THE LOST AIRSHIP

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 48, 25 August 1921, Page 8

THE LOST AIRSHIP

ONLY FIVE SURVIVORS

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPYRIGHT.)

<AU«rRAI,IAN - NEW ZEALAND CAILB ASSOCIATION.)

(Received August 25, 2 p.m.)

LONDON, 24th August.

Out of forty-nine who were on board the airship R3B, only five were saved)— the commander (Flight-Lieutenant A. H. Wanrn), Bateman, and three Americana.

Th e R3B, or ZR2, as she was to have been named in America, made her first trial flight successfully in Pune, travelling for over six hours with 48 people on board, including those who have been named as on board in the flight which ended in her destruction. Commander L. H. Majsfield, who is among tlie killedl, was to have commanded her on the trip across the Atlantic, and this journey was originally fixed for to-day. A base for the airship has been prepared at Lakeh'urst, New Jersey;. R3B was larger than any German airship, her gas-containing capacity being about 300,000 cubic feet raore than that of the ex-German airship L7l, which 'was surrendered to Great Britain under the terms of the Peace Treaty, and that of the L 59, which flew, in November, 1917, t from Bulgaria to a point near Khartoum and back. She was the first airship of purely British design, and not merely a copy of previous German ships. She was laid down in 1919 as the pioneer of a class which was to comprise four airships, the other three of which were cancelled after the Armistice.

The main dimensions and characteristics of the vessel were as follow : Length, 695 ft; diameter, 85ft 4in; capacity, 2,700,000; total lift Under normal conditions, 83 tons; total horsepower, 2100; engines, 6 Sunbeam Cossack, of 350 horse-power each; normal crew (officers and men), 28* to 30. The disposable lift, i.e., the useful lifting power available for petrol and oil, crew, stores, armaments/ ballast, etc., as originally, designed was 50 tons—approximately twice that of the R33 and R34 —but some reduction of this figure followed from various alterations, such as bow mooring gear, to enable the airship to be moored to a mast. R3B would have carried,! when fully equipped for service, about 32 tons of petrol, , sufficient for a flight at full speed, suffim.p.h.) of 5000 miles, or at cruising speed' (60 m.p.h.) of 6500 miles, the distance from the British Islei to Japan An airship of the R3B class, adapted for transport, could carry forty passen.gers and two tons of freight in a, hon'stop flight from England to Egypt in about forty-eight hours. " As a result of the experience gained in the design and, construction of Jj3B, a new design has been produced for an improved type of airship with a gas capacity of about 4,000,000 cubic feet, which would be capable of carrying fifty passengers and 13£ tons of freight on a nonstop flight to Egypt in about forty hours.