SPANNING A CONTINENT

Evening Star, Issue 18254, 19 April 1923, Page 12

SPANNING A CONTINENT

ACROSS AMERICA BY AIRSHIP. NEW METHODS OF TRAVEL. A line of dirigibles sweeping across the United States bringing Kan Franciaeo within fifty-ono hours of .New York is projected by a group of business men, ;who announce that they will launch a regular nightly dirigible service between New York and Chicago as soon as possible (says the ‘Now York Times’). Operation of lightcr-than-air craft on a scale not oven attempted by Germany with her Zeppelins and Scluitte Lanz airships before her disarmament is contemplated by the American Investigation Corporation. The operation of airships of the rigid typ®, carrying passengers, express, and mail, is declared practicable by members of the organisation. A survey of past performances of the dirigible of various types was begun two years ago. It disclosed that the the Ughter-than-air craft was one of the'safest and quickest means of transportation. The directors and stockholders _ of the American Investigation Corporation arc searching for every element that will ensure safety. Recalling the groat loss of life in the wrecks of the 1138, the Roma, and other giant airships of the lightev-than-a-ir type, probably caused by the explosion of hydrogen gas, they are determined to remove every possible risk, and are confident that absolute safety can lm secured. If they are not able to satisfy themselves that ‘navigation of the air by dirigible can bo made entirely safe for every one of the thousands of passengers they hope to attract, they arc ready to scrap their whole plan-. It was to ascertain whether the operation of dirigibles had proved safe from the view-point of tho passenger that an exhaustive _ study was made of the German operation of dirigibles. The twenty-hour trip from New >ork to Chicago by the fastest train do luxe may be halved by the dirigible. Starting from Now York at 6 o’clock in the afternoon, tho airship of the type proposed should arrive in Chicago early next morning. The inauguration of such an air line, to be extended Inter to St. Louis, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, contemplate® the development of vast, aviation fields in each of the cities served by the dirigibles. Municipal fields as close is possible to the. hearts of tho connected cities are advocated. These air terminals must be equipped with facilities not only for dirigibles but ’plfines of the heavier-than-air type. Smaller aircraft, arriving from near-by placcp, would land_ passengers in time to make .connections for the through trip. The are to be moored to great mooting masts. Passengers will 1 ascend from the field to the gondola he-

neath the dirigible by elevators enclosed within tho masts. When they are aboard they will find that no convenience for their comfort and enjoyment has been overlooked. An inspection of tho passengers’ quarters provided in the plans refills that they arc not unlike those of a modern steamship, but more, compact. ROOM FOR FIFTY PASSENGERS.

The plans call for two rows of state rooms adjoining each other and running lengthwise through the middle of the passenger compartment. They will furnish accommodation for fifty passengers. Each stale room will he approximately the size of a Pullman state room, equipped with lower and upper berths. The arrangement of doors will be such ns to ensure the privacy of one berth from the other. The forward part of the passenger compartment.! will include, among other things, an observation lounge. A dining saloon, with seats for thirty, is located amidships. Ample space is left for the galleys and officers and crew quarters. Surrounding the state rooms, the lounge and dining room will be ,a . spacious promenade deck, whore passengers may stroll. The deck is to he enclosed.

The airship is designed to cut in half the time of the fastest limited train, which leaves Now York at 2.45 p.m., and arrives in Chicago at 9.45 a.m. the following day. The return trip by the fastest limited begins at 12.40 p.m., giving the traveller onlv three hours in Chicago. ]?v dirigible no time will ho lost in travelling at night. A business mail will arrive in Chicago in lime to get in a full day ami return that night. The' time saved may represent the greatest, but not the only, economy. Travelling by dirigible will not be more expensive travelling by special limited trains. Every phase of" the cost of operation is being investigated. The economy of dirigible operation is apparent. In The first "place tiie lighter-th.-in-air craft does not depend upon its motors to keep aloft, as docs the airplane, consequently it does not require stores of fuel out of proportion to its cargo capacity. Dirigibles operated between New \ork and Chicago over an air lino of approximately 7CO miles may show arrivals on time as high as 100 per cent, in summer ami 90 per cent, in winter. 'Weather reports will have an important relation to airship sailings. The big craft will not he baulked by storms, but with advance information may set out to dodge the wild forces let loose iu tho skies. Detours will be made around storm areas if it is not possible to hurdle them. An airship should lie able to go around even one of the worst storms by making a detour of 3JO miles.

Such a detour would mean a delay of probably four to live hours, provided the airship maintained an average, or normal, speed of sixty-five miles an hour. In bucking head winds reserve power would be brought into play, as it is when ships at sea encounter storms.

