The Mastery of the Air

ID. These differ from one another, as the names suggest, in the important f

d in permanent shape by means of an aluminium framework. A serious disadvantage to this type of craft is that it lacks the portability necessary for military purposes. It is true that the vessel can be taken

artly on the form of the gas envelope. The under side of the balloon consists of a flat rigid framewo

t popular in France. The famous Lebaudy air-ships are good types of semi-rigid vessels. These

wards decided to order another dirigible, La Patrie, of the same type. Disaster, however, followed these air-ships. Lebaudy I was torn from its anchorage during a heavy gale in 1906, and was completely wrecked. La Patrie, after travelling in 1907 from Paris to Verdun, in seven hours, was, a few days later, caught in a gale, and the pilot

afterwards named the Republique. This vessel made a magnificent flight of six and a half hours in 1908, and it was

ficers one of the propeller blades was suddenly fractured, and, flying off with immense force, it entered the balloo

s porpoise, with a sharply-pointed nose. The whole vessel is not as symmetrical as a Zeppelin dirigible, but its inventors claim that the sharp

arrangement. Some inventors, such as Mr. Spencer, place the propellers at the prow, so that the air-ship is DRAWN along; others prefer the propell

a rigid frame from which the car is suspended. The balloon is divided into three compartm

uspended immediately under the rear horizontal plane, where it is