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His Eole, as General Mensier testifies, prolonged a jump as far as fifty metres as early as 1890. In 1897 his Avion fairly flew. The fact of interest here is that in 1908, when flying was still almost incredible, M. Ader published his "Aviation Militaire."
It is past question that the 'Avion' was capable of power-driven flight; whether it achieved it or no remains an unsettled problem.
Sergeant James R. McConnell, one of the Americans in the French flying corps, afterwards killed, tells of a day's service in his most readable book, Flying for France, in a way that gives some idea of the daily routine of an operator of an avion de chasse. Drawing forward out of line, you put on full power, race across the grass, and take the air.
"Somebody else livin' in the Avion home." But better than all, Janice, the homemaker learned many new and interesting things about housekeeping. Mammy Blanche had a "sleight," as she called it, in doing housework, and Janice might well copy her methods. Amy came often to see her, of course; and Gummy was at the house almost every day with orders from the store.
These are handled by escadrilles equipped with bigger machines. I mount at daybreak over the lines; stay at from 11,000 to 15,000 feet and wait for the sight of an enemy plane. It may be a bombardment machine, a regulator of fire, an observer, or an avion de chasse looking for me. Whatever she is I make for her and manoeuvre for position.
As soon as he had climbed down, those of us who had never before seen this latest type of French avion de chasse, crowded round, examining and admiring with feelings of awe and reverence. It was a marvelous piece of aero-craftsmanship, the result of more than two years of accumulating experience in military aviation. It was hard to think of it as an inanimate thing, once having seen it in the air.
Ader named his second machine, which he began to build in May, 1892, the 'Avion, and an honour which he well deserve that name remains in French aeronautics as descriptive of the power-driven aeroplane up to this day.
The wrecked 'Avion' and the refusal of the French War Ministry to grant any more funds for further experiment are sufficient evidence of the need for working along the lines taken by the pioneers of gliding rather than on those which Ader himself adopted.
There were a few pieces of jewelry more valuable for their associations than for their intrinsic worth, the gold framed photographs of Grandfather and Grandmother Avion, which clasped like a little book, and the miniature of Janice's mother painted on ivory when she was a girl by a painter who had since become very famous.
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