TO INDIA AND AUSTRALIA

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 32, 8 February 1922, Page 7

TO INDIA AND AUSTRALIA

NEED FOR BASES AND MASTS

BRITISH RESEARCH SHOULD GO ON.

I iVXITBb PaBSS ASSOCIATION.—COPYRIOBT.) (AUSrfiALIAN ■ NEW Z2ALAHO CABLE ASSOCIATION } LONDON, 6th February. Major G.H. Scott, of the British Air Force, in a paper read before the Air Ministry's Conference, expressed t/ne opinion that without waiting for further improvements, airships are now technically capable of being used |pr commercial and defence purposes. Given the* provision of bases and mooring masts, an airship is the most promising means of solving the vita) problem of speeding up Imperial communications. A regular service to India via Egypt could be immediately operated when bases were provided. Available meteorological data did not justify a definite opinion whether equal regularity could be maintained in a service to Australia, though the general weather conditions between India- and Australia offered no , special difficulties. The establishment of an Imperial chain of airship bases and masts would become a most vital factor in national defence, particularly in connection with' naval operations and the protection of trade routes, and possibly airships would prove to be fighting machines superior to aeroplanes, and would be valuable as carriers of aeroplanes. The cessation of airship research would be false economy, because the -progress which other countries were certain to make in the next two years would necessarily , entail a revival of British experiments at much greater cost than they could be carried out for now. The position demanded that every effort should be made to finance an Imperial chain of bases. If Australia, was unable to finance the last stage, we ought to concentrate on a link between England and India. Major-Scott advocated airships of a capacity -of 2,500,000 cubic feet, giving a gross lift of 75 tons, capable of carrying 35 passengers, besides seven tons of vmails. and of making non-stop journeys of 2000 miles at 50 miles an hour. He pointed out thai R3B was constructed in ' 1918, when military needs demanded ] high "ceiling" in order to outfly the Germans. This reduced the margin of safety.- Commercial machines were not subject to this condition, therefore they , were safer. ' i

, ■ [Mooring masts for airships have, been found to be cheap and efficient devices for the berthing of airships during short stops." The mast is a tall steel structure,, held firmly by guy ropes, and fitted with a. revolving top to which the "nose" of the airship is fastened. The body of the airship swings.in the wind, and' is subjected to comparatively little strain. The nxjst also serves as a. means of access to the airship, which has to be provided with .passage-ways to the cabins. The term as used in the cable message means the highest elevation which the airship can reach. Air becomes less dense with increase of elevation, and is consequently less buoyant. But the same is true of all gases not confined under pressure. It is customary to leave the ballonets of airships only partially filled at the ground level, so as. to leave, room for expansion as the craft rises. The effect of this is that the buoyancy and effective lift of the airship is constant up to the elevation at which the gas-bags become completely .full through the expansion of the1 gas. At any.higher elevation the gas escapes, unless the b.illonet is sufficiently strong to sustain the pressure of the gas. In either case, increase of elevation above the level at which the ballonets become full of gas is accompanied by a decrease of buoyancy, and further height can only he attained by an aeroplaning effect depending the power of the engine and the surfaces of the airship. The elevation at which buoyancy ceases to be constant is the "ceiling."] • < ~