[Illustration: "No. 9." SHOWING CAPTAIN LEAVING BASKET FOR MOTOR]
When I arrived at Monte Carlo, in the latter part of January 1902, the balloon house of the Prince of Monaco was already practically completed from suggestions I had given.
The new aerodrome rose on the Boulevard de la Condamine, just across the electric tramcar tracks from the sea wall. It was an immense empty shell of wood and canvas over a stout iron skeleton 55 metres (180 feet) long, 10 metres (33 feet) wide, and 15 metres (50 feet) high. It had to be solidly constructed, not to risk the fate of the all-wood aerodrome of the French Maritime Ballooning Station at Toulon, twice wrecked, and once all but carried away, like a veritable wooden balloon, by tempests.
In spite of the aerodrome's risky form and curious construction its sensational features were its doors. Tourists told each other (quite correctly) that doors so great as these had never been before in ancient times or modern. They had been made to slide open and shut, above on wheels hanging from an iron construction that extended from the façade on each side, and below on wheels that rolled over a rail. Each door was 15 metres (50 feet) high by 5 metres (16-1/2 feet) wide, and each weighed 4400 kilogrammes (9680 lbs.). Yet their equilibrium was so well calculated that on the day of the inauguration of the aerodrome these giant doors were rolled apart by two little boys of eight and ten years respectively, the young Princes Ruspoli, grandsons of the Duc de Dino, my host at Monte Carlo.
While the new situation attracted me by its promise of convenient and protected winter practice the prospect of doing some oversea navigation with my air-ship was even more alluring. Even to the spherical balloonist the oversea problem has great temptations, concerning which an expert of the French Navy has said:
"The balloon can render the navy immense services, _on condition that its direction can be assured_.
"Floating over the sea, it can be at once scout and offensive auxiliary of so delicate a character that the general service of the navy has not yet allowed itself to pronounce on the matter. We can no longer conceal it from ourselves, however, that the hour approaches when balloons, now become military engines, will acquire, from the point of view of battle results, a great and, perhaps, decisive influence in war."