VOYAGE BY AIRSHIP.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 38, 13 August 1910, Page 10

VOYAGE BY AIRSHIP.

« EXCURSION RATES. How long will it be before people take their holidays in the air, as well *as on the sea ? asks the Paris correspondent of the Daily Telegraph. How long must we wait to see. the airship chal- 1 lenge the yacht — or even the liner? A year ago such questions would have been mere noisy extravagance. Ton years ago they would have seemed all futility and dreams. The latest exploit of Count | Zeppelin proves that it cannot be many j years, and may not be very many i months, before a cruise in the air may be ventured by anyone who commands a modest income and a modest stock of courage. Th-e passenger airship has come into being. Count Zeppelin on 22nd June carried thirteen persons for 300 miles. Only two of these, it seems, were in the strict sense of the word passengers, but as the lifting power of his airship is about 9,0001b, she could obviousiy have carried a much larger complement', even if they were all men and women of w-eight. The capacity of the. ship is estimated at some thirty or thirty-five people, including a crew Of ten, and it shoald be noted that, with one of his earlier and smaller craft, | Count Zeppelin carried twenty-six persons, officers and soldiers. The propor- 1 tion of crew to passengers seems large to oar seafaring notions, but we must expect that to be characteristic of the fleets of the air. The latest Zeppolin ship is driven by three Daimler motors, working six propellers, and we must allow six mechanicians to this equipment. Tw» helmsmen, or pilots must always be on duty, one -mth his hand actually on the helm, the other with maps, picking up tho landmarks. There must be some spare hands for emergencies and for the difficult business- of coming back to the solid earth. When you begin, to find luxury in a new means of transit you may safely conclude that the invention is well on the-tfoadv to perfection. Elaborate luxury is. found in the new Zeppelin. Not for -the fest airship travellers the cattletruck discomfort which our grandfathers groaned under when raflway-s- first were laid. Not for these soaring sybarites tikis <3on=ei»te sandwich, and tho lake-warm flaak. Already the passenger snip has •developed a restaurant and a waiter and a bar. The saloon is paneMed in mahogany and mother of pearl, they will recline in. basket chairs, confidently comfortable wiih the' knowledge that broad feet of aluminrum prevent those chairs from "breaking through the floor" and dropping their occupants headlong down the atmosphere, liko Lucifer, son of the morning. The windows, we- read, "can be opened or closed as desired" : it is a height of luxury to which some of our railiyffjfs fcwe not jiet attained. Last Naaid greatest, a waiter attends hard by with cold food and drin-k. Stow© and I kitchen aw* lacking as yet, and probably ; ,it will be some time before aviators wela live flame on their craft. Still, much may be done with cold food if ,you know how to do it, and the person -who cannot do without his hot dishes .(has not the spirit or the stomach which -bents a navigator of the air. For all fchis the charge is modest enough. Ten ponnds, it, i s stated, will ■assure you a three hours' t-rip. Anyone who remembera the prices which were ,paid for motor hire seven or eight years ago wall hardly think this excessive M-oseover, as m three hours the airship ■mil hardly make less than sixty miles -and might make a good deal further, th& rate per milo is moderate. It is understood, moreover, that a short trip of about an hour will be given for £5 a sura which many of our properous arfef Speßd On a da^ s «rcurskm. With ptwes as -low as this, it can hardly be said that wings only grow on the rich.