Hybrid Airship Inspirations: Santos-Dumont

As written previously, this novel combination aircraft was not without a real-life precedent. Most of the inventions in the Tom Swift series are enhancements of real inventions. Although the design was not ultimately successful, the combined aeroplane-dirigibile balloon was an area of interest for several inventors.

It is difficult to know precisely which publications were most influential to Edward Stratemeyer and Howard R. Garis to inspire these books. However, several examples may be found with some elements in common with the story descriptions. For example, another Syndicate series ghostwritten by Garis is the Motor Boys (1906-24). The early volumes included stories with automobiles and motor boats. The 1910 volume, The Motor Boys in the Clouds, is the first of several stories with a hybrid aircraft, the Comet.

The motor ship was to consist of a big cigar-shaped bag of very strong material to hold the gas. It was divided into several compartments, so that in case one or even three or four were punctured there would be enough sustaining power to keep the ship and its crew afloat. The gas used was a combination of hydrogen and another vapor, the secret of which Mr. Glassford would not disclose. Sufficient to say that it was a very powerful combination.

The gas bag fitted inside with a light but very strong framework, braced with piano wire, and on either side of this frame, standing at right angles to the long bag, were several panes, made of light canvas, stretched over poles of bamboo. These, in effect, made a combination balloon and aeroplane, giving the advantages of both, and somewhat neutralizing the defects of each one.

Below the bag, with the framework supporting the planes, was the body of the ship--the car--containing the motor and the devices for operating it, as well as the rudders, propellers and planes which could be shifted.

The car was large, or, rather, the plans called for a good-sized one. There would be a comfortable cabin, in which the travelers would live during the day, doing their cooking on a stove which utilized the exhaust gas from the motor. There was also another room, where five small berths provided sleeping accommodations. These berths could be folded up during the day, and as the room containing them was well forward, it made a good place to sit when the ship was in motion, for an excellent view could be had from the big windows.

The entire car was enclosed, so that storms would not affect the travelers. The motor was in a small room by itself, and there was a little pilot house, on top of the bunk room, in which the operator stood, being able to control, stop or start the motor from there, as well as adjust the two rudders or shift the planes.

There were two sets of rudders, though one, as has been explained, was more like a big box-kite than a rudder. This controlled the depression or elevation of the ship. The other, shaped like a fish-tail, sent it to the right or left.

The planes on either side of the gas bag were intended to better balance the motor ship, to render it less liable to be sent out of its course by contrary winds, and to support it in case of accidents. The planes were on the same principle as a bird's wings when it is gliding or swooping down from a great height.

There was ample store room for supplies, provisions, some ballast and a few duplicate parts of the motor. Water was carried in a large tank, and there was another for a plentiful supply of gasolene. The motor ship had many novel features, and there were so many points of interest about is, as Mr. Glassford explained to them, that the boys hardly noted them all at the time of going over the plans.

The distinctive box-kite wings may have been inspired by this photo of Alberto Santos-Dumont's airship from 1906.

Although this appears to be a combination aeroplane and dirigible, it was the reuse of one of his gasbags (No. 14) to lift his heavier-than-air biplane (No. 14bis) for testing. This gasbag was 41 m (134.5 ft) long, 3.4 m (11 ft) in diameter, and had a volume of 186 cubic meters (6,569 cu ft).

Santos-Dumont's No. 16 was an actual hybrid design with both lighter-than-air (LTA) and heavier-than-air (HTA) qualities. This 99 cubic meter (3,496 cu ft) gasbag was 21 m (69 ft) long and 3 m (10 ft) in diameter. As noted in Scientific American (6 Jul 1907) the gross weight of the aircraft exceeded the gasbag's lifting capability by about 120 kg (264.5 lbs) so the wings were expected to carry the rest of the weight. It crashed on its first flight attempt on June 7, 1907.

