The Evening Star FRIDAY, JULY 22, 1921. Airship Services.

Evening Star, Issue 17720, 22 July 1921, Page 4

The Evening Star FRIDAY, JULY 22, 1921.

Airship Services.

something in a flying horse, there’s something in a huge balloon.” Mr Winston Churchill did not think so, apparently, when he proposed to scrap the great monsters of the Air Sendee if they were not taken over by a commercial syndicate months before this. His decision implied that there was nothing in the big balloon, at all events ■when it has developed into an airship, except vexation and vain expense. But a new Air Minister has been found since ' then, in Major Guest, who holds different views. His first act was to reprieve the airships until August 1, and the Government is so unwilling now to see them destroyed that it is prepared actually to pay a syndicate to take them over and make use of them for Imperial purposes. From the schemes that are under consideration now by the Premiers’ Conference and the tests arranged for, it is plain that the project of inter-imperial air services, to be run by a company which the British and Dominion Governments would together subsidise, with these craft for the nucleus of a fleet, is not likely to be abandoned till it is definitely shown to ’ be impracticable. Probably the company would have been formed months ago if it were not for the difficulty of raising capital for any new enterprises at the present time. The ships which Great Britain possesses to form the commenco- ■ iaent of its fleet, when it is formed, are four large airships—E33 and E 36, of British make, L 64 and L7l, built in Germany ja Ifllfl) and handed over under the peace

terms—besides two smaller ships which are said to be of no real value for longdistance traffic. L7l is the largest airship now in existence, though the Zeppelin in Germany is already designing larger tyncs. It could carry, we are told, thirty-five passengers and two tons of mails or valuable freight on a flight as far as from England to Egypt, performing the journey of 2.500 miles in a little over fifty hours. The useful load of T 136, the biggest built British airship, would require to be limited to a ton for her to make the distance in the same time; but'K-35 carries fifty passengers The intention of L7l’s builders was that she should be able to fly without a Eton to Japan from Germany, and, when the period expires for which a veto is put upon their building by the Peace Treaty, they hope to deliver new airships to Janan in that way. Tt was exnected that. as a test of her abilities, 836 would be put to fly, in a few weeks from now, on a nightly service between London and one of the nearer Continental capitals. Bnoh short services. Lord Montagu of Beaulieu was pointing ■ out recently, are better than none, but “a correct parallel would be the use of the Mauretania on a cross-Channel service. The distance is too small to bo a real test.”

Lord Montagu explains that an obstacle to the development of airship services up till now has been tbe expense of building ebeds, which were till lately thought to be absolutely necessary for airships, a shed often costing more than tbe ship itself. But the mooring mast system has now superseded the need of a shed almost entirely, except for docking purposes, to use a marine term, and mooring experiments at Fulham with R 33 have bean .so successful that it has now been established that an airship can leave and return to her moorings in practically any weather. Already America has set an example to the British Emmie by the formation of an airship company with a large capital to link up distant points, of the United States, and eventually the two sides of the Atlantic; while France, Italy and Japan have all beep allocating large sums for airship development. British experts show their faith in the big vessels, when already they are talking of a sendee which would reach Australia by the long sea distance from Capo Colony, though the path via India and Malaya offers what is practically a land route all the way. But, even if a company is formed on the lines which now seem probable, we are not likely to see airship services from Great Britain to Australia and Now Zealand in the immediate future- If tbe prospects of the Australian route are being specially studied now by the conference's committee that will not be, as one cable message has asserted, because tliis service has been taken as “ a typical case.” It is more likely to be because it has been least studied up till now. No route could be less typical than that from Great Britain to Australia, because, being the longest route, all the costs of a service over it would necessarily be increased, and the chances of a commercial return that would reward the "enterprise, even alter allowing for Government subsidies, would be the smallest. The route to India has already been comparatively well explored. It has developed bases now in Egypt and Mesopotamia. A commercial service to India almost certainly would be the first installed. To make that service an effective one, it has been said, six dirigibles would be needed, and only four are available at the present time. Mr Hughes and Mr Massey, therefore, may discuss the prospects of aerial liners to Australia at the Imperial Conference, but they are not likely to go Home by a regular airship service for some years yet.