ATLANTIC AIR LINER

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 49, Issue 50, 10 December 1928, Page 7

ATLANTIC AIR LINER

BUILDING THE R.IOO. Two airships twice as largo as any of the kind yet built are being completed at the works of the Airship Guarantee Company, Howden, Yorkshire (writes the London correspondent of the Melbourne "Argus."). With a gas capacity of 5,000,000 cubic feet, and engines of 3250 horse-power, these monster vessels are air-liners. The cabin space alone gives accommodation for 100 persons, and the dining-room will seat 50 persons. TheJLS £as-bags have not been installed. It is hoped that R.IOO, the more advanced of the aircraft, will be ready for her trial trip at the end of September. Already the comfort and even luxury of the living-rooms is plain. The framework of R.IOO is 709 ft long, and she is 133 ft in diameter; so there is ample room for the three floors into which the living-rooms are divided. The bottom floor will serve for the crew of 40. The passenger-rooms are on the second and third floors. The dining-room, which will also bo available for dancing and concerts, is the chief feature of the second floor. From it a substantial double stairway leads to tho third floor, where there is a spacious gallery overlooking the dining-room below. Here, too, are the rest of the cabins. Both the dining-room floor and the gallery floor are provided with verandah promenades 4ft wide. These are not open to the air, as this would be dangerous when the airship is travelling at a high speed, but there is ample window space, giving glimoses of earth, sea, or sky. Tho cabins on either side of the dining-room and the unner gallery contain two or four berths. A bar. and a kitchen, fitted with electric heating, are other rooms on the passenger floors. .The livingrooms have been built as a unit separate from the hull. The. materials employed are plywood and duralumin. Balsa Avood is used where strength is not essential. Each wall is of cotton, treated so that it is both fireproof and lightproof. The framework of R.IOO is made of duralumin. The gas-bags are of goldbeaters' skin and fabric, and are being made at the Zeppelin factory .in Germany. Each bag will be held in place by a diaphragmn, which may be described as a spider's web of wires. These webs are so arranged thai if one gas-bag becomes deflated the alteration in pressure will be passed to other parts of the structure. Undue pressure on any part of the airship will thus be avoided. One reason for the long time taken in building R.IOO has been the necessity for devising and testing safety devices and construction methods, some of which are very ingenious.

The R.IOO is provided with three engine cars, two amidships and one nearer the stern. In each of these will be installed two Rolls-Royce 700horse power Condor engines. At any time ono of these engines can be dispensed with., so that it should never be necessary to force the engines. The petrol tanks are away from the passengers' quarters, and ultimately it is proposed that only heavy oil shall be, used. While petrol is in use the tours of R.IOO will be confined to temperature regions, the early trips being over the Atlantic. When a regular airship service between London and New York has been established it will be time to think of an Australian flight and the changes necessary to ensure safety while the airship is in tho tropics. The control car is below the three floors in the interior of the nir-linor. It protrudes below tho hull 7ft at the front and 3ft at the rear.