Part 22

The enormous advantage which such an invention would give to the army possessing it was early recognized by certain electrical engineers and a few scientifically minded officers of the Signal Corps, and, as a result of their enthusiasm, before the first contingent sailed for France work had been begun on the development of a radiotelephone set for airplanes. There is no necessity of recounting the innumerable experiments and heart-breaking failures before the first real successes were obtained. So far as the radio part of the problem was concerned, a solution was had in a comparatively short time. But working this apparatus in a swift-moving and terrifically noisy airplane was quite a different matter, it was quickly discovered, from working it under ordinary conditions on the ground, the roar of the engine and the rushing air making it impossible to hear one’s own voice, much less the weak signals of the receiver. One of the first problems to be solved, therefore, was to design a head-set which would exclude these noises while at the same time permitting the voice of the telephone to be heard. The answer was found in a form of aviator’s helmet fitting the head so closely as to exclude virtually all extraneous sounds save those coming through telephone-receivers inserted in the helmet so as to fit the ears. No sooner was this problem solved, however, than another one demanded solution. A means had been devised for protecting the receivers from outside noises—but how about the _transmitter_? Every one knows how sensitive the ordinary telephone-transmitter is to extraneous sounds, so it does not require much imagination to picture how impossible it would be for the aviator to make his voice heard in a transmitter alongside a 200 horse-power airplane engine. But a brilliant series of experiments, conducted largely by Mr. J. P. Minton, of the Western Electric Company, resulted in a form of telephone-transmitter or microphone which possessed the remarkable quality of being insensible to engine and wind noises and at the same time highly responsive to the tones of the voice. With these two elements in hand it was thought that the problem was solved, but three more months of unremitting work were required to perfect the apparatus to a state where it was practicable for use by others than experts. At last everything was ready, however, and in December, 1917, the officials of the Aircraft Production Board and the joint Army and Navy Technical Boards announced that they would witness an exhibition of the apparatus at the Moraine Flying-Field at Dayton. Two days before the date set for the demonstration a group of the engineers and mechanics who had been working over the problem almost night and day during the preceding six months descended, with many cases of paraphernalia, on the Ohio town. Only the enthusiasts who for the preceding half-year had spent their days working over the problem and their nights dreaming of it believed that the exhibition would prove successful. Every one else was sceptical. The plan was to have two planes, both carrying radio sets, in the air at the same time, while the visiting officials listened in at a ground-station located on the top of a near-by hill. That night the inventors and their assistants congregated in a room of the hotel where they were staying and worked out a scenario and held a rehearsal of the morrow’s programme. A famous electrical expert represented one plane and a young engineer represented the other, while the inventors, sitting in the middle of the room, gave them their orders and sent them sailing over beds, chairs, and tables as it was hoped their planes would manœuvre in the clouds the next day. No one slept very well that night. The morning was cold and dismal, in keeping with the spirits of all concerned. Upon the arrival of the exalted ones, among whom were several of the foremost scientists and inventors of America, they were shown the apparatus installed in the two planes and were told what it was expected to do. They were then escorted up to the little station on the hill, where a loud-speaking receiver had been connected with the wireless apparatus, so that all could hear without the use of head-sets. The planes left the ground, and after what seemed an interminable length of time, there came from the receiver the first faint sounds which indicated that they were ready to perform. The officials, with their coat-collars about their ears, appeared only mildly interested and several gave unmistakable signs of being bored. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, out of the horn of the loud-speaker came the words: “_Hello, ground-station! This is Plane Number One speaking. Do you get me all right?_” The bored expressions on the faces of the officials changed to expressions of amazement tinged with awe. Instead of the confusing dash-dot-dash which they associated with wireless, here was a human voice coming out of space clear and distinct—yet the speaker was two miles in the air. Soon the same signal came from the other plane and the exhibition was on. Under command from the ground the planes were manœuvred all over that part of the country. They climbed and volplaned and circled. They were sent on scouting expeditions and reported what they saw as they travelled through the air. Continuous conversation was carried on, even when the planes were out of sight, and finally, upon command, they came tearing down the skies like two huge homing pigeons and landed where directed. From that moment the radio telephone was sold to the government. It was no longer a question as to whether it would work, but how soon and in what quantity its manufacture could be started.

