User:Tevildo/MotoringIllustrated

Motoring Illustrated, August 2, 1902, pp 215-216

The First Lady Airship Navigator in the World Relates her Experiences.
Mr. Santos Dumont once promised Miss Roosevelt that she should be the first woman to navigate an airship. America for once has been forestalled. To Mrs. Stanley Spencer, an Englishwoman, belongs the credit of being the first feminine "airship skipper." This courageous lady made her first public ascent recently at the Crystal Palace, and was enthusiastically cheered by the crowd. Sir A. Conan Doyle and Dr. W. G. Grace personally congratulated the fair sky-pilot.

Mrs. Spencer confesses that rainbow-chasing in airship or balloon is her main hobby, though she is devoted to motoring, and intends soon to possess a car of her own.

"The motor-car is the only possible rival to aeronautics, so far as my affections are concerned," she said smilingly.

Four years ago, Mrs. Spencer made her first aerial flight from the Crystal Palace, when she ascended with her husband in a 40,000 cubic feet balloon to a height of 5,000 feet. The descent took place at Claygate, in Essex, on the Duchess of Albany's estate.

"How does it feel to fly for the first time?"

"When they let go the ropes," said Mrs. Spencer, "it seemed as though the earth were moving rather than the balloon. Everything appeared to be rushing away from us in swirling haste.  Personally, one had a sensation of perfect, exquisite stillness.  Soon the earth decreased to the size of a saucer, dotted over with diminutive doll's-houses.  The tallest trees in the parks were reduced to tiny bushes.  It was most interesting to watch the panorama of minature London, the Thames being only a small silver streak in the sunlight."

"Were you nervous?" asked the representative of.

"I had my husband," was the quiet reply. "Oh, yes; I understand perfectly the management of a balloon, and shall make an ascent alone some day. I have ascended alone in an airship.  Ballooning is the most exhilarating, nerve-restoring sport possible.  I wrote a letter from cloudland to a friend, enclosed it with a stone in an envelope, threw it out of the car, and watched it float and flutter in the wind for some fifteen minutes.  It ran to earth at Southsea, and reached its destination.  The atmosphere?  At that height it made no difference, and did not even take the curl out of my hair!  At the 27,000 feet heights of my husband winter wraps and overcoats are necessary.  Even at 5,000 feet we lost sight of the earth, and became a little world of our own.  A little eerie?  Perhaps."

"And the descent?"

"It is an exciting moment when we approach earth again and get the grapnel ready to anchor its steel points in trees, bushes, or earth itself. The country folk are always eager to catch the ropes and to contend among themselves for the credit of giving first aid to the aeroists.  They take the proverb of 'a silver lining to every cloud' far too literally, and expect silver coins to fall from our pockets as manna from above.  On reaching terra firma, our car and balloon were packed and conveyed, with ourselves, to a train for town - a prosaic ending to an aerial adventure!" "Tell me of your last ascent."

"That was in the airship built by my husband - the navigable motor-balloon, "Mellino.' [quotes sic] This is the first of its kind in England, and an advance on Mr. Santos Dumont's invention. It is constructed of Egyptian cotton, is made as small as possible, and designed to carry one passenger only. The total weight is one hundredweight and a half. It is furnished with a small power Simms motor, magneto-ignition, and a propeller approved by Sir Hiram Maxim, which is capable of exerting a thrust of one hundred and fifty pounds. My recent airship ascent was a sudden inspiration. I understood the working, having watched its growth from infancy, and received a few lessons from my husband; so that I was fully equipped for my experimental flight. When I reached the grounds I had no idea I was to be an actor in the cloud scene. My husband suggested it on an impulse, and I was almost surprised to find myself in the car, manœuvring, steering, and sailing it at a height of two hundred and fifty feet. I navigated it five times round the polo ground, and brought it back to its starting point."

"Was it pleasant?"

"Delightful. The day was so hot, and I alone so cool.  The propellor acts as a sort of fan, and the motion is simply perfect, far surpassing yachting, which it most resembles.  I felt quite captain of my craft, and a very busy captain, too.  Although the balloon is filled with hydrogen, there is no danger of explosion, the motor being placed at a safe distance.  I must tell you," smiled Mrs. Spencer, "that I am not quite the first of my sex to make an ascent in my husband's airship - a fact I am by no means jealous of.  My little daughter, Gladys, was taken up by her father before the ascent.  Gladys is in danger of growing up a finished aeronaut.  Her first ascent was made when she was three months old, and she has been up in the clouds at intervals ever since."

Not in the least scared, little three-year-old Miss Spencer waved a Union Jack to the cheering crowd below, as her father steered the ship in mid-air.

Mrs. Spencer is an ardent believer in airships as a mode of travel, but admits that greater economy in construction is necessary to make these a general method of locomotion.

F. B.