L'aéronef de Californie On The Wing

The Chicago Tribune de Chicago (Illinois), dimanche 11 avril 1897

La Société Aéronautique s'attend à se révéler sur les dunes de sable de l'Indiana dans quelques jours

L'énorme boulle de lumière rouge, verte et orange qui a effaré les résidents de tout village et ville entre le centre de Niles et le sud de Chicago le soir de vendredi pourrait ne pas être un aéronef après tout. Seuls les plus imaginatifs de ceux qui l'ont vu souhaitent prêter serment qu'ils ont vu les contours d'une coque, d'une quille et d'une propulseur. Mais s'il ne s'agissait pas de l'article réel, ne blâmez pas la Société Aéronautique de Chicago. Elle fait du mieux qu'elle peut, et promet que, au cas où il se révèle que le visiteur céleste n'était rien d'autre qu'une étoile fixe banale de tous les jours de la 1ère magnitude, to have a genuine air-coaster in the neighborhood of Chicago before the end of this week.

The official representative of the Aeronautical Society, in the absence of President Chanute in California to witness the start, is Secretary Max L. Kasmar. Mr. Kasmar is not inclined to think the manifestation of Friday evening was the California airship, because he thinks that the vessel hardly had time to travel so far.

“It has been scarcely three weeks since the journey was begun,” he said, “and, unless conditions of wind and weather have been unusually favorable, I do not see how the ship could get here before tomorrow at the earliest, and I think it more probable that it will be the middle of the week before Chicagoans have an opportunity of seeing the invention. I have been expecting some communication from the California people telling me when to look for the ship. The arrangement was for the ship to stop in the sandhills of Indiana, where Mr. Chanute was experimenting last fall, and the society has been planning a quiet reception for the navigators.”

“There is no doubt at all the ship started from San Francisco and is now somewhere between this city and the Rocky Mountains.”

“The inventors do not say this ship is the final solution of the problem of aerial navigation. We hope one day to do away with the balloon feature altogether. Mr. Chanute’s experiments in aeroplane coasting were made in the hope of demonstrating that a balloon is theoretically unnecessary.”

“The present trip has been planned to arouse curiosity, but not to satisfy it until Washington D.C. is reached. It is intended to demonstrate the feasibility of aerial navigation.”

Prof. George Hough said again yesterday, as he smiled; “Alpha Orionus has been roaming through its regular coarse in the firmament 10,000,000 years and why it should have been settled upon in the last three weeks and pointed out as the headlight of a mysterious aerial vessel is a thing hard to explain.”