Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1919 — ERA of DIRIGIBLE JUST BEGINNING [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ERA of DIRIGIBLE JUST BEGINNING

Plans Under Wan in England Dispel ImDressionJhat Lighter Than Air Machinery Proved a Failure During 4 By LLOYD ALLEN, Special Staff Correspondent. rCopvright. !•!•. hr Wrutcrn Xew»i>H|>er I'nioft.' ■— ■— '-■BONBON Passenger ' airships bigger i than the -largest Zeppelin—are being ? constructed in one of Englund's war -I factories. Tiny will have a cruising i] range of ’2o,otM> nijles. They will be able to take passengers from Ix»pdon _■ to San Francisco with ease, the designers believe. Crossing the Atlantic ocean and landing passengers in New York. miles away, will be child’s play for theseCmliaths of the air, according to officers in the British air ministry, who are familiar with the plans of the monster. Because of the war-time censorship the general public never obtained any \ery definite information about the lighter-tiian-air machines

built for the allies. The Impression got about, that lighter than air ships were failures, because the Zeppelins failed in their raids. There is no doubt on this subject in the British air ministrv. There it is known positively tlmt the era of the dirigible is just beginning. An immense amount of anti-submarine patroling and convoy escorting was done by dirigibles during the last year of the nar. A chain of airship stations was maintained right around the coast of England, from Mullion in Cornwall around Scotland to Pembroke. A large number of hosUle suhnmrine^.jy_ere_.either put out of action or actually destroyed by bombing. Other subs were located by men and the information passed along to the destroyers that knew well enough how to handle the under-sea mhrdegers. It was in convoy escorting that airships showed their s;»o<'inl advantayes ovor nirphnios. Tile airship with its big bag. of gas to keep it up, could go very slowly, keeping an even pace with the transports below, loaded with American soldiers. It could stay nt any given height while Its lookouts searched the sea.for mines and subs. Can Cross Atlantic in Fifty Hours. During th- war one British airship made a cruise lasting 50 hours and .55 minutes, and since the armistice this record has been beaten by a trip of 61 hours. With such reliable data as this to work on the air experts figure that crossing the Atlantic is going to be a fairly easy job. since lhere are in existence today dirigibles that have a speed of more than 80 miles an hour, which wo -.id-mean something like 40 or 50 hours continuous flying to reach New York. At present the British builders are specializing .on two big ligbter-than-alr types. The first is of about the same size as the largest Zeppelin, while the second type, the one that will have a '20,009-mile c.-uising rangers four times as large as the largest Zeppelin ever built. Imagine an airship with a gas bag 1,100 feet long, longer than the Mauretania ami higher than the Woolworth building were the dirigible set on end. Inside this bag 10,000.000 cubic feet of gas will be carried, capable of lifting 200 tons of freight and passengers in addition to the weight of the operating machinery. Plans for the craft make provision for saloons, drawing' rooms, smoking rooms, and a “roof garden,” which may be reached by an elevator. The estimated speed Is 95 miles an hour. . When the German Zeppelin L. 70 was built It was predicted that she would be the largest of her kind, yet the new British Goliath of the air has quadrupled the capacity of the German As compared, to the “ten million” ship the other British type is somewhat of an infant since, she can carry but JSO tons of luggage and passengers and can travel only 9,000 odd miles •without descending for a fresh supply of gasoline and oil, v “ Best for Long distance Flights. With these possibilities ip aerial travel virtually realized, if Is conceded here that the dirigible must take first place as a long-distance passenger carrier. Heavier than air machines will be built in considerable numbers, and will come into -a very large use. but In all probability they •dll be utilized mainly for flights that aggregate into, the hundreds of miles rather than int.o the thousands. The* airplane's special advantages"will be made use of where certain routes are to be « ■

covered at unusually high speeds. That an alrplane will“soon“Beflown at more than 200 miles an hour is deemed a modest kind of prediction. Seine enthusiasts proclaim the possibility .of 9 heavier than air machine that will easily do 240 miles an hour. So for the short trip we may expect to see airplanes like the large allied bombing planes come into general use, and for long-distance travel men and women will ride in the greater comfort that can. be provided in- giant dirigibles. ~ For tourist travel the (flrigible, it Is predicted here, will always be the popular craft, principally because it can fly at a low rate of speed and permit its occupants to look at things. In an airplane, for instance, the splendor of the Bay 0f... Naples is lost, so fast must the airplane move; while in an airship that Teautiftil scene can be enjoyed at leisure. * From an airplane going at ordinary cruising speed, say eighty miles an hour, the surface of the earth looks like a dull contour map, with large objects only dimly discernible because - the airplane 1 must keep at least 1,000 feet above the earth. On the other hand a dirigible can get along very nicely at an altitude of 200 feet and drift along with engines almost or completely stopped. The airship has another distinct advantage; it does not “bank" in turning as an airplane does. Sleeping In an airship is a calm experience; mov—ing about comparatively simple. Ami an airship in flight does not produce the shrill whistles anh screeches eternally among the wires. Traveling in an airship need be no more noisy than tn a motor car and with a favorable wind blowing the airship’s engines can b$ throttled down to a few revolutions or actually stopped. Engine Stop Not Dangerous. ==-rT.;.;,.± What will probably appeal most to the landsman who travels in the air for the first time wiU be the fact that the airship can remain, in the air indefinitely and the, passengers are in no grave danger should the engines fail. The gas bag Is so ample that the machine will not -fall ■when the engine stops, whereas in the air plane an engine stop is a life and death matter.. Dirigible building here In England had a great boom during the war days—and now that the signing of a peace treaty is near at hand the construction work hap not been allowed to utterly stpp. Instead. the war are going to be made largely Into craft designed for peaces able missions. • 'JThe navy will always need a certain number of dirigibles to act as scouta. S’o.one knows bet-

ter than the British the value of airships as scout craft. It is no longer a Secret that the Germans owed their escape at Jutland to Zeppelins, While, earlier In the war, it was the scout work of Zeppelins that gave the German fleet the “all clear” signal for the boinbardmentof Scarborough, an act of singular cruelty the Huns were able to accomplish without injury. Zeppelins also acted in a similar capacity in the torpedoing of the H. M. S. Falmouth* and Nottingham. When war broke out in 1914 the British had only seven airships in commission. One hundred were at work off and on by October 31 of 1918, while in the various factories many more were in course of construction. Would Destroy War Menace.

Back of all the Interest in peace time flying is the lurking fear that the Germans will endeavor to keep abreast of the remainder of the great powers In the matter of building aerial passenger pnd freight carrlem. presumably for purely commercial purposes. It is pointed out in certain sections at the British press that the Germans might take advantage of their commercial craft at some future date and again break faith with the world. Mobilization of a hostile air fleet could be accomplished within a few hours, and with the terrible gas and high explosive bombs developed during the war an opponent

nation could, with the element of surprise acting in fa,vor of..the invader, be put out of action, or seriously crippled in a very brief space of time. Suggestion has been seriously made that one of the conditions of the peace should he the appointment of an International commission vested with power to Inspect regularly 7 all German factories “so that the output of anything lethal could be strictly regulated.” Whatever regulation of the air comes from the peace conference, and it can be predicted with safety that sothe very serious consideration of the air will be a feature of the historic meeting, it is very clearly understood on this side of the water that supremacy of the air will be a deciding factor in any future war. ■*» - - - - '—■■