Berlin Balloon Race, 1908

[aerohydro]

How to be a Retronaut - Berlin Balloon Race, 1908

This link shows a number of photos that were taken at the start of the 1908 Gordon Bennett Cup. The American entry, Conqueror, had a very short, but very dramatic, flight.

According to this extract from the FAI website:

3rd Coupe Aéronautique - Gordon Bennett

"Soon after launch and also during the 30-hours flight to the coast, some events occurred, that might have created fatal endings. It really was a miracle, that no one was badly hurt.

At first, the American balloon CONQUEROR, launching as number 9, hit the barrier of the launch-field, ripped off some boards and lost some bags of ballast. Loosing this weight, the balloon rose up into the air like a rocket. The appendix, too narrow and of a failing construction, could not give way for the quickly expanding gas. In an altitude of several hundred meters, the envelope split.

The falling balloon shaped to a parachute inside the net, reducing the falling-speed. On the roof of the house Wilhelmshöherstraße Nr. 7 the basket damaged the tiles, got stuck at the chimney and the two Americans, A. Holland Forbes and Augustus Post, could enter the house by a skylight, but not before they and their balloon had been photographed on the roof."

Paul

[Tork1945]

The fascinating story of Augustus Post and Holland Forbes can be read in full in The Century Magazine October 1910, including some equally fascinating contemporary gravures.

Tork1945