Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-09-02

/ France and his court. LIE Marquis DAT
| landes and Pilatre de Rozier found the
! flight quite as pleasant as had the
| rooster. the sheep and the duck.
| From that day development of the
| lighter -than-air craft was assured
| Rapid progress was made in the next
| few years. Hot air soon gave way To
! hydrogen.
| But while the free and captive bal
| looms developed rapidly, ideas for means
| of controlling the direction of their
| flights were more slow to come Every
one. we are told by chroniclers of the
| time. expected to solve the problem OF
making Roadway against the wind by
rowing with aerial oars. But hope for
solution to their problem through this
means soon fiickered out with repeated
| failures in the attempt. Disappointment
| followed Balloons remained mere drift
ing RATS at the mercy of the winds.
Only their motion vertically could be
controlled
Interest in the free balloon anguish
ed during the nineteenth century, but
famed for a short time in the Franco
Prussian war. when balloons filled with
illuminating gas from the city gas works
escaped from terror-ridden Paris, pass
ing over the heads of the besieging
PruSSian army, carrying dispatches and
high officials to help the i'll equipped
and hastily raised army of Gambetta IN
its desperate resistance to the Germans.
This, perhaps. marked the first instance
of the lighter than-air craft being put
10 real service
MOTORIZED airships, like airplanes,
AVA were made possible ultimately,
not by any particular Improvement IN
aeronautiCS science, but by the develop
ment OF the automobile. which gave the
world the gasoline engine. far eXcelling
any previous engine In the ratio of pow
err TO weight.
During the nineteenth century ex-
periments were carried on continually
in dirigible balloon development with
gas. steam and electric engines. but
with little success The experiments
suffered from common fault of these
types of engine-two little power for
their weight.
Little progress was made in the ven
ture until Santos Dumont, rich Bra
lillian living III Paris built his series
of small airShipS propelled by gasoline
engines, Success attending his expert
meuts gave impetus once more 10 the
development of the airship, and progress
has been steady ever since, though not
so rapid or spectacular as that of the
heavier-than-air craft. perhaps
In this respect the airship develop
ment might be compared To the biolo-
gists' theories of evolution of the slow
breeding animal Evolution III the ele-
plant, for instance, We are told, Is
slow process. while that OF the fast
breeding creatures like insects Is COM
paratively rapid (as In the case OF the
airplane development or evolutionl,
Large atrships, since the war. have been
breeding elephantlike at very slow
rate~about one III every four years
for the entire world
y u II
THREE types OF airShips have been
developed to date non~rlgid. semi
rigid and rigid.
Non~rigid airships have fabric envel-
opes kept IN shape only by internal gas
pressure, with the engines, fuel, etc,
In cars suspended below Examples OF
this kind are the small Army airships
which sometimes fly over Washington,
Rigid airships. the largest type. have
structural framework for strength
and maintenance OF form, covered with
q light envelone of cotton cloth and
deriving bonyancy from Il to 20 Sepa-