Guide-rope
A rope hanging from a balloon, trailing on the ground, the weight of which helps to regulate a balloon's altitude. The execution of which is credited to Charles Green.
Mac Sweeny, 1844, Essay on Aerial Navigation, pp. 18–19:
This is a rope suspended from a balloon to trial on the ground. It was proposed in 1786 by Baldwin, for keeping a balloon at certain level, and was neglected until revived by Tylorier, and by Green. Baldwin proposed that corks should be attached. He says in his Aeropaidia, p. 228, that when the lower part of the rope would touch water, the balloon would levitate in proportion to the quantity of rope on the surface; that the aeronaut would move less swiftly, but that he could lower himself by pulling up part of the rope into the car. [...]
Mr. Green saw the advantage of a guide rope for passing over an undulating country, and for pointing out the course.
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To [Green] is due the invention of the guide rope, which he used in many of his voyages with success.It merely consisted of a rope not less than 1000 feet in length, which was attached to the ring of the balloon (from which the car is suspended), and hung down so that the end of it was allowed to trail along the surface of the ground, the object being to prevent the continual waste of gas and ballast that takes place in an ordinary balloon journey, as such an expenditure is otherwise always going on, owing to the necessity of keeping the balloon from getting either too high or too low. If a balloon provided with a guide rope sinks to low that a good deal of the rope rests on the earth, it is relieved of so much weight and rises again; if, on the contrary, it rises so high that but a little is supported by the earth, a greater weight is borne by the balloon, and equilibrium is thus produced. Mr. Green frequently used the guide rope, and found that its action was satisfactory, and that it did not, as might be supposed, become entangled in trees.[1]
De Fonvielle, 1885, Les ballons à voile de M. Andrée gives detailed results of Salomon August Andrée's experiment in 1894 to discover the navigational effect of guide-rope placement in relation to wind.
| Enclosing categories | Navigation |
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| Keywords | brakes, Mooring, Ballast, Deviator |
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