The primary object of the airplane telephone is to make it possible for the commander of an air-squadron to control the movement of his men in the air just as a drill-sergeant directs the evolutions of a platoon on the ground. For this purpose extra-long range is not required or, indeed, desired, the distance over which they can talk being purposely limited to two or three miles, so that the enemy cannot overhear except when actually engaged in combat. Then it does not matter.

Neither my space nor my knowledge of electrical engineering are sufficient to permit of explaining in detail the working of the radio telephone. It is enough to say that a wind-driven generator supplies electric current to a couple of vacuum tubes mounted in a box filled with coils and condensers. These tubes transform the dynamo current into a high-frequency alternating current which is fed out into space through the antenna. This antenna consists of a copper wire about 200 feet long, which with a lead weight on the end trails out behind the airplane when it is in flight. Normally this wire is wound up on a reel, being let out and wound in as occasion demands. With the special form of telephone-transmitter already described, the words of the aviator are impressed on this wire, the electric waves thus set in motion radiating out into space, where they are picked up by similar antennæ either on other planes or on masts on the ground. The receiving process is the exact reverse of that used in sending, other vacuum tubes taking the high-frequency current from the antenna and transforming it so that it can be heard in the form of speech in the telephone fitted in the aviator’s helmet or in the loud-speaking horn on the ground. That is about as near as I can come to explaining the radio telephone without writing a book.

* * * * *

One of boyhood’s most joyous recollections is that of “balloon day” at the county fair, when the great yellow spheroid in the middle of the race-track enclosure slowly filled (oh, so slowly, it seemed!), bulged, tugged at its moorings, and at last rose majestically skyward, the aeronaut, a lithe figure in spangled tights, waving down to the sea of upturned faces as he swung at ease in his cobweb-like trapeze. But, though the recollection of the balloonist’s skill and daring remains sharp and clear in our minds, so much space has been devoted in the war books and the news despatches to the exploits of the aviators that we seem to have completely lost sight of the no less hazardous work of those daring souls who, day after day, in heat and cold, in snow and drenching rain, sat huddled in their frail baskets under the swaying gas-bags, often a mile above the ground, and through their glasses watched what the enemy was doing, heedless of the repeated attempts made by the enemy’s gunners and flyers to bring them down. Though they have received practically no share of the publicity and praise which has been showered upon the flying-men, the officers and men of the Balloon Section of the Air Service deserve from the public its deepest gratitude and appreciation. The perilous nature of their work is shown by the fact that in the last six weeks of the war twenty-one American balloons were lost, six being destroyed by shell-fire and fifteen by enemy planes. Its importance is emphasized by the fact that the Germans gave official credit to their aviators of _one and a half planes for every balloon brought down_.

[Illustration: A SENTINEL OF THE SKIES.

Those daring souls who day after day sat huddled in their frail baskets and through their glasses watched what the enemy was doing.]

[Illustration: AN AMERICAN OBSERVATION BALLOON LEAVING ITS “BED” BEHIND THE WESTERN FRONT.]

[Illustration: A BALLOON COMPANY MANŒUVRING A CAQUOT FROM WINCH POSITION TO ITS BED.

_Photograph by U. S. Air Service._]

