against the cloth, which struggled to get through its meshes. They were no longer traveling at the speed of a bullet, but as the wind pushed them away from the field toward the city, it seemed to Post “as if some great giant was hurling buildings, streets, churches, up at us with all his might.” For several moments they skimmed the rooftops of first one street, then another, with Post and Forbes clinging for dear life to the concentrating ring above their heads. The basket smashed at an angle into a chimney, bounced upward, and dropped through the tiled roof of No. 7 Wilhelmstrasse in the suburb of Friedenau. Neither man dared move in case their descent had been only temporarily checked. Warily they got to their knees and peered over the basket’s rim. They appeared to be stuck fast in a hole in the roof with the cloth draped over the chimney. Forbes clambered out onto the flat roof, unslung his camera, and started to take some photographs: of the balloon, of the house, of Berlin. “The whole world,” he had decided, “looked beautiful.”
It was the last time Augustus Post had worked with Forbes, a balloonist Post had come to realize was dangerously cavalier. One of the sandbags cut from their basket had landed on a baby carriage, and only the infant’s nurse’s quick grab of the child in it moments before the impact had prevented a ghastly accident. Moreover, why had the balloon dropped in the first place? When the pair arrived home a fortnight after their miraculous escape, Post refused to comment on the incident but his partner had plenty to say to the press. “It is inexplicable to me why the balloon should burst,” Forbes told reporters on the quayside. “None of the aeronautical experts to whom we referred the matter can find any reason for it.” Then he embellished the story with an untrue account of their crashing through a roof and finding themselves in a woman’s boudoir. “The lady,” he said with a chortle, “was unfortunately out.”
Unbeknownst to Forbes, Gaston Hervieu, a respected French balloonist, had widely been quoted in the American press attributing the calamity to “the length of the appendix, which increased the pressure at the top of the balloon and caused it to burst. I consider such experiments dangerous before proper experience has been acquired.” In other words, Forbes had recklessly endangered his life and Post’s with his foolish tampering.
Post’s enthusiasm for aeronautics hadn’t dimmed with his near-death experience, but he vowed to choose his partners with more circumspection. In one of the many articles he wrote for aviation publications, Post declared, “The successful make-up of a team in a long-distance balloon-race depends on many qualifications, mental almost more than physical. For many hours perhaps, two men, cut loose from the earth, sharing a profound solitude, must have one mind and one motive, and must act instinctively with a precision that admits of no hesitation and no discussion . . . Your companion must be one with whom you are willing to share a great memory—and that is in itself something of a test of one’s opinion.”
By the summer of 1910 Post was as much an aviator as he was a balloonist. Earlier in the year he had become the thirteenth American to solo in an airplane, and he had not long acquired his flying license when Alan Hawley appeared at the door of his Manhattan apartment.
Hawley had a job persuading Post to join him as his copilot in the balloon America II . Even though they had flown together—and finished fourth—in the 1907 International Balloon Cup race, Post now had other ambitions. He was about to journey to Boston to compete in the Boston Air Show, and was of half a mind to enter the Chicago to New York airplane race, for which the prize was $25,000. *
Hawley lacked Post’s flamboyance. Where one had an exotic goatee, the other had a modest mustache. Post was a poet and an actor, a man who went running each day to
It was the last time Augustus Post had worked with Forbes, a balloonist Post had come to realize was dangerously cavalier. One of the sandbags cut from their basket had landed on a baby carriage, and only the infant’s nurse’s quick grab of the child in it moments before the impact had prevented a ghastly accident. Moreover, why had the balloon dropped in the first place? When the pair arrived home a fortnight after their miraculous escape, Post refused to comment on the incident but his partner had plenty to say to the press. “It is inexplicable to me why the balloon should burst,” Forbes told reporters on the quayside. “None of the aeronautical experts to whom we referred the matter can find any reason for it.” Then he embellished the story with an untrue account of their crashing through a roof and finding themselves in a woman’s boudoir. “The lady,” he said with a chortle, “was unfortunately out.”
Unbeknownst to Forbes, Gaston Hervieu, a respected French balloonist, had widely been quoted in the American press attributing the calamity to “the length of the appendix, which increased the pressure at the top of the balloon and caused it to burst. I consider such experiments dangerous before proper experience has been acquired.” In other words, Forbes had recklessly endangered his life and Post’s with his foolish tampering.
Post’s enthusiasm for aeronautics hadn’t dimmed with his near-death experience, but he vowed to choose his partners with more circumspection. In one of the many articles he wrote for aviation publications, Post declared, “The successful make-up of a team in a long-distance balloon-race depends on many qualifications, mental almost more than physical. For many hours perhaps, two men, cut loose from the earth, sharing a profound solitude, must have one mind and one motive, and must act instinctively with a precision that admits of no hesitation and no discussion . . . Your companion must be one with whom you are willing to share a great memory—and that is in itself something of a test of one’s opinion.”
By the summer of 1910 Post was as much an aviator as he was a balloonist. Earlier in the year he had become the thirteenth American to solo in an airplane, and he had not long acquired his flying license when Alan Hawley appeared at the door of his Manhattan apartment.
Hawley had a job persuading Post to join him as his copilot in the balloon America II . Even though they had flown together—and finished fourth—in the 1907 International Balloon Cup race, Post now had other ambitions. He was about to journey to Boston to compete in the Boston Air Show, and was of half a mind to enter the Chicago to New York airplane race, for which the prize was $25,000. *
Hawley lacked Post’s flamboyance. Where one had an exotic goatee, the other had a modest mustache. Post was a poet and an actor, a man who went running each day to
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