Professor Arthur W. Barnard, Director of Physical Training for the YMCA of Nashville, built this airship, which measured 18 feet in diameter and 46 feet in length. It was filled with hydrogen and used a propeller of 8 feet diameter. Barnard pedalled his Centennial Airship in Nashville at the Tennessee Centennial Exhibition of 1897. He went a distance of some 20 miles with the help of a strong wind, but on the return the spar broke off one of the propellers and he landed twelve miles short of returning to the Exhibition grounds. During another ascension the balloon split at the height of a half mile. It descended with great rapidity, but when some distance from the ground it formed a kind of a parachute and the professor landed safely near the exposition grounds. He received a shaking up, but was not injured.