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Although the Aero Club is the first organization of aeronauts to be formed on the American continent, it has had a number of precursors in Europe, where the science of aerial navigation has for many years received careful study. It is not my purpose to enter into a history of balloons (?) this connection. Suffice it to say that the revival of this sport which took place (?) Europe in the later years of the ninetieth century did not reach this county (?until?) 1906. Many of our countrymen who (?) d seen balloons daily passing over Paris who had witnessed the aerial contest at (?)ncennes in 1900 did not realize that a balloon voyage was not any uncommon (?)ng in the United States a generation (?ago). Parachute jumping, a perilous adventure, and one requiring skill and cour(age), had become a popular catchpenny (?attraction?) at country fairs, but the sport of (ba)llooning as practiced by our forefathers (?) became quite lost sight of. 
  (?) when the Aero Club of America or(ga)nized its first exposition, last January, (bal)loons were imported from Paris, and the (pub)lic was given the opportunity of seeing (?wh)at they were like. Photographs of (bal)loon ascensions were displayed and an (?)rt was made to arouse a popular interest in the sport as it is practiced abroad. 
   This show was followed by a number of (?) ascents from different places in the Eastern States and thus people in one section of this country at least were given an opportunity to become familiar with aerial navigation in its simplest and safest form. 

New York Poor Ballooning Center
  The home of the Aero Club, the city of New York, is unfavorably situated as a ballooning centre. The ocean, the one peril of aeronauts, is close at hand, and only with a wind from a southerly direction is an ascent to be made with perfect (sa)fety. The gas question is also an important factor and the Aero club has found (?) Pittsfield, Mass., a station combining the features necessary for successful ascents- distance from the seas and an abundant supply of coal gas. The great drawback is its distance from New York and other centres of population. 
  The Aero Club has acquired two balloons, one of them, the Centaur, having made the record balloon journey from Paris to Russia in 1900. These aerostats are available for ascensions by members and it is hoped that before long the club will be able to acquire newer balloons.  Both the French and British clubs have special balloons of their own and during the season ascents are made at reduced rates for the benefit of the members who cannot afford their own aerostats. So great is the number of those who desire to participate in these excursions that lots are drawn by applications for the privilege. 
   Such is not the case in the United States, where it takes a great deal of persuasion before the average person will go up in a balloon. Americans are not supposed to be lacking in courage, but they look forward to a balloon ascent with fear and trembling. There really should be nothing to inspire dear in an ascent with a competent pilot. Accidents have been rare, and the records of European ascensions in these last years are almost free from them. It is a noteworthy fact that women show much less fear than do men. 
   Another drawback to ballooning in this country is the difficulty of communication in the inland districts and the absence of good roads, which prevent pursuit by automobiles. this makes the return to the starting point more difficult and less pleasant for ladies and often involves the spending of the night in discomfort after descent. Yet in spite of all these objections the writer believes that ballooning 

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will yet become popular in this country. Americans are conservative and slow to take hold of anything novel. They were reluctant to take up the automobile; its introduction met with fierce and violent opposition, yet in this year of grace there is no country where automobiles are in more common or universal use then in America. 
   So it will be with balloons, and the time will come when aero clubs will be founded in the chief cities of the United States. Already Philadelphia and St. Louis have followed the lead of New York. Within the not distant future the Aero Club of America hopes to form a national federation which will unite the aero clubs of this continent and will act on the lines of the French national organizations. 
   The first needs of the Aero Club of America are suitable quarters and a park equipped with a proper balloon garage. As has already been mentioned, the city of Pittsfield, from which a number of successful ascensions were made last year, combines all the requisites as a site for an aero park-- proper geographical situation and abundant facilities for making coal gas of proper specific gravity, and for promptly inflating balloons. 
   What the Aero Club needs is a wealthy patron to do for ballooning what Maecenas did for art and literature in the time of Augustus. It needs a house and a balloon shed, and it must appeal to its friends for funds. Although the club has now nearly 250 members, nearly as many as the Aero Club of the United Kingdom, its revenues are small, and all of these must go for current expenses. 

To Popularize Ballooning. 
   There is also needed a permanent staff of expert workmen to attend to the inflation of balloons and to their care and repairs, both before and after each ascension. That this will all come in due time we do not doubt. The French Aero Club procured these things, and more, in a very short time and through the liberality of a few of its members. 
   The first step, therefore, in the propaganda undertaken by the Aero Club of America is the popularization of ballooning as a sport, especially among the leisure and more wealthy class. It is not to be my task in this article to descant upon the delights of ballooning as a pastime. Many others have done this and in an eloquent fashion. Suffice it to say that the balloon, with all its limitations, is to-day the only form of aerial navigation that, ordinary care being used, is free from danger. 
   It will be argued, and it may be admitted, that the balloon of to-day is virtually what it was when first invented a century and a quarter ago and that there has been no progress in its development. Yet the fact remains that no form of sport

