Aeronautics.

Progress, Volume I, Issue 3, 2 January 1906, Page 52

Aeronautics.

M. Santos Dumont is, we understand, building a new airship, which is to attain such high speed that it will deserve the name of a racer. The total length of the gas vessel is to be 41 metres, and the total weight 43 kilos. A characteristic of the new design will be the stiffening of the gas vessel itself by bamboo rods connected with gussets of the material forming part of the envelope, the gussets being constructed m the same way as were the flaps m the old Santos-Dumont airships. The new machine is to have two ballonettes instead of one. The larger of these, which will be placed about the middle of the gas vessel, will be of spherical shape, and capable of extending itself in all directions. The smaller will form the interior of the forward conical point of the gas vessel, the object, of course, being to maintain the rigidity of the front end under all circumstances, even when a considerable amount of gas has been lost. In this arrangement M. Santos Dumont hopes to preserve the rigidity of the front portion of the balloon under the most unfavourable conditions. The hull itself, which is in the mam of the familiar type, is suspended from the air vessel by 13 wires, each eight-tenths of a millimetre thick attached to the bamboo yard which serves to stiffen and reinforce the gas vessel. The motive power will be furnished by a 2-cylinder Peugeot engine developing 14-h.p., the cylinders being slightly inclined to one another. The total weight of the motor is only 26 kilogs., which is believed by the constructors to be a record m the way of lightness for the power developed. The propeller, which is mounted m front of the hull, is of 1.7 metres diameter, and is to revolve at a speed of 2,000 revs, per mm. The rudder, which is of the ordinary type, is mounted at the rear of the hull. The envelope, which is now practically ready, has been built by M. Lachambre, who, as our readers are probably aware constructed this portion of all the previous Santos-Dumont airships. The gas vessel of the new airship has recently been inflated under very inauspicious weather conditions, as heavy snow fell upon it during the process. The new gas vessel when actually filled with gas is amazingly needle-shaped to the rear, though slightly porpoise-headed in front. In fact, as the above particulars show, it is altogether much longer, thinner, and more pointed than any of the previous models which M. Santos Dumont has adopted.