My Airships; The Story of My Life

What speed my "No. 6" made on those Mediterranean flights was not published at the time because I had not sought to calculate it closely. Fresh from the troubling time limit of...

Once I was enamoured of high-power petroleum automobiles: they can go at express-train speed to any part of Europe, finding fuel in any village. "I can go to Moscow or Lisbon!"...

On Saturday morning, 11th July 1903, at about 10 A.M., the wind blowing at the time in gusts, I accepted a wager to go to luncheon at the sylvan restaurant of "The Cascade" in m...

The Commission assembled in the grounds of the Aéro Club at St Cloud on July 13th, 1901 at 6.30 A.M. At 6.41 I started off. I turned the Eiffel Tower in the tenth minute and cam...

When I arrived at Monte Carlo, in the latter part of January 1902, the balloon house of the Prince of Monaco was already practically completed from suggestions I had given.

During my ascent with M. Machuron, while our guide rope was wrapped around the tree and the wind was shaking us so outrageously, he improved the occasion to discourage me agains...

From the way in which the partisans of Nature have fallen on me I might well be the uninformed and visionary Luis of the fable, for has it not been taken for granted that I bega...

From the start there seemed to be very little wind. I rose slowly, seeking an air current. At 1000 metres (3/5 of a mile high) I found nothing. At 1500 metres (one mile) we stil...

I have been so often and so sincerely warned against what is taken for granted to be the patent danger of operating explosive engines under masses of inflammable gases that I ma...

Air-ship experimenters labour under one peculiar disadvantage, quite apart from the proper difficulties of the problem. It is due to the utter newness of travel in a third dimen...

I had mounted without sacrificing ballast. I had descended without sacrificing gas. My shifting weights had proved successful, and it would have been impossible not to recognise...

In my two previous experiments I had kept fairly within the wind-protected limits of the bay of Monaco, whose broad expanse afforded ample room both for guide-roping and practic...

The Exposition of 1900, with its learned congresses, was now approaching. Its International Congress of Aeronautics being set for the month of September I resolved that the new...

I have kept the clearest remembrance of the delightful sensations I experienced in this my first trial in the air. I arrived early at the Parc d'Aerostation of Vaugirard so as t...

After leaving Monte Carlo, in February 1902, I received many invitations from abroad to navigate my air-ships. In London, in particular, I was received with great friendliness b...

In the early spring of 1899 I built another air-ship, which the Paris public at once called "The Santos-Dumont No. 2." It had the same length and, at first sight, the same form...

This brings me to the Deutsch prize of aerial navigation, offered in the spring of 1900, while I was navigating my "No. 3," and after I had on at least one occasion--all unknowi...

On the day before the weather had been wretched. Nevertheless, I had sent out the necessary telegrams convoking the Commission. Through the night the weather had improved, but t...

In 1891 it was decided that our family should make a trip to Paris, and I rejoiced doubly at the prospect. All good Americans are said to go to Paris when they die. But to me, w...

I liked ballooning so much that, coming back from my first trip with M. Machuron, I told him that I wanted a balloon built for myself. He liked the idea. He thought that I wante...

In the middle of September 1898 I was ready to begin in the open air. The rumour had spread among the aeronauts of Paris, who formed the nucleus of the Aéro Club, that I was goi...

On the very evening of my fall to the roof of the Trocadero hotels I gave out the specifications of a "Santos-Dumont, No. 6," and after twenty-two days of continuous labour it w...

Just as I had not gone into air-ship constructing for the sake of winning the Deutsch prize, so now I had no reason to stop experimenting after I had won it. When I built and na...

At half-past two o'clock on the afternoon of the 14th of February 1902 the staunch air-ship which won the Deutsch prize left the aerodrome of La Condamine on what was destined t...