In this experiment the propeller was started up and the flier ran along the ground on its wheels at a moderate rate. The rear end was held by a mechanic, who let go after about a hundred feet. But owing to an accident, the flier did not rise as expected, but ran head down upon the ground. The propeller struck the balloon and tore it, letting out the gas. It also struck the ground and was consequently somewhat injured. The upper bamboo pole broke, and the frame in general was damaged. Santos-Dumont did not suffer from the fall. He explained the probable reason of the mishap, stating that he was not aware that the flier had been held in the rear, and in consequence thought it was free at the start. Thus he did not handle it properly, and it was owing to improper management of the planes that the machine acted as it did. On the other hand, it is thought that the accident was due to the fact that the column of air driven by the propeller was directed against the rear plane frame and also against the under side of the balloon in the rear, and this caused the back end of the balloon to rise, tilting the front end downward.

There were other hybrid airship designs which could have influenced the descriptions in the Tom Swift and Motor Boys series and a few of those will be described in a future installment.

• The image of the Santos-Dumont airships are used with permission from the Rosebud pages at http://www.earlyaviator.com
  

Tom Swift's Combined Aeroplane-Dirigible Balloons

To the modern reader used to visualizing the frail pioneering aircraft of the Wright brothers, Glenn Curtiss, and others, the Red Cloud seems utterly fantastic -- the stuff of science fiction. However, as was often the case, the descriptions were not pure fantasy but rather extensions of concepts and inventions described in magazines and newspapers.

Tom Swift had several aircraft in the Red Cloud class. His second one was the Black Hawk which he took to Africa when he hunted elephants with his electric rifle. This new airship was smaller and more maneuverable than its predecessor since the adventurers might want to land in a small clearing. It had a smaller gas bag which required a "more powerful gas" with greater lifting ability than that used in the Red Cloud.

"Victor Appleton" seems to have forgotten the propeller arrangement of the Red Cloud by the time he wrote this volume. Here is his full description of the Black Hawk and how it differed from the Red Cloud:

As we have described in detail, in the former books of this series, the construction of Tom Swift's airship, the Red Cloud, and as the Black Hawk was made in a similar manner to that, we will devote but brief space to it now. As the story proceeds, and the need arises for a description of certain features, we will give them to you, so that you will have a clear idea of what a wonderful craft it was.

Sufficient to say that there was a gas bag, made of a light but strong material, and capable of holding enough vapor, of a new and secret composition, to lift the airship with its load. This was the dirigible-balloon feature of the craft, and with the two powerful propellers, fore and aft (in which particular the Black Hawk differed from the Red Cloud which had two forward propellers);--with these two powerful wooden screws, as we have said, the new ship could travel swiftly without depending on the wing planes.

But as there is always a possibility of the gas bag being punctured, or the vapor suddenly escaping from one cause or another, Tom did not depend on this alone to keep his craft afloat. It was a perfect aeroplane, and with the gas bag entirely empty could be sent scudding along at any height desired. To enable it to rise by means of the wings, however, it was necessary to start it in motion along the ground, and for this purpose wheels were provided.

There was a large body or car to the craft, suspended from beneath the gas bag, and in this car were the cabins, the living, sleeping and eating apartments, the storerooms and the engine compartment.

This last was a marvel of skill, for it contained besides the gas machine, and the motor for working the propellers, dynamos, gages, and instruments for telling the speed and height, motors for doing various pieces of work, levers, wheels, cogs, gears, tanks for storing the lifting gas, and other features of interest.

There were several staterooms for the use of the young captain and the passengers, an observation and steering tower, a living-room, where they could all assemble as the ship was sailing through the air, and a completely equipped kitchen.

This last was Mr. Damon's special pride, as he was a sort of cook, and he liked nothing better than to get up a meal when the craft was two or three miles high, and scudding along at seventy-five miles an hour.

In addition there were to be taken along many scientific instruments, weapons of defense and offense, in addition to the electric rifle, and various other objects which will be spoken of in due time.

