| Yesterday morning, the machine was carried through the
entrance of Bagatelle. After two attempts to start it up, M. Santos-Dumont
stopped. In the final try, he said, a couple of screws had worked loose.
The repairs take some hours, and the attempted flight is postponed til
the afternoon.
By four o'clock everything is ready. A hundred people
escort the aeroplane, which is towed from its shed on the Boulevard
de la Seine to the field of Bagatelle, through the Trotadores
entrance. M. Santos-Dumont examines the machine's flying
wires carefully and then, very casually, climbs up to the small basket
[ie cockpit]. Meanwhile one of his
assistants fixes a pole in the ground, topped by a flag, to indicate the
point the brave aeronaut must reach in order to officially qualify for
the Archdeacon cup. Santos-Dumont orders the numerous spectators to be
moved clear, then puts the propellor in motion and starts his run. For
a space of two hundred metres, the three pneumatic wheels that support
the device roll along the ground; suddenly, Santos-Dumont points the end
of the machine skyward, and the wheels visibly, unambiguously, leave the
soil: the aeroplane flies. The whole crowd is stirred. Santos-Dumont seems
to fly like some immense bird in a fairy tale. In this manner he covers
about fifty metres at a height of some three metres. Attempting to prolong
the flight, he makes an adjustment to the nose of the craft, but - alas
- in too brusque a movement! The aeroplane sinks.
Santos-Dumont, anticipating a touch down, cuts the engine
and the machine falls to the ground with a thud. We are among the first
ones to run towards the aviator, and help him from the small basket. Smiling,
he examines the damage - which may be summarized as a twisted wheel, two
broken struts and a broken bamboo pole in the nose.
From The Figaro
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