MY AIRSHIPS
dies hard. When I took account of its practical difficulties I found my mind working automatically to convince itself that they were not. I caught myself saying: "If I make a cylindrical balloon long enough and thin enough it will cut the air . . . " and, with respect to the wind, "shall I not be as a sailing yachtsman who is not criticised for refusing to go out in a squall?"
At last an accident decided me. I have always been charmed by simplicity, while complications, be they never so ingenious, repel me. Automobile tricycle motors happened to be very much perfected at the moment. I delighted in their simplicity, and, illogically enough, their merits had the effect of deciding my mind against all other objections to steerable ballooning.
"I will use this light and powerful motor," I said. "Giffard had no such opportunity."
Giffard's primitive steam-engine, weak in proportion to its weight, spitting red-hot sparks from its coal fuel, had afforded that courageous innovator no fair chance, I argued. I did not dally a single moment with the idea of an electric motor, which promises little danger, it is true, but which has the capital ballooning defect of being the
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