The airship used in Tom Swift and His Wizard Camera (1912) was called the Flyer. No mention is made of the Black Hawk and Tom says that this airship is in need of an overhaul, suggesting that it has been used on at least one adventure. In this story Tom and his friends travel around the world in the Flyer to take exciting motion pictures with his new electric movie camera. Mr. Appleton does indicate that it is of the combined design:

The craft was a sort of combined dirigible balloon, and aeroplane, and could be used as either. There was a machine on board for generating gas, to use in the balloon part of it, and the ship, which was named the Flyer, could carry several persons.

Tom had several aircraft in the Red Cloud class but the details are less specific in later volumes and after a certain point in the series he quietly abandons this design and focuses on more conventional aircraft.

The Red Cloud

The third volume in the Tom Swift series describes the first of several aircraft owned and flown by the young inventor. The Red Cloud was a large and versatile craft and was featured in several of the early adventures until it was destroyed in the caves of ice.

The initial plans for the Red Cloud came from John Sharp, the balloonist whom Tom had saved as his burning balloon descended over Lake Carlopa, near Shopton, New York. Mr. Sharp shared these plans with Tom and his father Barton Swift.

When the story begins, construction of the Red Cloud is well underway and Tom and Mr. Sharp are testing the "secret gas, made partly of hydrogen, being very light and powerful," in a small aluminum container. After a few explosions which rouse the attention of the neighbors, a suggestion by Barton allows them to fill their test tank.

The Red Cloud was described as a combination aeroplane and dirigible balloon. It had a large red gas container with a "cigar shape" made from aluminum constructed in several compartments. The secret gas could be generated from chemicals and fed into the container. With enough of this gas, the Red Cloud was buoyant enough to float in mid-air while stationary.

As "Victor Appleton" described: "Two sets of planes, one above the other, were used, bringing the airship into the biplane class." With these, the airship could be rolled along the ground for a more conventional, heavier-than-air takeoff, if a sufficient runway was available.

Two eight foot diameter propellers, one in the front and one in the rear, were driven by a powerful 20-cylinder gasoline engine which was designed by Barton. Each cylinder was cast separately and spares were taken in case a replacement was required on a long trip as illustrated in the story. The propellers were "built up" from several layers of wood for added strength and they rotated at a rate of 1500 RPM. After the incident at the Rocksmond Seminary, Tom and Mr. Sharp decided to keep a spare propeller onboard as well.

Perhaps more innovative than the combined aeroplane and dirigible aspect of the Red Cloud was its large and comfortable passenger cabin. "It was a complete living room, with the engine and other apparatus, including that for generating the gas, in a separate compartment." It also had sleeping arrangements for up to five people along with a small kitchen with an electric stove for cooking and heating the cabin. The "living room" part of the cabin had "several easy chairs where the travelers could rest in comfort while skimming along high in the air, as fast as the fastest railroad train." It also had a window in the floor for observing the ground.

The cockpit was in the bow of the craft, near the front propeller as Tom's eccentric friend, Mr. Wakefield Damon, learned when it caught his scarf. There were controls to control the steering and elevation planes. To maintain the motor, Tom or Mr. Sharp would have to leave the cockpit and go to the rear of the airship. A hook and winch was also available for bringing up supplies.

Tom, Mr. Sharp, and Mr. Damon took the Red Cloud on a long trip. The plan was to fly from Shopton, New York, to Atlanta, Georgia. However, Appleton is not specific about exactly how far south they flew before they returned home to clear their names in a bank robbery charge.

The Red Cloud appeared in the fourth volume of the series, Tom Swift and His Submarine Boat (1910) to ferry equipment between Shopton and the Atlantic seacoast town where the submarine Advance was built and launched. Although it would have been helpful to save the Shopton Bank in the next volume but Tom used his electric runabout instead.

Although its construction is not described in the stories, Tom's second aircraft is a monoplane he calls the Butterfly. He uses it to fly to Philadelphia in volume 6 since the Red Cloud was too large for him to easily manage alone and there was no through train from Shopton to that city.

