LIGHTER THAN AIR

soon after the beginning of the Civil War this faloona sent by steadiest low near the Smithsonian Institution in Washington convinced President Lincoln and military leaders of the advantages of aerial observations in wartime I am Paul Garber historian emeritus and Ramsey associate of the Smithsonian Institution these binoculars belonged to Fatiha slow the chief aranaut of the north and armies in the Civil War they were given to the museum by his daughter looking through these he and the observers who accompanied him observed the operations of the Confederate armies and then telegraphed their reports for the commanding officers here is Professor Lowe about to leave camp and go to his balloon which was located several hundred yards away so that the sparks flew soldiers campfires would not ignite the flammable hydrogen gas in the balloon bag note that the binoculars that I showed you are hanging from his right side in his left hand he holds his barometer in a leather case Thaddeus Lowe was not the first aranaut to serve in the Northern Army prior to the Civil War balloon ascents had been a popular attraction at carnivals and other events and there were a number of brave and enterprising men both north and south who are professional aeronauts with the outbreak of war several of them offered their services to their respective armies distinction of being the first aranaut in the north and army belongs to James Allen of Rhode Island who left Providence for the first or Allen regiment and his two balloons four days after President Lincoln issued his first call for troops On June 9 1861 one of Alan's balloons was instated with coal gas in Washington and he made a demonstration as sent from the camp of the sentiment north of the city the second aranaut with the northern army was John wise whom he meant in the previous film he was asked for the chief of the topographical corps of the army to serve as an aeronaut and to submit a design and estimate for making a military balloon following careful consideration of requirements rise submitted the price of eight hundred and fifty dollars and volunteered his personal services the contract was awarded to him he completed the balloon on July 16 1861 and delivered it to Washington freed later thus this became the first military aircraft ever designed for and purchased by the United States Army John wising suited the feature that we continue to use in military aircraft of today armored here you see professor wise supervising the placing of a plate of sheet iron in the bottom of her basket as protection from anti-aircraft fire with the Confederate Army's threatening Washington both wise and Allen were all ready to have their balloons inflated at the gasworks in Washington and take them across the Potomac for the federal armies outposts the balloons were towed by ground troops but on route those balloons were so badly torn by the branches of trees that the gas escapes and they became useless when criticized by an Army officer for failure to deliver his balloon for use at the Battle of Bull Run Weis commented that the balloon part was just about as good as a frighten part you recall that the North lost that battle which was fought July 21 1861 three days later Thaddeus Lowe made his first military ascent when he reported with his inflated balloon enterprise at the camp of general Irvin McDowell near Arlington Virginia there though made a free ascent that is without any tethering lines attached he rose about three and a half miles quite out of range of Confederate fire and observed that although there were large mass operations of a Confederate infantry and cavalry about thirty miles distant from Washington there was no concentrated movement toward the nation's capital valving gas in descending he found an air current that carried him back toward the Union lines but there he was fired at by northern troops who thought he was a Confederate balloonist writing again he came down in an open field behind the Confederate lines being slightly injured in the landing mrs. Rowe who had been anxiously scanning the sky saw his returning balloon and the direction of his descent with the assistance of some men from the 31st new york volunteer regiment he was located mrs. Lowe who had obtained a horse and wagon up Jim put the deflated balloon and basket in the wagon covering him with a balloon cloth and evading Confederate tickets she drove the federal head we're Lois reports allayed the fears in the capital city at Fortress Monroe in Virginia the Union troops were surrounded by Confederate units general Benjamin Butler in command needed to know where the enemy forces were how large they were and what they were doing Butler wrote to the aeronaut John LA Mountain in Troy New York emphasizing the need for aerial observation the mountain came promptly and made several ascents being able to observe enemy operations within a radius of 30 miles his reports and sketches gave general butter an accurate knowledge of the location and strength of troops in the vicinity on August 3 1861 for the first time in the history of the world a man carrying aircraft was launched from the deck of a vessel for a military operation this was when the mountains balloon was carried onboard of the federal armed transport Fanny which then steamed out into Hampton Roads Virginia with the aranaut in the best if the balloon was let out from the stern rising about 2,000 feet where a mountain observed the construction of a formidable Confederate battery from which the guns could be aimed at Fortress Monroe or its shipping this is a copy of a sketch made from his balloon for general Butler the Fanny then steamed to several other points of Vantage demonstrating the versatility of the combination of water craft with aircraft we realized this today with our Navy's aircraft carriers five factors limited the use of balloons for the Army's first was the weather second was the inexperience of the ground crews which were to sign from whatever unit happened to be in the area but seldom were permitted to remain long enough to acquire the necessary experience for handling the balloons properly third was a failure of commanding officers to use the balloons efficiently