To have been oneself the captain of an ordinary balloon at the very least a dozen times seems to me an indispensable preliminary to acquiring an exact notion of the requisites for constructing and handling an elongated balloon furnished with its motor and propeller.
Naturally, I am filled with amazement when I see inventors, who have never set a foot in the basket, drawing up on paper--and even executing in whole or in part--fantastic air-ships, whose balloons are to have a capacity of thousands of cubic metres, loaded down with enormous motors which they do not succeed in raising from the ground, and furnished with machinery so complicated that nothing works! Such inventors are afraid of nothing, because they have no idea of the difficulties of the problem. Had they previously journeyed through the air at the wind's will, and amid all the disturbing influences of atmospheric phenomena, they would understand that a dirigible balloon, to be practical, requires first of all to have the utmost extreme of simplicity in all its mechanism.
Some of the unhappy constructors who have paid with their lives the forfeit of their rashness had never made a single responsible ascent as captain of a spherical balloon! And the majority of their emulators, now so devotedly labouring, are in the same inexperienced condition. This is my explanation of their lack of success. They are in the condition in which the first-comer would find himself were he to agree to build and steer a transatlantic liner without having ever quitted land or set foot in a boat!
THE REAL AND THE IMAGINARY DANGERS OF BALLOONING
One of the most astonishing adventures I had during this period of spherical ballooning took place directly over Paris.
I had started from Vaugirard with four invited guests in a large balloon constructed for me after I had tired of making solitary trips in the little "Brazil."
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 still remained almost stationary. Throwing out more ballast we rose to 2000 metres (1-1/4 mile), when a vagrant breeze started to take us over the centre of Paris.
