HISTORY OF AIRSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 190, 8 May 1937, Page 11

HISTORY OF AIRSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Persistency of Germany BRITAIN DISCOURAGED BY DISASTERS The development of airships may be said to have commenced from IS9B, for in that year Alberto Sandos Dumont, in France, and Count F. von Zeppelin, in Germany, made many experiments witli their'own-built lighter-than-air machines. Great Britain, however, cannot be said to have contributed in any degree prior to or since the Great War because, it has been stated, in the face of two major calamities the British Government had lost faith in this means of transport. Dumont built about 14 airships, none of them rigid or very comfortable. On his fourth experiment he sat on a bicycle saddle but it was his fifth machine (lint brought him fame by wining 109.000 francs for flying round the Eiffel Tower and back, a distance of about seven miles, in under half an hour. Count von Zeppelin, however, concentrated upon building dirigibles, and though at first he found difficulty in raising funds ho roused German patriotism and enthusiasm and the interest of the Kaiser. So successful were his exploits that he formed a commercial company, and between 1910 and 1914 carried, in rigid airships, more than 17.000 passengers and flew more than 100,000 miles without a fatality. The Graf Zeppelin was named after him. New Use In War. The development of commercial airships ceased during the war, but a new use was found for them, the Germans raiding England from the skies in Zeppelins. By the end of the war Germany had increased her fleet of these air weapons from 30 in the beginning to well over 100. When the Zeppelin bombing attacks began, work iu Great Britain on the R-9, a rigid airship, was ordered to proceed again. It was then mainly through the Government’s policy that the non-rigid type of airship was built mainly for coast patrols and observation purposes. In 1916 Zeppelin L-33 was brought down in good condition in England, and R-33 and R-34 were modelled after her, but were not completed until after the war. Wartime years had, however, seen airship development advance amazingly in Germany, and when the Zeppelins still in use at the end of the war were handed over to the Allies, other countries advanced in their ideas accordingly. The Bodensee was Germany’s first post-war airship and she made 103 regular voyages between Friedrichshafen and Berlin, carrying 2430 passengers without mishap. In August. 1919, she was ordered to be handed over to Italy, and the Nordstern, an airship of similar type, was handed to France, but. neither of these country’s experiments to build or operate airships were at all successful. Yital Need Mastered. America and Great Britain had a little more success in their efforts, but in the light of airship flights of later years Germany alone appears to have mastered the vital need for secure structural construction. There is still, however, the danger of explosion from gases, which has not been solved. America’s control of inert helium gas has been blamed for many post-war disasters. Helium, however, has only about half the lifting-power of hydrogen, and is 20 times more expensive. A new airship policy was adopted by the British Government in 1925, and construction was commenced ou two dirigibles, R-100 and R-101. The British and Dominion Governments decided to erect mooring masts in Canada, South Africa, Egypt, India, and Australia, and to proceed with swift Imperial airship transport lines. The R-101 was the greatest of all British airships, but when she exploded over France on her maiden flight to India on the contemplated Empire service, Britain abandoned completely any further dirigible construction. This disaster had its effect in America, too, but tile builders in that country, though experimenting vigorously witli structural designs, found weaknesses which have been responsible mainly for the non-expansion of airship building there. The American Navy has, however, despite several calamities, continued with its investigations. Germany ha? also under construction at Friedrichshafen a sister-ship to the Hindenburg and this will probably be launched within a month or two on the trans-Atlantic service.