At the beginning of the war the artillery-fire of the Allies was directed for the most part by airplanes. Their work, however, left much to be desired. Though the plane observers could locate targets fairly well, they frequently lost touch with their batteries through the difficulty of sending and receiving wireless or visual signals from the swiftly moving craft. Thus there came into use the captive balloon, which by the end of the war had practically replaced the airplane as a director of gun-fire wherever possible, thus making the artillery infinitely more efficient than ever before. Sitting comfortably aloft, the observer in the basket of a kite-balloon had the whole panorama of his particular station spread beneath him like a map in bas-relief, being able to detect, with the aid of powerful glasses, anything transpiring within a radius of ten miles or more. He was constantly in touch with his batteries by telephone and could not only give the gunners, by means of co-ordinated maps, the exact location of their target and the effect of their bursting shells, but could keep the staff informed of enemy troop movements, airplane activities, and preparations for impending attacks. The balloonist became, indeed, a veritable sentinel of the skies, hovering over the battle-lines with the persistency and the keen, long-range vision of a hawk. He played a less spectacular part in the great drama than the airplane scout or fighter in the latter’s free and dazzling flights, but his duties were scarcely less important. Nor did he suffer from ennui during his stays aloft. When a kite-balloon went up along the battle-front it at once became the subject of the keenest attention by the enemy because it was known to be up on business and was certain to be the cause of damage unless it was forced down. Long-range, high-velocity guns were trained on it and, from the upper levels of the air, planes came swooping down upon it in their attempts to dash through the screen of shells from the antiaircraft guns and put an incendiary bullet into the sausage-shaped, elephant-colored gas-bag which so insolently defied them. And a bullet which got home meant the instant ignition of the highly inflammable hydrogen, the quick destruction of the balloon and, perhaps, the occupants of the basket as well, unless they could get away in their parachute. From the moment the gas leaped into flame until the fall of the balloon was rarely over fifteen or twenty seconds, so quick thinking and quick work was called for if the men in the basket were to jump to safety. The pilot of the airplane could dodge and swerve and slip away from the guns by a hundred shrewd devices; not so the pilot of the kite-balloon anchored to its windlass. He had to carry on his abstruse mathematical calculations unconcernedly, his spare moments being enlivened by watching the flash of an enemy gun on a distant hill and then waiting twenty or thirty seconds for the whining messenger of death to reach him, pondering, meanwhile, on the accuracy of that particular gunner. As a matter of fact, few direct shell-hits on a balloon were recorded during the war, most of the balloons which were brought down having been accounted for by incendiary bullets from diving planes. Just as some sportsmen devote their energies to moose and elk and grizzlies while others specialize on smaller game, so some of the airplane pilots made a specialty of hunting “sausages,” and at this thrilling and highly perilous sport became amazingly expert. When the Crown Prince’s assaults on Verdun were at their height, I saw eight French aviators start out to bring down eight German balloons. Within less than thirty minutes seven of the _drachen_ had come down in flames—which shows that a balloonist was not a good life-insurance risk. The average life of an observation balloon on the Western Front was estimated to be about fifteen days. Sometimes it lasted only a few minutes. There is a record of an American balloon passing unscathed through the whole period of American activity on a busy sector, but it was generally considered that a balloon which has seen five or six months of ordinary non-war service has done its duty and is unsafe because of the deterioration of the fabric.

In August, 1914, Germany had perhaps a hundred kite or “sausage” balloons, France and England a very few. The German type was known as the “Drachen,” and consisted of a gas-cylinder of rubberized cloth about sixty-five feet long and twenty-seven feet in diameter, with hemispherical ends. For stability a lobe, about a third of the diameter of the cylinder, was attached to the underbody of the gas-bag and curved up around the end. This lobe, made of a lighter fabric than the bag itself, automatically filled with air as the balloon ascended and acted as a rudder to hold the balloon in line. For further stability three tail-cups, one behind the other, with mouths open to the wind, were attached to the rear of the balloon.

While the Drachen balloon was a rather clumsy affair and proved unstable in high winds, its importance as an adjunct to the artillery was early recognized by the Allies, for the results of its work daily became more apparent. Though the armies of France, England, Italy, and the United States made repeated experiments in an attempt to evolve a type which should possess greater stability and permit of higher altitudes being attained, it remained for Captain Caquot, of the French Army, to produce a balloon which possessed both of these qualities, his name now being used as a designation for the type which he invented and which was in general used by the Allied armies during the last year of the war. The Caquot received its greatest compliment from Germany when her army adopted this type of balloon and discarded the Drachen.

The Caquot is an elongated gas-bag, ninety-three feet long and twenty-eight feet in its widest diameter, made of rubberized cotton cloth and sharply streamlined. Hydrogen gas is the ascensive power used, lifting the cable, two men, basket, and all other equipment to a maximum altitude, in the best weather conditions, of over 5,000 feet. It has a balloonet, or air-chamber, within the main body of the gas-envelope, which as the balloon ascends fills automatically with air through a simple scoop placed under the nose of the balloon. The air and gas chambers are separated by a diaphragm of cloth. When the balloon is fully inflated this diaphragm rests on the underbody of the gas-envelope, there being no air in the balloonet. When the balloon descends, minus the several hundred feet of hydrogen which has escaped into the air, it would lose its shape and grow flabby, a condition of considerable potential danger, were it not for the balloonet, or air-chamber, coming into play. As the air is driven in through the scoop, precisely as an air-scoop fixed in the port-hole of an ocean liner brings air into a cabin, the diaphragm rises and takes up the lost bulk in the gas-envelope above. In other words, the escaping gas is replaced by air by means of what amounts to an elastic air-envelope below the gas-envelope. Is that quite clear? Three lobes of rubberized fabric give stability to the balloon. They are filled automatically by the wind, if it blows, and, expanding to their full capacity, act as rudders to hold the balloon steady. If there is no wind there is, of course, no need for the lobes and they hang loosely, like elephants’ ears, Caquots frequently being called “elephants” because of these drooping lobes.