The Red Cloud is used in volumes seven and eight when Tom tries to learn the secret of the diamond makers hidden in the Rocky Mountains and searches for gold among the caves of ice. The collapse of one of these caves destroys the Red Cloud.

Tom built several other aircraft, including ones similar to the Red Cloud with improvements based on what he learned.

Tom Swift Invented Everything

Among the readers of these books there's really no doubt that most of the inventions of the early part of the twentieth century were devised by the young inventor from Shopton, New York. As chronicled in a 38-volume series of books published by Grosset and Dunlap between 1910 and 1935, Tom Swift advanced or invented a series of vehicles and useful devices.

The series was produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate and all but three of these 38 volumes were ghostwritten by Howard R. Garis from fairly detailed Syndicate outlines. Five volumes were published in each year from 1910 to 1912, followed by an annual volume thereafter.

In the first group of five volumes, Tom begins the significant portion of his inventive career. The stories indicate that he has patented some minor inventions as he followed in the footsteps of his father, Barton Swift, who was also an inventor of some note.

The basic structure of a Tom Swift story has a chapter to get the story going which sets up the basic justification for the story's invention. By the end of the chapter there is either a pause or more likely a startling event where the narrator can intercede with a summary of the previous volumes. For example:

Taking advantage of the momentary lull in the activities of the young inventor, I will tell my readers something about him, so that those who have no previous introduction to him may feel that he is a friend.

The first book in the series is Tom Swift and His Motorcycle (1910). An eccentric friend of Tom named Wakefield Damon rides a motorcycle and crashes into a tree. Disappointed with the vehicle, he sells the motorcycle to Tom for a good price and our hero makes some improvements and it is featured in the adventure for the rest of the story which involves a stolen patent model for one of his father's inventions.

Tom Swift and His Motor Boat (1910) is similar to Motorcycle in that Tom buys a motor boat at an auction and makes some improvements and has an adventure. Towards the end of the story, Tom rescues an aeronaut, Mr. John Sharp, from a burning balloon as it is descending over Lake Carlopa. Mr. Sharp reveals at the end of the story that he has plans for an airship and he shares them with Tom and his father.

A personal favorite of mine is Tom Swift and His Airship (1910) which is the first really novel invention in the series. The picture on the dust jacket and frontispiece is a dramatic scene of a huge airship with a red gas envelope and a large pair of biplane wings. The Red Cloud, as the airship is named, has just crashed into the tower of a girls seminary school building. The story involves an accusation of bank robbery and a long-distance flight by airship down the eastern seaboard.

Although the fourth volume is called Tom Swift and His Submarine Boat (1910), it is really his father's invention though Tom contributes significantly and their adventure takes them treasure hunting on the ocean bottom.

The final volume from this year is Tom Swift and His Electric Runabout (1910) which describes Tom's invention of a new kind of alkaline (rather than acid) battery to power a small but fast automobile. To recharge it he has a system to connect to the trolley lines which spanned the country line a spider-web. He had a meter to track his usage so he could repay the trolley company. The car is instrumental in saving the Shopton Bank in which Tom and his friends are interested.

These five stories are tied to each other and form a cohesive plot line which introduces the reader to our hero. The summaries in the second chapter which describe the other volumes make it possible for readers to jump in at a later volume if the first one they picked up did not happen to be Motorcycle.

Tom Swift is not Literature with a capital "L" but the books are page turners and it's easy to see why they sold more than 6 million copies. The titles help to illustrate some of the other inventions which appear in the series. Here is a sample of titles.