fourth was the difficulty of transporting the inflated balloons over the narrow roads and fifth was the need to keep the balloons adequately inflated during the first part of the war balloons were usually filled of the gas words in the nearest city where that service was available when the gas from one balloon had leaked out so much that it could not rise could sometimes be made serviceable by nursing it from another balloon that was partly filled the photograph here was taken during a critical time at the Battle of Seven Pines in Virginia there was urgent need for some means of putting the balloon some keeping them filled at the places where they were in use early in the war when Secretary Henry of the Smithsonian Institution was asked to give his opinion on the value of illusion warfare he recommended the development of a portable hydrogen gas generator he and Thaddeus Lowe discussed this at length here is a sketch made by them in secretary Henry's office the generator had a strong wooden tank in which a quantity of iron or zinc granules or shavings were covered with water into its sulfuric acid was then poured generating hydrogen gas the gas then flowed into a cooling tank and next into a purifying tank and was then pumped into the balloon this is the competed equipment as constructed at the Washington Navy Yard the portable gas generator made possible the first aircraft carrier here is a scale model of that first carrier let me clarify its identity the Fannie youth of Hampton Roads was a transport vessel and the only equipment added for the elevation of the balloon was a winch and line on its Stern but the vessel represented by this scale model was modified extensively from water line to topside and also below deck for balloon operations Thaddeus Lowe had requested such a vessel from the Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles the Navy brought a coal barge for 150 dollars under those supervision Washington Navy Yard carpenters constructed a deck with hatches for going below where equipment was stowed the vessel was named for the step grandchild of our first president the George Washington Park Custis it had no power of its own but was towed to each place of use the beste was very valuable in the Union Army in the fall of 1861 here it is at Bud's ferry on the Potomac in the spring of 1862 in a company the balloon Corps during the campaign to the Chesapeake and toward Richmond the balloon Washington was one of seven that by this time were operating with the army under those direction eight skilled aranaut served with him including Eponine Seaver at left and John Starkweather others were leaver Dickinson Colin Steiner Mason and free no asthma premise army approached Richmond and particularly at the Battle of Fair Oaks where this photograph was taken showing the portable gas generators in use observations from the balloons from most valuable here that fierce battle is illustrated in a Currier and Ives print built the balloon in the upper left corner Major General aww Greeley later wrote the Union Army was saved from destruction at the Battle of Fair Oaks may 31 2014 11 - the shots were hitting the target on numerous occasions officers telegraphers their Cooper graphic artists as tended with low to make personal observations and prepare sketches and reports for the commanders no developed a brilliant calcium light for illuminating night operations often he supplemented the Telegraph reports by written descriptions and sketches after returning to earth the Confederates also used balloons summer of the hot air type hydrogen was used occasionally but the southern army was hampered by lack of materials the most famous Confederate balloon was popularly known as the silk dress balloon because it was reportedly made from suppressors donatable a dissidents of the south actually it was made from pieces of silk of various patterns probably intended for silk dresses the constructor was captain Langdon chief junior of Savannah who served as its aranaut at the battles of Gaines mill and Malvern Hill defending Richmond successfully on July 4 1862 while ascensions were being made from the deck of a small Confederate tugboat the Talbot van aground and a large federal table captured both the boat and the balloon Thaddeus Lowe whose observation from his balloon had assisted in the capture obtained this piece of the balloon as a souvenir and it was later given to the Smithsonian by his family General George McClellan used those balloons frequently and intelligently during his campaigns but after McClellan was replaced during the interval between the major campaigns of 1862 and 1863 his successors were not as well acquainted with the usefulness of aerial observations and made changes which were distasteful to Lowe his pay was reduced from ten dollars a day to six dollars and he was subjected to unnecessary and humiliating discipline his father Clovis Lowe concerned for the welfare of his son and being anxious to do his bit in the war came to help here at the aeronaut is showing his father at one of his plans for signaling from the balloons after the Battle of Chancellorsville when lo was stricken with fever he resigned for a while James Allen maintained charge of the balloon Corps but then he too gave up this responsibility a statement by the Confederate General ep Alexander is particularly pertinent he wrote I have never understood why the enemy abandoned the use of military balloons early in 1863 after having used them extensively up to that time even if the observers never saw anything they would have been worth all they caught for the annoyance and delay they caused us in trying to keep our movements out of their sight the next important use of balloons in warfare occurred during a franco-prussian war in 1870 71 but that was principally a postal operation to enable persons in besieged Paris to send mail beyond the fresh and rhymes I will therefore describe those events when we come to the subject of airmail later in this series another important use of aircraft is in exploration the attempt by Andre and his two companions to reach the North Pole by air in 1897 is an outstanding example Solomon Auguste Andre of Sweden became interested in ballooning