. The railroad and engineering journal . they obtained stabil-ity and stiffness by the use of an internal air bag and abetter mode of suspension, and they enclosed the wholeapparatus in a shed, so that it might be kept permanentlyinflated and await calm days for experiment. This air-ship, which was named La France, held 65,836cub. ft. of hydrogen, and its lifting power was 4,402 car was very long (105 ft.), in order to equalize theweight over the balloon and yet admit of both being placedclose together, in order to bring the propelling arransre-ments as near the center line of gravity
. The railroad and engineering journal . they obtained stabil-ity and stiffness by the use of an internal air bag and abetter mode of suspension, and they enclosed the wholeapparatus in a shed, so that it might be kept permanentlyinflated and await calm days for experiment. This air-ship, which was named La France, held 65,836cub. ft. of hydrogen, and its lifting power was 4,402 car was very long (105 ft.), in order to equalize theweight over the balloon and yet admit of both being placedclose together, in order to bring the propelling arransre-ments as near the center line of gravity as possible. Thescrew was placed on the car ; it was with two arms, and23 ft. in diameter. The power of the motor was ascer-tained by experiment in the shop to amount to 9 H. P., 366 THE RAILROAD AND [August, 1890. and speeds of 17 to 20 miles per hour were expected with46 revolutions of the screw. Fig. 4 represents this air-ship. The first trial was made on August 9, 1884, and on acalm afternoon the balloon ascended, proceeded some 2^. Fig- 4- miles from the shed, and returned to its original starting-point, having proved perfectly manageable, and attained aspeed of loj miles per hour. This was the first time thata navigable balloon had returned to its landing, and theexperiment attracted great attention on account of it be-ing, a few days thereafter, presented to the French Acad-emy of Sciences. The aeronauts believed they could makestill greater speed, but for obvious reasons they jealouslyguarded such details of construction as were not apparentfrom casual inspection in the air, and more particularly theconstruction of their motor and battery, concerning whichmore will be said hereafter. A second ascension was made on -September 12, 1S84(14 days before the last ascension of Tissandier), but al-though a speed of over 12 miles per hour was attained, anaccident to the machine (heating of journals) compelledlanding at Vclizy, instead of returning to the starting-point. The latt
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectrailroa, bookyear1887