[Illustration: AN AMERICAN KITE BALLOON ABOUT TO ASCEND.

The lobes of rubberized fabric give stability to the balloon. They are filled automatically by the wind, if it blows, and, expanding to their full capacity, act as rudders to hold the balloon steady.]

[Illustration: PLANES IN BATTLE FORMATION.

As accurately spaced as the pips on a card; as picturesque as a flock of geese southwardly bound.]

When the United States entered the war we were practically without this type of aircraft, the only balloon possessed by our military forces on the Mexican border having been the gift of an Akron rubber company to the Ohio National Guard. In April, 1917, the whole production of military balloons in the United States was not over two or three a month, but at the request of the government the various rubber manufacturers went whole-heartedly into the business of production, so that when the war ended we were producing ten balloons a day. Up to November 11 there had been produced for the United States Army alone 1,025 balloons of all types, 642 of these being the final Type R Observation Balloon. Propaganda and target balloons were likewise developed and produced, as were new-type parachutes, canvas balloon hangars, and 1,221,582 feet of steel cable—a sufficient length of single-strand, specially manufactured wire to more than reach around the globe.

One of the chief difficulties which had to be overcome was the question of a sufficient supply of cotton cloth of proper strength and texture, for balloon cloth was practically unknown in this country when we entered the war. In order to keep up with the balloon schedule of the War Department, the manufacturers required millions of yards of a very high-grade cloth with a weave of 140 threads to the inch both ways. At first the wastage due to imperfect balloon cloth was enormous, frequently running as high as 60 per cent, but by care and effort this was reduced to perhaps 10 per cent in total from the loom to the balloon. The wastage was largely caused by “slubs,” knots, and other imperfections of weaving, which prevented an even surface for rubberizing and consequently impaired the strength and gas-holding qualities of the cloth. Hundreds of inspectors, both factory and government employees, were necessary to get an approximately perfect fabric, and all had to be developed for this work. Indeed, the making of balloon cloth in the United States amounted to the development of an entirely new industry, for which thousands of men had to be specially trained for months. It will give you a better conception of the magnitude of this new industry, perhaps, when I tell you that to make ten balloons a day it was necessary for the cotton-mills to weave about 600,000 yards of this special balloon cloth a month, and this required 3,200 looms. It is a tribute to the skill of the American weavers that reports from the front stated that the American fabric burnt very much more slowly than that made in Europe, thus giving the observer more time to get away in his parachute and minimizing the danger of the burning balloon falling on him.

Everything connected with the kite-balloon presented more or less of a problem because it was new. The mobile windlass, for example, by which the balloon was let up and pulled down on its cable, had to be developed from nothing. But the genius of the American manufacturer overcame this difficulty as it did every other in the manufacture of instruments for war. Though steam was the motive power first used for balloon windlasses, before the close of the war American ingenuity had developed both gas and electric windlasses which were thoroughly efficient. The mobile windlass could move on the road under its own power at a speed of twenty miles an hour, and could tow a balloon in the air at the rate of five miles an hour, or even better if necessity demanded. The gasoline windlass has made a record pull-down of 1,600 feet a minute, bringing down its balloon at a speed more than _three times that of the fastest passenger-elevator_.

A sufficient supply of hydrogen gas was, at the beginning, another of the balloon problems. Hydrogen, before the war, was a by-product in the manufacture of commercial oxygen, and only a small quantity was used in this country. But the sudden demand for millions of cubic feet of this gas was promptly met by the establishment of government plants and the expansion of privately owned ones. Though by far the greater part of the gas used in balloons at home and abroad was made at permanent supply stations and shipped to the points where it was needed, in steel cylinders, an extremely ingenious type of portable generator was developed for the manufacture of hydrogen in the field. When these portable hydrogen generators were unnecessary or unavailable, the gas shipped from long distances was stored in high-pressure cylinders or “nurse balloons,” the latter being simply huge bags of rubberized fabric, each with a capacity of 5,000 cubic feet of hydrogen, which were used in the same way as the ordinary steel gasometers to be seen in any American city.