early in life this interest was intensified when he came to the Centennial Exposition in photo yeah 1876 and they're met the famous aranaut John rise in 1895 at a meeting of the Swedish Academy of Sciences Andrey announced his plan for a North kora expedition by balloon the first person to contribute toward the expenses was Alfred Nobel in better of dynamite from whose fortune the Nobel prizes are awarded in June of 1896 the andrei expedition left Guttenberg Sweden aboard the freighter Virgo they put in at several ports as shown by the dotted line of this map their destination was Spitsbergen which is east of North and Greenland the Peugeot anchored on the north side of Dane Island where the hangar for the balloon was directed and the hydrogen gas generator was assembled by the end of July the balloon named the Eagle and of one hundred and seventy-six thousand cubic feet gas capacity was inflated and the car packed but the weather continued unsuitable with the wind blowing from the wrong directions finally by mid-august the attempt for that year was canceled and the expedition returned home an earlier schedule was thought of the next year and before the end of June the balloon was again ready one of Andres companions for the voyage was Niels Strindberg an outstanding student in physics and chemistry and an expert photographer the other companion was Newt Frankel a sportsman athlete and civil engineer both of them had been preparing themselves for the voyage by making balloon a sense at Paris on July 11 1897 with the wind going from the south-southwest the walls of the hangar were dismantled and the balloon rose for the aeronauts but a few moments it lost altitude and the car dipped into the water but with the release of ballast it rose to about 1,600 feet and later to 2,000 feet all that afternoon and evening it headed northeastward but by midnight the wind had changed and the balloon was blown westward the temperature was just below freezing during the afternoon of the second day the weather became foggy this moisture freezing on the balloon bag during the night it moved slowly bumping occasionally on the ice the next morning the Sun warmed again and the balloon rose blown by a northwesterly wind but by mid-afternoon the Frog was again dense the ice forcing the balloon down they jettisoned everything that could be spared and for a while they rose again but by midnight ever once more on the ice this time to stay they had been in the balloon for 65 hours coming down a hundred and eighty miles from the nearest land at about five hundred miles from the North Pole now the details of the voyage were known to the world at that time except for a brief message brought by a carrier pigeon which alighted on the art of a ship and some short notes found in two boys have drifted ashore the fate of these three men remained a mystery for 33 years then in 1930 the vessel brought fog on a combined hunting and scientific voyage hoped to off white island members of the crew went ashore for a walrus hunt and there found the remains of Andres camp from the Diaries down near the aeronauts bodies and from the films which were developed and turned it after 33 years it was possible to learn of the trials experienced by these brave men and to draw a map of their routes both in the balloons and afterward when they were dragging their sledges and over the broken and shifting ice for 83 days from white Island they could probably have seen on clear days Spitsbergen the island whence they had started if they could have reached that Shore they might have been able to go overland to civilization but that was not to be examinations indicated that they had succumbed to the effects of contaminated food probably polar bear meat from the very start of ballooning there were numerous instances when aeronauts wanted to direct the course of their travel but instead were carried in whichever direction the wind was blowing this was especially true of the andre expedition the distance which his balloon traveled through the air if it had been proceeding in a straight line would have extended to the North Pole during the franco-prussian war there were other instances of balloons being blown away from their intended courses two were lost at sea and one went as far as Norway soon after the invention of the balloon there were some fanciful ideas as to how they might be propelled and steered muscular power and harnessed birds were suggested Braun chardon Lunardi had tried to row their balloons with large oars but without success as early as 1785 a farsighted concept of a dirigible this word means terrible balloon what's originated by the French General jvm mudiay he planned for an elongated bag that would pass through the air more easily than a round one the suspension of the car from a wide bend the maintaining of the gas bags taut shape by use of an inner Bell in it get pumped up with air propulsion was to be by three propellers which no mechanical engines being available at that time were to be rotated by manpower although this concept was never constructed it influenced later designers Sir George Cayley of England had several ideas for construction and operation of airships this is his design of 1817 at the left in a front view he proposes the use of scoopa pillars on the side view he pictures what he called flappers which would have been less efficient he had a rudder for steering another method of steering an aircraft considered by Cayley was to pivot a plane between two balloons the upper one containing hydrogen from Nora won a hot air balloon the fire being in the car below with the top balloon providing 2/3 of the lift heating the air in the lower balloon would make the craft rise sending the plane would cause the craft to make a slanting climb the motion being forward as well as upward the rudder at the rear which steered the craft at angles to the wind by reversing the tilt of the plane and valving out the heated air the craft would go downward at a forward angle by alternate reheating and releasing err and continuing the upward and downward slanting of the plane the craft could be steered on the chosen course providing adverse winds were not too strong during the civil war an airship