to an accumulator, and yielding 8.5
horsepower. The sweep of the propeller, which might have brought it in
contact with the ground in landing, was counteracted by rendering it
possible to raise the axis on which the blades were mounted, and a guide
rope was used to obviate damage altogether, in case of rapid descent.
There was also a 'sliding weight' which was movable to any required
position to shift the centre of gravity as desired. Altogether, with
passengers and ballast aboard, the craft weighed two tons.

In the afternoon of August 8th, 1884, Renard and Krebs ascended in
the dirigible--which they had named 'La France,' from the military
ballooning ground at Chalais-Meudon, making a circular flight of about
five miles, the latter part of which was in the face of a slight
wind. They found that the vessel answered well to her rudder, and
the five-mile flight was made successfully in a period of 23 minutes.
Subsequent experimental flights determined that the air speed of the
dirigible was no less than 14 1/2 miles per hour, by far the best that
had so far been accomplished in dirigible flight. Seven flights in all
were made, and of these five were completely successful, the dirigible
returning to its starting point with no difficulty. On the other two
flights it had to be towed back.

Renard attempted to repeat his construction on a larger scale, but funds
would not permit, and the type was abandoned; the motive power was not
sufficient to permit of more than short flights, and even to the present
time electric motors, with their necessary accumulators, are far too
cumbrous to compete with the self-contained internal combustion engine.
France had to wait for the Lebaudy brothers, just as Germany had to wait
for Zeppelin and Parseval.

Two German experimenters, Baumgarten and Wolfert, fitted a Daimler motor
to a dirigible balloon which made its first ascent at Leipzig in 1880.
This vessel had three cars, and placing a passenger in one of the outer
cars[*] distributed the load unevenly, so that the whole vessel tilted
over and crashed to the earth, the occupants luckily escaping without
injury. After Baumgarten's death, Wolfert determined to carry on with
his experiments, and, having achieved a certain measure of success, he
announced an ascent to take place on the Tempelhofer Field, near Berlin,
on June 12th, 1897. The vessel, travelling with the wind, reached a
height of 600 feet, when the exhaust of the motor commun