AERIAL NAVIGATION.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 282, 22 August 1908, Page 9

AERIAL NAVIGATION.

* THE DANCER TO GREAT BRITAIN. WHAT THE SUCCESS OF COUNT ' ZEPPELIN MEANS. (By R. P. Hearne, in the " Daily Mail.") The British public does not seem to realiso tho meaning of all that has been accomplished by Count Zoppelin. As a nation, wo seem to hold stubbornly to the idea that aerial navigation is but a myth. Even our aeronauts content themselves with balloon sport, while those in Franco and Germany have worked grimly for years in solving the great problem of navigating the air. Last year tho military authorities tardily, admitted that the matter had some littlo significance by launching tho antiquated and unsuccessful Nulli Secundus, which after two short trips ended its career ingloriously. Built on wrong lines, without adequate power or speed, it was foredoomed to failure. It was our first experiment in airship building, and tho designers thought to evolve forthwith a successful vessel along theoretical lines, although they had none of tho practical experience which the French and German builders acquired by weary years of practical work in the open with more or less crude vessels. The Lebaudy and Zeppelin ships have been painfully evolved from inefficient vessels, and every student of aeronautics has been familiar with their work and their struggles for many years past. The successful airship can only bo produced on these lines, and for v their construction, as for their working, wo must have men who have boldly and freely given themselves up to the work for years. Thero are no vital secrets to be guarded by_ the absurd secrecy maintained by the British authorities 'within the construction shed. They should have worked ont of doors with their first 'experimental vessel, gained oxporicnco. from many short trips, and by this time have had two or three other vessels m actual use for the proper training of 'the constructors and operators. _ We still await the launch of the vessel "which is on tho stocks, and time will show whether tho requisite lessons have been learned from the failure of tho first attempt. While we have spent a few niggardly thousands on the work, and while we have not sought or encouraged the assistance of skilled amateurs such as those who have laid tho_ foundations of tho French and German aerial navies, largo sums have been spent, by 0111' neighbours, and they have left us far behind in the race. Mere money will not bring.us level; wo want the experienced men whom years of work have made successful. A FACTOR IN NAVAL WARFARE. One factor which no doubt has checked aeronautical development with us, apart from tho apathy of our amateur aeronauts, is the fixed idea that airships are only of utility in military operations. Accordingly, the work has been entrusted to tho Balloon Corps, in addition to their ordinary tasks; or rather, the enterprising head of that department, by dint of much labour, obtained permission to spend a few thousands on the work. But for Colonel. Capper irnd his assistants; nothing at .all might have been done, and no praise can be too great for tho uphill fight they have had to make in getting tho inadequate funds and facilities at 'their disposal. (

One of these days it may be brought home to us in unpleasant fashion that the airship must be considered from tho naval aswell as from tho military standpoint,- and then, perhaps, the authorities may come to see the. necessity of attaching an aeronautical section to tho naval as well as to the military forces. In effect, we ought to havo one great aerostatical department, which . would specialise in both branches of the work, ono section being devoted to military aeronautics, tho other to tho creation and training of airships for coast defence, raid repelling, and over-sea work. Few people realise how close Germany is to us as the crow flies —that is to say, by aerial routes—nor have they calculated that the distance is now well within the range of tho Zeppelin airships. A direct run 'of 240 miles would bring a German airship from such a point as Aix-la-Chapello to Sheerness, and 300 miles may be taken as a fair av'orago distance for a German airship to travel in order to reach many important strategic points in this country, where at the present moment wo have neither special guns nor airships to meet them. The Zeppelin could make thirty miles an hour on a calm day, or forty with an assisting wind. Even with a ten-mile-an-hour offshore wind she could average twenty miles' an hour Let us for purposes of argument assume her mean speed to be only fifteen miles an hour, and we find that she could reach London or Sheerness or Dover within twenty hours. At a thirty-mile-an-hour speed her time would bo but ton hours; at twenty miles an hour she would take fifteen hours. Tho 'shortest sea route for a naval raid on similar points would be over 450 and allowing a mean speed of twenty miles an hour tho time to reach our shores would bo oyer twenty-two hours, and twenty-four hours might bo taken as a very fair average. AN AERIAL RAID. A naval raid could thus hardly be accomplished under twenty-four hours, and would be detectable for at least half of that timo. Ail aerial raid could be made in ten hours, at thirty miles an hour, in fifteen hours at twenty miles an' hour, and in twenty hours at a speed of fifteen miles an hour. The airship could leave its harbour with absolute secrecy, could cross tho intervening space at a height which would practically prevent its being observed, and quite conceivably might only be detected when it actually came over its objective. Fitted with wireless tele-,, graphy, as the Zeppelin type of vessel will be, it could flash back to headauarters invaluable information, and even without making any attack it could serve a very useful purposo. But as it hovered over the at Sheerness, Dover, or Portsmouth it could wreak terrible destruction on tho vessels, and theso would be almost powerless to reply, since naval guns have not been designed or crews trained for overhead attacks. It would oven pay an attacking enomy possessed of a few such., airships to run considerable risk in dropping . down explosives on a fleet since even if a lucky shot brought tho airship down tho loss in lives would not bo very great to tho enemy, and tho cost of the airship would ba well under £100,000. A naval raid, no mattor how successful, could not be expected to be made at such a cheSp cost, and .it would involve tho loss of many ships to the enemy. Almost certainly before one attacking airship could be shot down it should liava' crippled or destroyed many important vessels in our fleet, and possibly might cripple a' section of it. Tho attackers would' still have their fleet intact, and coiild not ba mot with tho samo resistance.