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Updated: June 2, 2025
But, while useful in conserving the balloon's energy, the drag rope is a source of constant peril to aeronauts, of terror to people on the earth, and of damage to property. It has a nasty clinging habit, winding round trees or other objects, that may at any moment upset basket and aeronauts.
And all night long we were continually ascending and descending, sinking into valleys and rising over hills, following closely the contours of the local topography. During the more equable temperature of night the balloon's height is governed by the drag rope.
Actual action indeed proved that to be safe from the shells of anti-aircraft guns, the Zeppelins were forced to fly so high that their own bombs could not be dropped with any degree of accuracy upon a desired target. The balloon's frame is made of aluminum, the lightest of metals, but not the least costly.
A French machine, not a moment too soon for the balloon's safety, had swooped and shot the attacker to the ground. All the Battalion was out staring up at the balloon rotating on its wire, and the portions of the German 'plane, which amid smoke were fluttering to earth. A rush, as always, commenced towards the scene. The aeroplane, brought down from a height, was half embedded in the mud.
It was soon seen that if some method could be adopted whereby the balloon moved through the air faster or slower than the wind, then the aeronaut would be able to steer it. Nowadays a balloon's pace can be accelerated by means of a powerful motor-engine, but the invention of the petrol-engine is very recent.
Thus it becomes a fact that a balloon's vertical course is subjected to constant checks and vicissitudes from a variety of causes, and these will have to be duly borne in mind when we are confronted with the often surprising results and readings which are supplied by scientific observers.
Some one shouted, "It's loaded with explosive bullets!" "Then drop it!" roared Rickerl. "For shame!" The crash of the rifle drowned his voice. The balloon's shadowy bulk above the forest was belted by a blue line of light; the globe contracted, a yellow glare broke out in the sky.
There was money, too. Yes, the professor was well enough fixed. I says: "Tom Sawyer, this ain't no welkin, it's a balloon." "Well, now, who SAID it was a welkin, smarty?" "You've wrote it on the letter, anyway." "What of it? That don't mean that the balloon's the welkin." "Oh, I thought it did. Well, then, what is a welkin?" I see in a minute he was stuck.
It is in fact a monster sail itself, needing some other power than the wind to make headway or steerage way against the wind. The sail device was tested only to be abandoned. Only when a trail rope dragging along the ground or sea is employed does the sail offer sufficient resistance to the wind to sway the balloon's course this way or that.
He was to make use of the "Herve Deviator," or steering apparatus, which may be described as a series of cupshaped plates dipping in the water at the end of a trail rope. By means of controlling cords worked from the car, the whole series of plates could be turned at an angle to the direction of the wind, by which the balloon's course would be altered.
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