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Aviation History
1909
1909 - 0310.PDF
AERO CLUB'S INTERNATIONAL BALLOON RACE.—Amongst the passengers in the balloons was H.S.H. Princess Blucher, seen in our photograph on the left; andin the same craft—Mr. C. F. Pollock's "Valkyrie"-was the Hon. Mrs. Assheton Harbord (in the centre). Mr.Pollock is seated on the edge of the car on the right. barometer alone tells you what you are doing, while momentary pressure on the indiarubber tube of the stato- scope shows more obviously than any other instrument what you are actually doing at any given moment. We were using a tell-tale, in the guise of a pocket handkerchief tied to the lower end of about one hundred feet of string, by way of finding out when the balloon was in a different current from one almost immediately beneath it. The wind kept coming in faint puffs and was very shifty, every gust seeming to change our direction and cause a shifting of chances. The "Venus " and the " Tillie" were now far to the north, but the majority of our rivals appeared to be making a better course than ourselves, at a quarter to five o'clock, because a more easterly one. It was now deliciously cool, and an observation of our position showed that we had travelled at about thirteen miles an hour since getting off. At half-past lour o'clock the last three balloons could still be seen hard by Hurlingham; but the haze and smoke over London soon shut them out of view, so that pre- sently only the quartette that had preceeded us, and the half- dozen immediately following, MAY 29, 1909. came within our purview. In quest of a current that would carry us slightly more towards the south, Mr. Brewer now allowed the balloon to rise steadily, so that we began to be grateful for the cooler air encountered higher up, because at lower altitudes the sun had proven uncommonly hot. Because balloons travel with the moving air in a seemingly dead calm, one rarely has any appreciable sensation of a breeze when aboard them, the only and rare occasions being at the moments when change of direction is given to the balloon by the actual encountering of a contrary current. Some get thirsty when ballooning, others are not troubled that way, as instance Sir Claude de Crespigny, Captain Butterworth, and Mr. Harry Delacombe. Mr. Brewer and myself, however, having mixed a sufficient proportion of coal gas with rarified air, became somewhat curious concerning the contents of a bottle of plain water which was the only liquid we had in the car. At the moment of uncorking it, it gave forth a little fizzing sound as thought it were aerated, the explanation being found in the difference of atmospheric pressure within and without the bottle. We rose to six thousand one hundred feet before achieving the desired change of direction into a more easterly course. That was at twelve minutes to five o'clock, when we had done the first thirteen miles in one hour. At five o'clock we were at six thousand seven hundred feet over Wanstead Park, nnd tending overmuch towards the north again, but it was not worth while losing gas by opening the valve to bring us down. Round about us there was plenty of changing of places, some of the balloons managing to perform an aerial, and therefore feeble, imitation of a grand chain movement in a dance. This meant that now and again we were passing under a " deadly rival" drifting across our path, or over one. Therefore it became needful to pay out the three hundred Stewards of the Aerocompeting balloons in Club deciding, at Hurlingham, the landing point for thethe International Balloon Race on Saturday last, when Tye Common was selected. 312
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