Evening star., 1933-06-25
Aida Breckinridge,
Wife of ofLindberghs
Attormey, Flee Sant0s
Dumont's NO. Q" OUer
Paris in 1908 and Still
Remains the Only One Of
Her Sex to Solo in a
Bimb.
RY HELEN S. WATERHOUSE.

HIRT1 years deo, ouA hAe eAio AAA~ ~
the first Roosevelt, while GoethalS was
digging away on the Panama Canal
and Carrie Nation was breaking up
Kansas saloons with her hatchet, and
Joe Cannon was chewing his stogie
manning to run for Speaker, ana Ian Fao',
was being groomed to break the world pacing
record, and the Wright brothers were trying 70
build flying machine in their bicycle shop at
Dayton, an American girl ne" oirisiole "
across the Bois in Paris.
And in the 80 years since no other woman,
as far as the records show, has ever plioteo any
dirigibles whatever.
Back in the shadowy early days Of aviation
indeed before there was any aviation before
the Boeings the Fokkers, the Handley Pages,
the Nieuports were dreamed of, while congress
was still laughing over Langley's folly, ana
Germany over the mad old Count Zeppelin
and the Wright brothers were too obscure even
to rate a laugh another American, from the
southern continent, was building the precursors
to the Graf Zeppelin, and the U. S. s. Macon
and had intrusted the controls for solo flight
to a high-spirited young American girl ana
the story had lain completely buried ever since
american girl member of New Yorks Tour
hundred flies Santos Dumont's dirigible over
Paris" there famed the eght-coumn headline
of yellowed newspaper of June 26, 1905.
THE girl was Aida de Acosta, member OF an
old New York family-one Of the beautiiui
sisters, the best known being Mrs Philip Lying.
After her marriage she subordinated br1liiant
social career to one of social welfare She
married now to Col Henry Breckinridge, Assist
ant Secretary of War under Wilson, director OF
Pan-American Airways and attorney to COL
Iindbergh. They have two children.
The young Brazilian, Santos Dumont, sports
man. aviator who had captivated the imagina-
ton of France and the world by his daring and
noy,fc xroe of ha height
his career. He had just won the Deutsch prize
of 100 900 francs for flying from st. Cloud
miles across Paris around the Etdel Tower ana
return-prize money which he promptly divided
among his faithful helpers and the poor OF
Paris.
He was the Lindbergh Of his day; and the
fact that the young woman who soloed in his
dirigible Is today a close friend Of Lndberghs
serves to link these air heroes Of two generations
in an unusual manner.
The ship Miss de Acosta few was the Number
Nine, little job, only 9,218 cubic feet capacity
much smaller than the big Number Six, which
had made the Eiffel Tower flight. That had
carried 22,239 cubic feet Of hydrogen; it was
almost a sixteenth the size of the United States
Army's new TC-13 just launched, and about
one-three hundredth as large as the U. S. S.
Macon. The contrast is just as striking in
other respects, too.
Though all of Dumonts airships
passenger craft, the Number Nine was purely
for sport. Santos Dumont drag -poled it down
the Champs -Elysees one morning before Paris
was up, flying lower than the buildings that
danked the famous avenue debated about flying
under the Arc de Triomphe but decided to
follow the rules of the road and fly around 1t
to the right finally landing for cup Of coffee
at his own door.
THE part that Santos Dumont played in the
i development of aviation, particularly In
lighter than air has received perhaps, too little
credit.
Many men had tried to build dirigible bal
looms, ever since the brothers Montgolfier had
demonstrated in 1888 that a confined gas would
carry people into the air and the wind push
them along. The Brazilian was the first man
TO build practical ship that would actually go
aloft and answer its controls and that could be
steered in any direction.
And with the exception of the test crew OF
Count Zeppelin's first rigid airship, three years
earlier, no human being had flown a dirig1ble
before Santos Dumont.
Mrs. Breckinridge is not inclined TO take her
exploit Of 1903 too seriously. 1T was a school
girl prank" she laughs
Stin the fact remains that no one else In
the world except Santos Dumont and Count
Zeppelins test crew had ever taken an airship
aloft before her. Well let the designer tell
how she happened to go.
In his book Dams l. Air" published in 1904,
Dumont describes the historic incident thus:
1.-The young and very pretty heroine, well
known in New York society, had come on several
occasions to visit my station with friends. She
expressed TO me extraordinary desire to man.
age the airship alone.
"'You mean you would have the courage TO
be taken up in free balloon, with no one
handling the guide roper asked. Made