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gives greater delight to its devotees or produces more agreeable and novel sensations.
To sail over the country, viewing it from a height and in a variety of lights, without noise, smell or vibration is indeed a pleasant experience. that the balloon becomes the plaything of whatever wind blows is of comparatively small importance when we consider the object to be attained by the ascension is pleasure or recreation. 
   In order to throw safeguards about this sport it will be necessary to adopt rules regarding the issuing of licenses to those who have proved themselves capable of handling balloons. The Aero Club proposes to follow in this respect the example set by the French Aero Club, which requires a strict course of training before it grants a license to an aerial pilot. A few years ago the French club counted only two or three pilots among its members. Now a large proportion of them hold these coveted certificates, and several members have two hundred ascensions or more to their credit. one member has several times made two ascents in a day and another recently made this hone(?) journey in a balloon. As yet only (?) dozen Americans hold pilot licenses from the French club, one member in particular having made his ten required ascents within the space of one month last summer. 
   In addition to the reasons already given, the Aero Club believes in promoting ballooning as the more practicable means of studying the air and stimulating public interest in aerial navigation, the dream of the future. 
   The Aero Club of America was fortunate in being organized in time to become one of the original members of the Federation

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Aeronautique Internationale, which was founded in 1905 and is composed of the eight leading aeronautic clubs, from as many countries. This organization is in reality an international federation of aeronauts, as its name implies. It holds an annual conference in some one of the world's capitals, and the number of delegates from each club is proportioned to the number of cubic metres of gas consumed in its ascensions during the previous year. 
   It was to this body that Mr. James Gordon Bennett presented for competition his International Challenge Cup, and it was under its auspices that the first contest was held for this cup, on September 30, 1906. The honor of winning this cup fell to the Aero Club of America, represented by one of its honorary members, Lieutenant Frank P. Lahm. 
   As a result of this victory, it devolves upon the Aero club of America to organize and hold the contest for this cup in 1907. Such an event will be of worldwide interest

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and cannot fail to arouse a healthy interest in ballooning as a sport throughout the United States. The club has selected St. Louis, a centrally located city, in order that record flights may be made whatever the direction of the wind. Eight nations-- France, Germany, Great Britain, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and the United States -- each with three balloons, are entitled to compete, and the contest will be in all respects international. It is estimated that the great European balloon contests of 1906 were each witnessed by two hundred thousand spectators, and it is hoped that this race of 1907 will command at least equal interest. It will require all the resources of the Aero Club of America, and all the energies of its members, to properly organize and conduct this contest. This will, of necessity, be its chief task for 1907, and to this all else must be subordinated. 
   While a large entry list from the foreign clubs is desired in order to enhance interest in the contest of 1907, the Aero Club of America does not purpose to let the cup be carried off without a valiant struggle to keep it over here. We hope that the history of the America's Cup will be repeated and that the International Cup has crossed the ocean never to return. The club has been assured that three balloons of 2,200 metres, the maximum capacity permitted under the rules, will be available for its champions. There are already many applicants for the honor of being chosen as one of the three defenders of the cup, and it is certain that there will be a large field from which to make the selection. 
   The greatest interest has been displayed throughout the civilized world, and special facilities will be offered to all aeronauts visiting St. Louis for this contest. Through the liberality of various citizens and organizations of that city the Aero Club of America has been enabled to offer cash prizes amounting to $2,500, to be distributed among the contestants winning respectively second, third, fourth, and fifth places. This is in addition to the sum of $2,500 to be given by Mr. Bennett to the winner of the cup. The Aero Club of America also offers a prize to the contestant remaining the longest in the air. 
   As a further stimulus to ballooning, the

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Aero Club has founded and competition a challenge known as the Lahm Cup and turn by each of its members the distance -402 miles- cover tenant Lahm in winning the Cup.
   The Aero Club will endeavor and popularize in this various contests in connection ballooning which have proved so France.  These include the capture by several balloons having a certain start; by several balloons, the one who lands nearest to a designated on a map beforehand also be given to automobiles start in pursuit of balloons within a given interval after
   Up to this point we have aerial navigation only, so to to its past and to the Aero Club to revive what to do what other been doing and to bring United States up to to date and on the same level as they European countries.  But in recent more particularly in the last the science of aerial navigation the world has take a sudden   Man has determind to goal he has sought for but been reached.  In this, as in the time of Louis again has apparently take it is not too late for America first to achieve actual that end all the energies of should be applied.

A Costly Sport.
  It should be the province of Club of America to encourage at a solution of the flying it should investigate and report invention or contrivance which have a reasonable change of technical committee composed and scientists, in whose names the public will have be appointed.  This committee authorized to solicit and receive to be spent judiciously and a good chance for a profitable by lavish expenditure of continued experiments can be achieved.  In France been accomplished in this been largely done by the few patrons of aeronautics.  The steerable balloons now the French government are Lebaudys, who spent large sums in experiments and whose possible their construction.  The offered by M. Deutsch de la stimulated Santos-Dumont to notable flight around the Eiffel Tower Deutsch has built at his own large airship which recently near Paris, and he has offered great value for aeroplanes.
  Is there not in all this land fortunes some one who will offer sufficient size to reward the repay him for all the years he in unsuccessful effort?  To belongs the credit of having steam railroad engine; to France the honor of producing the  Shall the United States of America themselves to be left behind in the bring forth a flying machine and thus confer one of the benefits on mankind?   [over]

[[image: photo of A. LAWRENCE ROTCH]]
[[image: photo of AUGUSTUS POST]]
[[image: photo of DAVE H. MORRIS]]
[[image: photo of HOMER W. HEDGE photo copyright 1906 by Marceau]]
[[image: photo of CHAS JEROME EDWARDS]]
[[image: photo of COLGATE HOYT photo by Pirie MacDonald]]
[[image: photo of THE LAHM CUP]