6. Tom Swift and His Wireless Message (1911)
7. Tom Swift Among the Diamond Makers (1911)
10. Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle (1911)
14. Tom Swift and His Wizard Camera (1912)
17. Tom Swift and His Photo Telephone (1914)
29. Tom Swift and His Airline Express (1926)
31. Tom Swift and His Talking Pictures (1928)
32. Tom Swift and His House on Wheels (1929)
35. Tom Swift and His Giant Magnet (1932)
37. Tom Swift and His Ocean Airport (1934)

For example, in Airline Express Tom devises a special kind of airplane which can travel from the east to the west coast in the span of daylight hours. In the days before Charles Lindbergh's solo Transatlantic flight, air travel of any kind was still largely a novelty and airplane engines with endurance for long flights were not common. To get around this, Tom creates a passenger cabin, much like a railroad car, which is attached to airplane motors and wings and a tail section. The plane flies to the next airport and this passenger cabin is attached to a new airplane for the next segment. Three such segments were used to travel from New York to San Francisco. Around the time that this volume was issued, the Ford Trimotor helped to introduce some of the first commercial airlines.

With a title like Tom Swift and His Talking Pictures (1928), one might guess that it was to be a story about adding sound to movies which was new in 1928 but Tom proves that he is ahead of the rest of the world by inventing a television-like device. Tom's Talking Pictures was an attachment to radio which allowed the listener to see the performers on a silvery screen in color.

Curiously, although Tom's inventions are sometimes thought to anticipate the real-world vehicles and devices which perform a similar function, the stories often took a description of an invention from a newspaper or a magazine and advanced it in size or capability to create something new.

Yet, while many might think of these stories as "science fiction", to some readers who devoured these stories as they were coming out, the books seemed more like plausible adventures which could be happening to someone who lived in a different part of the country.

Tom Swift's House on Wheels was a land vehicle we would recognize as a motor home. At the risk of providing a spoiler to the story, in this volume, Tom marries his longtime girlfriend, Mary Nestor. The house on wheels is used for their honeymoon. Fortunately, Tom gets back to adventures and inventing in the next volume though some readers are said to have been turned off by their hero's nuptials.

The Tom Swift series as issued by Grosset & Dunlap ended in 1935. Two additional stories were published by Whitman as "Better Little Books" in a format similar to the earlier "Big Little Books". These stories were much shorter and had comic strip-style illustrations on half of the pages. Tom Swift and His Giant Telescope was published in 1939 and Tom Swift and His Magnetic Silencer in 1941.

Although the series had ended, no good idea goes away forever. The Stratemeyer Syndicate, since 1930 run by his daughters, Harriet and Edna together until 1942 and by Harriet until 1982, planned a new series about the son of Tom Swift, named Tom Swift, Jr., of course.

Happy Birthday, Edward Stratemeyer

Although today is noted in the newspapers as the 50th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik, 95 years earlier Edward Stratemeyer was born at home in Elizabeth, New Jersey, on October 4, 1862. He was the youngest of six children born to Anna Siegel Stratemeyer.

As a youth he enjoyed reading books given to him and those owned by his brothers. While still in school he began to try to write stories similar to those of his favorite authors, especially Oliver Optic and Horatio Alger, Jr. Some of these stories were set into type in small story papers such as Our Friend and The Young American from 1876 and 1877 which listed him as the publisher. He began to use his first pseudonyms at this time, including Ed Ward.

In 1883 he published three issues of a semi-professional story paper called Our American Boys which contained more of his early pseudonyms such as Robert Rollic. Five years later he wrote a story at home called "Victor Horton's Idea" which was written in pencil on a yellow paper which could have been used as a wrapping paper in a store. The story was set aside for a time, and then revised and rewritten in ink on good paper and sent in to Golden Days of Philadelphia which agreed to publish it in December of 1889 and pay him $75 for the effort.

This first success led him to offer stories to other publications, including serving as associate editor for a professional story paper called The Young American (not the same as his amateur effort over a decade earlier), and later working as an editor for Street & Smith's Good News. In the 1890s he wrote both dime novels for Street & Smith and Norman L. Munro as well as short and serial stories for story papers such as Golden Days, Argosy, Good News, and later Golden Hours, Boys of America, Comfort, and others.

Stratemeyer also worked on story papers called Young Sports of America, which was later retitled Young People of America, where he contributed about half of the stories under many pen names and served as its associated editor. When this publication folded, he started his own publication called Bright Days which lasted for a little more than a year. The economic depression of 1897 hastened its demise. Efforts to start another story paper failed.

