AN ATLANTIC AIR LINER

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 56, 15 September 1928, Page 20

AN ATLANTIC AIR LINER

BUILDING THE R.IOO. Two airships twice as large as any of the kind yet built are being completed at the works of the Airship Guarantee Company, Howden, Yorkshire (writes the London correspondent of the Melbourne "Argus"). With a gas capacity of 5,000,000 cubic feet, and enginos of 3250 horse-power, these monster vessels are air-liners. The cabin space alone gives accommodation for 100 persons, and t 3 dining-room will seat 50 persons. The 15 gas-bags have not been installed. . It is hoped that R.IOO, the more advanced of to aircraft, will be ready for her trial trip at the end of September. Already the comfort and even luxury of the livingrooms is plain. The framework of R.IOO is 709 ft long, and she is 133 ft in diameter; so there is ample room for the threo floors into which the- livingrooms are divided. The bottom floor will serve for-the crew, of 40.. The pas-senger-rooms are on the second and third floors. The dining-room, which will also be available for dancing and concerts, is the chief feature of the second floor. Prom it a substantial double stairway leads to the thirC floor, where there is a spacious gallery overlooking the dining-room below. Here, too, are the rest of the cabins. Both tho dining-room floor and the gallery floor are provided with verandah promenades 4ft wide. Those are not open to tho air, as this would be dangerou- when tho airship 13 travelling at a high speed, but there is ample window space, giving, glimpses of. earth, sea, or sky. The cabins on cither side of the dining-rbpm ana the upper gallery contain two or four berths.- A bar <uid'd kitchen, fitted with efectric heating, are other rooms on the passenger iloors. The livingrooms have been built as a unit separate from the hull. The materials employed are plywood and duralumin. Balsa wood is used where 'strength is not essential. ' Each wall is of cotton, treated so that if. is both fireproof and lightproof.- The framework of R.IOO is made of duralumin." Tho gas-bags arc of goldbeaters' skin and fabric, and are being made at the Zeppelin factory in Germany. .Each bug will be held in place by a diaphragm, which may be described as'a;;spider's web of wires. These webs are so arranged that it' one gas-bag becomes deflated the alteration in pressuro will be-passed to other parts of the "structure. Undue pressure..on'any.part of tho airship will thus lie avoided. ..One reason for the long time taken in building R.IOO has been, .the necessity for" devising and testing, safety devices .and construction methods,., some : of1 which . arc very in-1 genious. ■••:....■■ ':.. ■ ■ v . : : '. Tiif> R.IOO. is provided- vith three en-gine-cars, -two amidships, and 0110 nearer the stern. . In. oach of. these will be installed two Rolls-Royce 700-horso power Condor engines.. At' anytime one of these engines can be-.dispensed with, so that.it s.ho.uld never be necessary to 'force the engines.- The petrol tanks .arc away from the . passengers' quarters, and ultimately it.is proposed that only heavy oil shall, bo used. While ,petrol is in use the tours of R.IOO will ■be confined to temperature regions, the early trips being over the Atlantic.' When a regular airship service between London and New York has been established it will bo time to think of an Australian flight and the changes necessary to ensure safety while the airship is in the tropics. The control car is below the three floors in the intor.ior of the air-liver. It protrudes below the litill 7ft at tho front and 3ft at the rear.