Word: ballast
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Vauxhall, London. After getting altitude he opened a hydrogen valve, to hover in the skies with his lady. Then occurred the same mishap as befell Commander Settle and his stratosphere balloon over Chicago last fortnight. The valve refused to close again, down came the balloon. Aeronaut Harris dumped all ballast, threw overboard his own clothing and even his fiancee's. Still the balloon plunged downward. Grimly Harris kissed his companion goodbye, then jumped to his death, lightening the basket enough to save her life...
...raincoats and rubbers. A quick look at the garden showed that it was all right. Closer inspection of the baseball diamond, where they played with worn-out canvas gloves and three damaged bats, was equally reassuring. Then the boys saw something else. A washout had completely carried away the ballast from under a section of track on the nearby Erie R. R. right-of-way! Aware that an 8:10 commuting train was soon due, the boys pulled off their raincoats, ran down the track waving them wildly. The engineer said that if the boys had not been spry they...
...hour before midnight the Akron was being buffeted severely by a thunderstorm. Bos'n's Mate Deal went about his business of taking ballast readings, carrying out ominous orders to shift ballast and fuel forward. At his next bit of testimony the committeemen hitched forward in their chairs...
Again the storm dashed the great ship downward, and this time clawed away a section of her belly fabric and part of her rudder. Again ballast was dumped; but the ship did not rise. Down, down she went-CRASH-upon the surface of the writhing sea. For a brief moment the 110-ton hulk floated while its buoyant helium hissed away into the gale. Then the pounding waves wrenched it to bits. Here and there, by the occasional brilliance of the lightning flashes, a witness could have discerned men of the Akron flailing about in the water...
...there was a witness. On the bridge of the German tanker Phœbus, butting the storm under ballast, stood Capt. Dalldorf, taking a turn himself on the second mate's midnight watch. Gazing upward at the ugly sky, he saw, to his astonishment, the flashing red & green lights of an airship...