utilizing the slanting plane method of climb and descent with developed by dr. Solomon Andrews a physician in better of numerous devices and three times mayor of Perth Amboy New Jersey while serving in the Federal Army as a physician he saw Thaddeus Lowe's balloons in use and believed that a steerable balloon that could maneuver over the Confederate lines and return would be more useful than one that was attached by lines to the ground financing the construction of the aircraft himself at a cost of $10,000 he named it the errand it has Freese cylindrical gas bags each eighty feet long and beneath was the car twelve feet long during the summer of 1863 Andrews made three trips in it over New York City and vicinity his method of steering was to tilt the whole craft by moving a weight to the rear of the car slanting the front end upward as he released ballast and steering with a rudder then at altitude moving the weight forward and releasing gas the nose would incline downward as the craft continued on course according to contemporary accounts in the New York newspaper the airline rose more than a thousand feet and maneuvered against the wind Andrews efforts to interests the government in his invention were disappointing President Lincoln heard of this airship and asked for further information which Andrews sent to him but it failed to reach the president using an operating scale model Andrews demonstrated his invention to members of Congress and then at the Smithsonian Institution where Secretary Henry prepared a favorable report addressed to the Secretary of War but by that time the Civil War was joined to a close and no action was taken meanwhile 20 years earlier in France Henry jacquard had developed the first steered airship using mechanical power the gasbag of his airship was 143 feet long 13 feet in diameter and hills seventy-five thousand cubic feet of gas propulsion was by a three horsepower steam engine driving a steep rated propeller at 110 revolutions per minute to reduce the risk of sparks igniting the hydrogen gas the car was suspended about twenty feet below the horizontal pole under the bag ship guards first trip was on September 24 1852 at Paris starting a main afternoon and continuing until nightfall his speed was about five and a half miles an hour he was able to steer to right or left but could not make headway against an appreciable wind he had plans for a much larger airship but his failing eyesight prevented him from completing that project in 1872 - pride - Loma of France launched this airship it was propelled by eight men cranking the shaft of a large propeller but its speed in a car was only six miles per hour a decade later the brothers guest on an Albert Tucson da also of France developed this craft it was the first airship to use electricity the motor being of one and a half horsepower supported above the geared propeller shaft the speed of the airship was about eight miles per hour too slow for practical use in more than a slight breeze the first persons to construct an airship that could return to its starting place against the wind were captains Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs who developed the airship LaFrance at the French aeronautical established that that Shelley mu don't the gasbag was 165 feet long and the power was a nine horsepower electric motor weighing 220 and a half pounds the batteries were devised by Renard on her first voyage August 9th 1884 this airship travelled four and a half miles in 20 minutes making several turns in the air and returning to her hangar she returned home in five of seven trips twice she was tied down until repairs were made or the wind subsided on her last trip she averaged 14 and a half miles per hour in Germany a line Wilfred and sports were advancing the art pane lines airship meet in 1872 was the most successful of the three it was tired with a Lenoir gas engine the fuel being the gas with which the bag was inflated Wolfers airship in 1897 was the first aircraft to be powered with a gasoline engine but in the rest of several trials a fuel ignited and Wilfred died from his injuries the sports airship also of 1897 was the first to use the form of construction known as rigid its bag having an internal framework form of aluminium tubing and the outside covered with sheets of aluminum unfortunately its trial after four miles through the air ended with a crash landing in the United States of America had been several ideas for durable airships Rufus Porter who founded the Scientific American magazine in 1845 demonstrated his idea with a scale model which he flew indoors advertising his plan for an airship to be 800 feet long which he said could cross the continent in three days this was during the time of the gold rush this is one of the many shares of stock that he sold it is dated 1852 the full-scale airship was never built Frederick Marriott in California 1869 thought in getting added lifts by attaching a delta wing to his gas bag but gave up the idea after several disappointments the first American airship that did carry a man was made by CFIT shell of Connecticut in 1878 it was powered by the pilots arms turning a pair of cranks attached to a sprocket chain and driveshaft extending to the propeller which was steered by his feet pushing pedals and Raj to turn the propeller pivot from the side-to-side ritual made several steer dissensions indoors but during an outdoor ascension the craft was blown several miles away before the pilot could make a landing there is much more to the story of balloons and dirigible airships we have brought it in this film close to the end of the 19th century we have seen the spherical balloon developed to a practical form and applied to a number of we have also seen that dirigible airships of the 19th century were made in a variety of sizes and shapes but were limited in performance I plan to continue for you the accounts of leg of an aircraft in the 20th century but for our next film I want to turn back the calendar to the final years of the 1700s and then through the following 1800s to tell you of mankind's progress with the other form of aircraft those that are heavier than air that story is also a very interesting one [Music] [Applause]