View source for Balloon Jumps Across Country

''Balloon Jumps Across Country'' is an article including a letter written by [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]]published in the [[Daily Express]] on 1 march 1927.


== Balloon Jumps Across Country ==
[[File:daily-express-1927-03-01-p9-balloon-jumps-across-country.jpg|thumb|200px|right|[[Daily Express]] (1 march 1927, p. 9)]]

'''SIR A. CONAN DOYLE'S SUGGESTIONS.'''

'''AID TO PEDESTRIANS.'''

Tests with the first "jumping balloon" ever constructed in England, which are to be made by the "[[Daily Express]]" at Stag-lane Aerodrome, Edgware, at the end of the week, have aroused the interest of [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]].

<q>"Some years ago,"</q> writes [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Sir Arthur]] in a letter to the "[[Daily Express]]." <q>"I conceived the idea of the use of small balloons or hydrogen knapsacks as an aid to the pedestrian. I never hoped to see it in practice.</q>

<q>"There are, however, one or two conclusions which I reached, and they may be of some use. The chief was that too much should not be attempted.</q>

'''LIFTING POWER.'''

<q>"If, as has been lately suggested, the margin between the man's weight and the lifting power was only a few pounds, and if huge leaps were the result, it would mean a loss of control and be the cause of many accidents. What is needed is to turn the fifteen-stone man into a five-stone man, so that he can go on his way swiftly and without fatigue. Better thirty-foot strides under control than 100-yard springs where one may be the sport of puffs of wind or unseen obstacles.</q>

<q>"It should not be necessary in such a case to release the hydrogen, and though, I presume, some safety valve must be provided to meet the expansion from changes of temperature, it should still be possible to make the one charge of hydrogen last for a considerable time."</q>

The "[[Daily Express]]" experiments will be as exhaustive as possible to test balloon jumping under various conditions. The "[[Daily Express]]" balloon is eighteen feet in diameter, and has a "lift" of something over ten stone.








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