In the afternoon of November 13, 1899, Santos-Dumont started on his
first flight in No. 3. The wind was blowing hard, and for a time the
great bulk of the balloon made little headway against it; 600 feet in
air it hung poised almost motionless, the winglike propeller whirling
rapidly. Then slowly the great balloon began nosing its way into the
wind, and the plucky little man, all alone, beyond the reach of any
human voice, could not tell his joy, although the feeling of triumph was
strong within him. Far below him, looking like two-legged hats, so
foreshortened they were from the aeronaut's point of view, were the
people of Paris, while in front loomed the tall steel spire of the
Eiffel Tower. To sail round that tower even as the birds float about had
been the dream of the young aeronaut since his first ascension. The
motor was running smoothly, the balloon skin was taut, and everything
was working well; pulling the rudder slightly, Santos-Dumont headed
directly for the great steel shaft.

The people who were on the Eiffel Tower that breezy afternoon saw a
sight that never a man saw before. Out of the haze a yellow shape loomed
larger each minute until its outlines could be distinctly seen. It was a
big cigar-shaped balloon, and under it, swung by what seemed gossamer
threads, was a basket in which was a man. The air-ship was going against
the wind, and the man in the basket evidently had full control, for the
amazed people on the tower saw the air-ship turn right and left as her
navigator pulled the rudder-cords, and she rose and fell as her master
regulated his shifting ballast. For twenty minutes Santos-Dumont
maneuvered around the tower as a sailboat tacks around a buoy. While the
people on that tall spire were still watching, the aeronaut turned his
ship around and sailed off for the Longchamps race-course, the green
oval of which could be just distinguished in the distance.