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Updated: July 11, 2025
After that it went badly for the American fliers, which were shot down, one by one, until only three of the ten remained. Then these three, seeing destruction inevitable, signalled for a last united effort, and, all together, flew at full speed straight for the great yellow gas-bag of the biggest Parseval and for certain death.
"That happened to be the most suitable thing for my purpose in this experimental model. Now, you see, when the wings are spread the basket is suspended beneath just as the car of a balloon is suspended from a gas-bag, and " "Aha! I see it all now!" I cried. "You fill the basket, point it in the right direction, and it flaps its wings and flies away to the washlady!"
The detonation of the latter would fire the hydrogen within the gas-bag or bags, in which event the airship would fall to earth a tangled wreck. Even if the airship were inflated with a non-inflammable gas the Germans claim that their Zeppelins now are so inflated the damage wrought by the bomb would be so severe as to destroy the airship's buoyancy, and it would be forced to the ground.
Suspended by cords from the great gas-bag was the basket, to which was attached the motor and six-foot propeller, hung sixteen feet below the belly of the great air-fish. Many friends and curiosity seekers had assembled to see the aeronaut make his first foolhardy attempt, as they called it.
The "Go-Ahead," throwing out all her ballast, soared to a height of over twenty thousand feet. Yet even there the "Albatross" rose above her, and circled round her with ease. Suddenly an explosion was heard. The enormous gas-bag of the "Go-Ahead," expanding under the dilation of its contents at this great height, had finally burst. Half-emptied, the balloon fell rapidly.
"Pray God he will!" exclaimed one of the gunners. "Look at him volplane motor at full speed, too!" The pilot was young Etzel, who, as Lanstron had observed, would charge a church tower if he were bidden. He was taking no risks in missing. His ego had no cosmos except that huge, oblong gas-bag. He drove for it as a hawk goes for its prey.
All of them could see that there was a man clinging to the ropes that marked the place where the customary basket should have been; evidently this latter must have been torn away during a collision with the rocks or trees on the top of a ridge with which the ungovernable gas-bag had previously been in contact; and it was a marvel how the aeronaut had been able to cling there.
The vessel belongs to the non-rigid class, but the whole of the suspension system is placed within the gas-bag, so that the air-resistance offered by ropes is virtually eliminated in its entirety, for the simple reason that practically no ropes are placed outside the envelope. The general principle of design may be gathered from the accompanying diagram.
"How about that one over yonder?" suggested Fritz, pointing as he spoke. "Looks to me like the top was broke some, and I just bet you now that's where the big gas-bag did strike first, when it started to drop in a hurry." "Then following the course of the wind, which hasn't changed this last hour, it would be carried on straight east," Paul continued, logically.
This question has not been settled, at any rate conclusively, but it is generally conceded that up to a certain point the dirigible is superior. It certainly offers a huge and attractive target, but rifle fire at its prominent gas-bag is not going to cause much havoc.
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