Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . itsmoorings, and the bal-loon was completelydestroyed, the occupants escaping with slight injuries. No air-bags were used, and this accounted for the accident. Giffard now planned a third balloon, which was to be 1,970 , and 98 ft. in diameter at the middle. Its capacity was tobe 7,800,000 cubic feet; the motor was to weigh 30 tons, and thespeed to be 66 ft. per second. The immense cost of this schemeprevented it from being carried into execution,
Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon . itsmoorings, and the bal-loon was completelydestroyed, the occupants escaping with slight injuries. No air-bags were used, and this accounted for the accident. Giffard now planned a third balloon, which was to be 1,970 , and 98 ft. in diameter at the middle. Its capacity was tobe 7,800,000 cubic feet; the motor was to weigh 30 tons, and thespeed to be 66 ft. per second. The immense cost of this schemeprevented it from being carried into execution, and Giffard thendevoted his attention to the design of small engines. His subse-quent invention of the injector put him once more in a position torenew his work. In 1868 he made a captive balloon for the exhi-bition in London ; its capacity was 424,000 cubic feet, and its costnearly £30,000. A similar one was made in Paris in 1878, havinga capacity of 883,000 cubic feet. In addition to all this, a dirigibleballoon was designed, holding 1,750,000 cubic feet, which was to befitted with two boilers, and to cost £40,000. This scheme was. Fig. 23.—GifEards second balloon, madein 1855. THE HISTORY OF THE DIRIGIBLE BALLOON. 51 thoroughly worked out in every detail, but was never carried intoexecution. Giffard subsequently became blind, and died in 1882. Nothing further was done till the siege of Paris. The FrenchGovernment then commissioned Dupuy de Lome to build a diri-gible balloon, which, however, was only tested after the war in1872. It is curious to find that this man, who was a marineengineer and therefore professionally acquainted with problemsof this kind, proposed to employ a crew of eight men in drivingthe propeller. His method of construction was ingenious, andhe succeeded in reaching a speed of 9 ft. a second, which wasabout the same as Giffard had done. His balloon had a cigar-shaped body; its length was 118 ft.,its greatest diameter was 49 ft., andits capacity 122,0
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpubl, booksubjectaeronautics
