MY AIRSHIPS
dirigibles permitted me to take up less than 30 kilogrammes (66 lbs.) of ballast. As now enlarged its lifting power is greater; but when account is taken of my own weight and the weight of keel, motor, screw, and machinery, the whole system becomes neither lighter nor heavier
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/23/My_Airships_p300.png)
than the surrounding atmosphere when I have loaded it with 60 kilogrammes (132 lbs.) of ballast; and it is just in this connection that it will be easiest to explain why I have called this little air-ship very practical. On Monday, 29th June 1903, I landed with it on the grounds of the Aéro Club at St Cloud in the midst of six inflated spherical balloons. After a short call I started off again.
"Can we not give you some gas?" politely asked my fellow-clubmen.
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