Meanwhile, Stratemeyer bought back some of his stories from Argosy (the editor of Golden Days would not sell back his stories) and edited them for publication in hardcover. The first of these was Richard Dare's Venture (Merriam, 1894) which was a story of a boy who has to earn a living selling books when his father dies. After publishing just four of his books, Merriam folded and went into receivership.

The next publisher who issued his books was W. L. Allison. They issued twelve titles by Stratemeyer in 1897 under his own name and two principal pseudonyms, "Captain Ralph Bonehill" and "Arthur M. Winfield." Later, these Allison volumes were reprinted by Donohue Brothers and M. A. Donohue of Chicago.

In 1898 Stratemeyer issued some of his first stories which were written specifically for book publication, beginning with the first of two volumes in his Minute Boys series for Estes & Lauriat (a short time later Dana Estes).

Upon the historic events of Admiral Dewey in the Philippines in 1898, Stratemeyer wrote a boys' story called Under Dewey at Manila which was a strong seller for a short period of time and stayed more or less in print until shortly after his death in 1930.

In 1898 Stratemeyer was asked by Lee & Shepard of Boston to write the last book in a Civil War series begun by "Oliver Optic" (William T. Adams). Adams had just died and left the series incomplete. Hence, Stratemeyer had the opportunity to write a story as one of his favorite authors from his youth. The volume in the Blue and Gray on Land series, An Undivided Union, was published in 1899.

In 1897, Horatio Alger, Jr. first proposed to Stratemeyer that he help put a certain story into shape for publication. Alger's health had declined a great deal and his vision was also affected. As a result, he could neither complete the actual writing (in longhand as compared with Stratemeyer who taught himself to type in 1891) nor even the plotting. Although Stratemeyer did not take up this work in 1897, he did so a couple years later in Alger's final months. After Alger died in 1899, his sister, Olive Augusta Cheney, acted as his literary executor and negotiated with Stratemeyer to "complete" stories from materials Alger had begun and issue them as Alger. The first story that Alger was working on was split into two volumes by Stratemeyer and added to extensively. These were issued in 1900.

In one of his letters to Cheney, Stratemeyer described the working method he wanted to employ for his writing which would eventually become the Stratemeyer Syndicate. He would act as a literary agent to purchase manuscripts from writers and have them issued in book form. In time this would include outlines devised by Stratemeyer which would be expanded into book manuscripts by hired ghostwriters.

The first two series produced by the Stratemeyer Syndicate were the initial volumes in the Motor Boys and Ralph of the railroad series, both published in 1906 by Cupples & Leon, a young publisher who agreed to take a large number of titles supplied by Stratemeyer. Despite some stories which state that he suggested a 50c price for books at this time, the Cupples & Leon books sold for almost any price other than 50c, including as high as $1. and as low as 35c. with most offered at 60c.

Upon his death on May 10, 1930, ownership of the Syndicate passed to his invalid wife, Magdalene. Knowing that she would not be in a position to handle the estate, a couple years before Stratemeyer left instructions for his daughters to be executors, if they desired. Initially, Harriet Stratemeyer Adams and Edna Camilla Stratemeyer thought they would sell the Syndicate. However, in time they found that they could neither sell nor abandon their father's business. Together they made the bold decision to continue his work. Harriet and Edna worked together for twelve years and after that Harriet was in charge until her own death in 1982. Hence, she was primarily involved in the Syndicate for more than 50 years, about twice the amount of time that her father ran the company from 1905 to 1930.

Through the Stratemeyer Syndicate, Edward created some of the best-known series for young people of that time period. Among the popular series which have continued for many years after his death are the Bobbsey Twins (1904+), Tom Swift (1910+), the Hardy Boys (1927+), and Nancy Drew (1930+).

On the 145th anniversary of his birth, it is fitting that we pause for a moment to consider Edward Stratemeyer's significant role in shaping the reading of young people.