellman had greeted his
wife, his four daughters, Mrs Vaniman
| and Mrs. Loud, who is the aged moth
er of Mrs. Vaniman ana of Engineer
| Albert Louis Loud, Cf the America s
crew. the newspaper men worked their
way to Mr. Wellman's side to ask him
the reasons for the abandonment of
the dirigible and consequent lack of
! success OF the voyage.
Mr.. Wellman surprised his inter
! viewers by stating that the airship had
met with no serious engine troubles
and that the escape of gas from the
| bag was negligible. In two statements
signed by Mr.. Wellman Just after the
| rescue and in conversation with Cap
tain Down and passengers on the
Trent. Mr.. Wellman was quoted as
saying that the dirigible had met with
misiaps SO serious that the balloon
when sighted By the Trent could have
remained above the sea only a few
hours longer and that her machin-
cry had gone awry.
The equilibTatOr was our great
trouble" Mr.. Wellman explained. BE
fore starting oIt on this balloon voy-
age we were OF the opinion that no
dirigible could reach Europe without
an equilibrator. Now we know that a
dirigible cannot get there with an
equilibratOr. The equilibrator, which,
being partly formed OF small tanks of
gasoline arranged in links and trailing
as a tail down into the ocean, was the
very cause 0f our being compelled to
throw overheard some of our gasoline
on Sunday night and Monday. The
trailing tail held the balloon back and
at times pulled it down toward the
water, and we had to ballast ship at
the cost of a loss of gasoline dropped
to the waves. Try again? Well, some
thing better than our ecuilibrator will
have TO be invented. Until it is | can
not answer definitely when | shall
make another trial. The balloon was
in good condition when abandoned"
Jack Irwin. the wireless operator,
said:
Nobody felt any fear, even when
things were going their worst. We quit
all right, but we quit only because we
were running out of gasoline. The
equilibrator. holding us back like a
new brake, made us throw out the
gasoline. We seemed to be going along
in the right direction on Saturday and
Sunday, and as Sunday morning dawn
ed the wind was working around back
of us to help us along We found after
dusk Sunday night that we were we'll
off the Long Island coast and still
heading east by north. But the wind
helped us only for a little while. For
a while on Sunday it had kept us
working to keep off shore, but when
observations Sunday night showed us
that we were about 140 miles east by
noroth of Nantucket the wind began
to come out of the north and started
our troubles
1--WE held council Sunday night al
o'clock. The airship was trying t.
break up things before the council was
finished. The wind was beginning t.
pitch us around and we were losins
headway and drifting off shore toward
the south. The more the wind came
the more we bounced. We decided t.
become a sort of free for all democ
racy. That's when we started to throw
the gasoline overheard to keep from
hitting the waves crests."
1t was during the long drift of Sun
! day night and Monday morning, Well
man and Irwin said, that the democ
racy decided that Europe as an objeC
tive point now was out of the ques
ton because of the compulsory lac
of fuel
$50 we decided to head for tn
Azores" Irwin resumed. But we &c
buffeted some more just after we d.
cided on the Azores, so we change
our plans again to try for the Be
mudas. All day Monday we were worl
J ed so hard dropping gasoline owe
hon ard trxrfr 70. aaIyr fIl k0l1
behave that after another counc
everybody was too tired to care muc
for anything except to try to get som
sleep in the iifeboat. Early Tuesda
morning the Trent was sighted an