IN AN AIRSHIP.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 122, 23 May 1908, Page 10

IN AN AIRSHIP.

The Hon. 0. S. Rolls and Mr. Frank Butler had a trip recently, by tho invitation of Baron Henry Dautsch de la Meurthe, in his airship the Ville de Paris. Mr. Rolls gave his impressions as follows : —

I think (ho said) that Mr. Butler and myself are the first Englishmen to go up in a private airship. The impression made upon mo is remarkable-. M. Kapferer, the Baron's engineer, and a mechanician went with us. M. Kapferer was in command, and communicated his orders to the mechanician by an electric telegraph to the motor room, if . I may use such an expression. We rose immediately, and the first feeling I had was one of vibration and of a slight tremor. You see that hitherto all my experiences-«-(it was tho hundredth ascent of Mr. Rolls and Mr. Butler) — has been in tho ordinary balloon, in which there is no vibration.

We moved rapidly on towards Paris, intending to watch Mr. Farman with his aeioplane, but tho fog became very thick. We therefore turned round, passing over Sartrouville, Maisons Lahtte, and St. Germain, whero tho weather was perfectly clear. After hovering for a moment over the hotel where we lunched an hour, before, we circled over <he town and foreat of St. Germain. In tho forest we came down close to the trees to watch a hunt. * It is very curious to feel oneself being rushed through the air. In a balloon everything is perfectly still, and one moves with the wind and not against it. But in nn airship you are rushing through the air at railway speed, and the keen wind goes right to the bone and makes warm wraps a. necessity. J What perhaps struck me more than anything was tho complete control the captain had over the movements of the ship. lie could ttiuke her do exactly what ho wanted, either turn, or go up or down, slacken or increase speed as required. No ballast or gas was nccesjjiuy. We moved up or down to the desired level by merely inclining the planes. At one moment we come down to within a few inches of the ground, and then, with a touch of the machinery, we moved rapidly up to a height of 250 yards. The whole ship, balloon, and platform, seemed to form one solid block. Wo wero able to walk to and fro on the platform as though on the deck of v ship. After an hour and a half in tho air, during which our average speed was thirty-six miles an hour in the face of a strong wind, wo enme baric to the shed at Montossoii, where the Hon. Mrs. Aisheton Harbord nnd Mr. Frank Lolun, tho American aeronaut, were waiting to go up for ten minutes. ''Mrs. Harbord wab delighted with her short trip.