The ''America'' was a

non-rigid airship A non-rigid airship, commonly called a blimp ( /blɪmp/), is an airship (dirigible) without an internal structural framework or a keel. Unlike semi-rigid and rigid airships (e.g. Zeppelins), blimps rely on the pressure of their lifting gas (us ...

built by Louis Mutin Godard in France in

1906 Events January–February * January 12 – Persian Constitutional Revolution: A nationalistic coalition of merchants, religious leaders and intellectuals in Persia forces the shah Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar to grant a constitution, ...

for the journalist Walter Wellman's attempt to reach the

North Pole The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where the Earth's rotation, Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. It is called the True North Pole to distingu ...

by air. Wellman first conceived of using a balloon to fly to the pole during a failed polar attempt by boat and sledge from

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), previously known as Spitsbergen or Spitzbergen, is a Norway, Norwegian archipelago that lies at the convergence of the Arctic Ocean with the Atlantic Ocean. North of continental Europe, mainland Europe, it lies about midway be ...

in 1894. He then visited Paris to review the state of balloon technology but left disappointed by the lack of acceptable steering and propulsion capability. A decade later while at the 1905 Portsmouth Peace Conference he learned of recent innovations in French

dirigible An airship, dirigible balloon or dirigible is a type of aerostat ( lighter-than-air) aircraft that can navigate through the air flying under its own power. Aerostats use buoyancy from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding ...

design and believed a solution might be at hand for his Arctic aerial plan. After receiving the backing of newspaper publisher Victor F. Lawson, the Wellman '' Chicago Record-Herald'' Polar Expedition was announced, and Wellman traveled to Paris in search of a suitable design and manufacturer. In the meantime a public company was established to raise the $US 250,000 required for the expedition and airship (to which Lawson contributed $60,000). As originally constructed, the ''America'' was long and wide at its greatest diameter and enclosed a volume of of hydrogen. The envelope was of three layers of fabric and three of rubber, and contained no internal framework. The

gondola The gondola (, ; , ) is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian lagoon. It is typically propelled by a gondolier, who uses a rowing oar, which is not fastened to the hull, in a scul ...

could hold a crew of five, and power was supplied by three internal-combustion engines delivering a total of to two propellers, one fore and one aft. It was delivered by ship to

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian language, Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipel ...

on July 8, 1906, where Wellman and his team attempted to erect it. Their efforts met with failure when the engines fell apart. In September, the ''America'' was dismantled and returned by ship to France. Wellman returned to Spitsbergen with the ''America'' in June the following year, 1907. The airship had a new centre-section sewn into it to increase its length to and volume to . The weather was very unfavourable, however, and it was 2 September before the ''America'' could even leave the hangar. Wasting no time, Wellman launched later that day with mechanic Melvin Vaniman and navigator Felix Riesenberg in an attempt to reach the pole. Unfortunately, more bad weather forced this to be abandoned after only a few miles and the ''America'' was deflated to avoid a crash landing. ''America'' once again returned to France for repairs. America_Crew

She returned to Spitsbergen one more time in July 1909, and at 10 AM on 15 August, launched with Wellman, Vaniman, Russian balloonist Nicolas Popov and Vaniman's brother-in-law Albert Louis Loud on board. The flight began well enough, but two hours and later, a device Wellman called the "equilibrator" failed. This was a long, leather tube filled with

ballast Ballast is dense material used as a weight to provide stability to a vehicle or structure. Ballast, other than cargo, may be placed in a vehicle, often a ship or the gondola of a balloon or airship, to provide stability. A compartment within ...

that was intended to help gauge and maintain a fixed altitude over the ice. ''America'' gained altitude rapidly, until brought under control at and gradually lowered back to the ground by venting hydrogen. The crew was rescued by the Norwegian steamer ''

Farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used fo ...

''. Wellman began plans to extend the hangar so that he could return the following year with a larger airship, but on learning of Dr.

Frederick Cook Frederick Albert Cook (June 10, 1865 – August 5, 1940) was an American explorer, physician and ethnographer, who is most known for allegedly being the first to reach the North Pole on April 21, 1908. A competing claim was made a year l ...

's claim to have reached the pole, abandoned the adventure.

Instead, Wellman resolved to make the first aerial crossing of the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

. He had the ''America'' enlarged again, now to . A

spark gap A spark gap consists of an arrangement of two Conductor (material), conducting electrodes separated by a gap usually filled with a gas such as air, designed to allow an electric spark to pass between the conductors. When the potential differenc ...

radio set was added to the underhanging life boat and operator Jack Irwin used it during the flight,

callsign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assi ...

"W", and with the frame of the airship as the antenna. Given the airship was inflated with hydrogen, this was a very dangerous system. The unit made some of the first air-to-ground transmissions, when the airship's engineer Melvin Vaniman sent one of the first aerial radio transmissions urging the launch boat to "come and get this goddam cat!" – the cat

Kiddo Kiddo was a P-Funk offspring group at A&M Records, formed by Parliament-Funkadelic guitarist Michael Hampton and writer Donnie Sterling, in the early 1980s. History In 1978, one of Kiddo's founding members, Donnie Sterling, was a member of ...

who was initially quite unhappy about being airborne and caused such a ruckus, that for a time he was placed in a gunny sack and suspended beneath the gondola. On 15 October

1910 Events January * January 6 – Abé people in the French West Africa colony of Côte d'Ivoire rise against the colonial administration; the rebellion is brutally suppressed by the military. * January 8 – By the Treaty of Punakha, t ...

, takeoff was made from

Atlantic City Atlantic City, sometimes referred to by its initials A.C., is a Jersey Shore seaside resort city in Atlantic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Atlantic City comprises the second half of the Atlantic City- Hammonton metropolitan sta ...

. Condensing water on the airship's skin added excess weight, and it was difficult to gain height. A passing storm also made forward navigation difficult. The engines failed 38 hours into the flight, apparently due to contamination by beach sand, and ''America'' drifted. The crew jettisoned all excess weight, including one of the defunct engines. The ship had gone as far as a point east of

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

and south of

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before floating generally south. After another 33 hours, and having now traveled a total distance of from launching, they sighted the Royal Mail steamship ''Trent'' west of

Bermuda Bermuda is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the American state of North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. Bermuda is an ...

. After attracting the ship's attention by a signaling lamp using

Morse code Morse code is a telecommunications method which Character encoding, encodes Written language, text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called ''dots'' and ''dashes'', or ''dits'' and ''dahs''. Morse code i ...

, Irwin made the first aerial distress call by radio. The crew, and mascot cat Kiddo, got into the lifeboat and, after opening the gas valves on the airship, abandoned the ''America''. The airship drifted out of sight and was never seen again. ''Trent'', having barely avoided running down the lifeboat in a high crosswind, was able to rescue the crew and returned them to New York. The first successful aerial crossings of the Atlantic came nine years later.

See also

References

Further reading