Identifier: airshipspastpres00hild (find matches)
Title: Fig. 30.-Dr. Wölfert's dirigible balloon about to start. in Airships past and present, together with chapters on the use of balloons in connection with meteorology, photography and the carrier pigeon, p. 58
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Hildebrandt, A. (Alfred), b. 1870 Story, W. H. tr
Subjects: Aeronautics
Publisher: New York, D. Van Nostrand company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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58 AIRSHIPS PAST AND PRESENT. main body of the balloon, a slight report was heard, and the whole thing fell to the ground, where it was entirely destroyed by the names before it was possible to rescue Wolfert and his companion. The disaster was caused by the fact that no suitable precautions were taken in connection with the benzine vapour, which formed an explosive mixture with the air, and was accidentally fired. One would have thought an accident of this
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Fig. 30.—Dr. Wölferts dirigible balloon about to start. kind was sufficient to put inventors on their guard, and it is therefore strange to find that Severos death was caused a few years later by precisely the same defect in his arrangements. An Austrian engineer, named Schwarz, made a balloon with a rigid envelope, but the ascent on the Tempelhofer Feld in 1897 was unsuccessful. Marey Monge and Dupuis Delcourt had already proposed in 1831 and 1844 to construct the body of metal and this was actually done. But their efforts failed in conse-quence of the insufficient rigidity of their design and the leaks DIRIGIBLE BALLOONS FROM 1883 TO 1897. 59 which occurred at the joints. Schwarzs balloon was constructed of aluminium, 0*008 in. thick, which was* supported on a stifflattice-work, made of tubes of the same metal. The shape was peculiar, but it was probably owing to difficulties of construction that it was impossible to use the form, which had been already found, as the result of many experime

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