Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . f a torpedo, and wasslightly larger in diameterat the front than at theback. It was 165 ft. long,and rather more than 27ft. in diameter at thebiggest part, and had acapacity of 66,000 car which was con-structed of bamboo rods, was 108 ft. long, 6 ft. high, and 4 J , being covered on the outside with silk. An electricmotor, capable of giving 8*5 , was driven by an accumu-lator, and connected to a propeller, which was carried at thefr
Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . f a torpedo, and wasslightly larger in diameterat the front than at theback. It was 165 ft. long,and rather more than 27ft. in diameter at thebiggest part, and had acapacity of 66,000 car which was con-structed of bamboo rods, was 108 ft. long, 6 ft. high, and 4 J , being covered on the outside with silk. An electricmotor, capable of giving 8*5 , was driven by an accumu-lator, and connected to a propeller, which was carried at thefront, and made of wooden beams 23 ft. long. In order toprevent any injury to the propeller blades when a descent wasmade it was possible to slightly raise the axis on which theywere mounted. Moreover, Eenard intended to obviate anyserious shocks on coming to earth by using a guide rope. Theway in which such a rope is used becomes evident if the arrange-ments made for a descent are considered. Suppose a balloon tobe falling. It will gradually reach a considerable velocity, unlessmeasures are taken to prevent it, and a violent shock would. Fig. 27.—Tissandiers dirigible balloon DIRIGIBLE BALLOONS FROM 1883 TO 1897. 55 result from contact with the ground. It is, however, difficult tocheck this velocity by throwing out ballast, because the throwingout of too little ballast might not be sufficient to -prevent adangerous shock, and if too much were thrown out the balloonmight begin to ascend. The following plan is therefore heavy guide rope, from 200 to 300 ft. long, is gradually paidout shortly before the car reaches the ground. This correspondsto so much ballast, and the shock is consequently very muchreduced. If for any reason the balloon begins to ascend again,it drags with it some of the rope, and this increase of load tendsto bring it down again. Automatic reactions of this kind playan important part in bringing a balloon to the ground, or intravelling at a low level
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpubl, booksubjectaeronautics