Stormy weather between New York and Chicago, therefore, should prove no serious handicap, according to the promoters. Sle,ep aboard an airship travelling a.t night has no parallel. Those who have tried it describe it as the most wonderful of sensations. In the typo of dirigible projected the motors an wholly removed from, the passenger compartments. _ Thai should insure quietness and minimise vibration. Tho first trips will be for demonstration purposes.- The men behind it do not expect any general rush for reservations until after complete demonstration has been made. Once the safety of this method of travel has been demonstrated thoroughly there is no doubt as to the resulting demand of the American people for such service, according to the promoters. In an effort tu ascertain what volume of travel may be expected, a survey is to be made of the volume of passenger traffic handled by the railroads of the country. These reports, when tabulated, will disclose the number of travellers and the typo of passengers requiring the fastest transportation. To begin with, traffic will include largely those men and women to whom time-saving is one of the most important factors. The dirigible probably will appeal next to those who desire super-comfort. Tho advantage possessed by the United States in the development of airships of the rigid type on a large scale lies in the monopoly this country has of helium, a non-inflammable gas which is almost as light as hydrogen gas. In substituting helium for hydrogen gas the backers of the American dirigible lines believe they will eliminate the only serious danger of tho lighter-than-air flyer. The Government is producing helium which will bo available for its airships. By new processes helium will bo produced at onethird its former cost. Tho Government has shown a desire to co-operate with private organisations in tho development of the dirigible, because of tho military value of tho airships. The elimination of tho danger of explosion by the use of helium may bo made complete later by the substitution of heavy oil for gasolene as fuel. It is problematical whether a foreign-made motor or a domestic motor will bo used in tho projected airship service. The building of dirigibles in Germany from tho time it was begun by Count Zeppelin has been studied. The survey took into consideration some of the notable achievements by Zeppelin before the establishment of a commerial service by the German Airship Navigation Company. It was in 1909 that a Zeppelin made a trip to Munich and encountered a forty-mile gale, in which it landed successfully and moored for the night. About the same time another dirigible of the Zeppelin type made a thirty-oight-hour non-stop flight in an endurance test. A third successful flight from Friederichshafen to Berlin and back was made within twenty-seven hours, and on that trip it was necessary to moor the dirigible for three days in an open field in a seventy-fivo-mile gale.

J “The commercial service,” to quote from the ‘Aircraft Year Book,’ “received in the two years before the war three addi- • tional ships, the Victoria Luise, Hansa, | and t!ic Sachsen, which .altogether performed a- total of 1,500 successful trips of i a total duration of 3,200 hours, in which j 35,000 passengers were carried over a disI tance of nearly 110,000 miles, or more than ' four times around the equator, without the slightest accident to any passenger. STEADY PROGRESS MADE. “ After the war the Zeppelin Company constructed, for well-known reasons, only two more ships, the small experimental passenger airships Bodensee and Nordstern, which maintained a successful commercial service between Berlin and Switzerland, until this also was stopped by the Allied Powers. These ships had a volume of 700,000 cubic feet and 800,000 cubic feet respectively, but twice' the useful load and twice the speed of the commercial pre-war ships of the same cubic content. Their length was 395 ft and 430 ft respectively. “ Altogether the Zeppelin Corporation has constructed from 1900 to 1919 115 rigid airships, three of which are experimental, nine commercial, forty army, and sixty-three navy airships. “The first Schutte Lanz airship, the SL-1, made its initial flight on October 17, 1911. For more than two years she was in regular service, making sixty-five flights, covering 6,827 miles, and carrying 3,304 passengers. Following the BL-l twenty-one other Schutte Lanz airships were built, all for the use of the German Imperial forces during the war.” The American promoters have adopted the Schutte Lanz typo dirigible, because they believed Dr Schutte first designed tho many refinements characteristic of the most modern airship. The first dirigible will probably be approximately the same dimensions as ZR-1, now building at Lakehurst, N.J., and tho famous L-S9. But it will be pigmy compared with the larger types with which tho corporation plans to make non-stop Continental flights. Tho plans call for dirigibles of capacities varying from 2,100,000 cubic feet to 8,000,000 cubic feet ships, or about four times as big as tho British dirigible 834,, which twice crossed tho Atlantic in tho summer of 1919, when it was seen by thousands at Mitchel Field, Garden City, L.I. Those who remember tho R34’s lines will bo able to picture the type of airship to be employed in tho JS’ew York-Chicago service.

. Thoughts and patents of Uio Schutte I Lanz Company in the United States, Eng- ■ land, and Germany have been taken over Iby the company. Dr Johann Schutte, called by many the dean of airship designers, came here recently to investigate operating and other conditions in connection with the launching of this new service. Before sailing Dr Schutte said: "In this country it is possible to build as fine airships as have been turned out in, any country in the world. I have gone into this thing thoroughly, both, from the scientific and economic point of view. I have .been courteously treated and given every facility for investigating here. I visited the navy plant at Lakehurst, N.J., where thc.ZK-1 is being constructed. What 1 have seen has impressed me greatly. In point of workmanship, the American builders are up to standard, and I do not believe we could do it any better over there. Provided designs and calculations are correct, I believe the navy ship now building will bo a great success. "In a country of the enormous size of the United States rigid airships will be of the utmost importance in supplementing present known methods of transportation. Airships operating as trunk lines can maintain routes east and west across the continent, connecting up widely-scattered cities. Feeder lines can operate north and south, and in this service many airplanes can be employed. I am convinced by study of conditions that airships can bo operated at a profit in any direction.

“ I would have some doubt of this being so if hydrogen gas were employed, but with the use of helium and the maintaining of standard design in such airships, the great danger of airship travel 1 is elimnated, with its consequent monetary loss In this country the supply of helium seems to bo in sufficient quantity to make its extraction economical. It will be unnecessary to change the construction of rigid airships to permit the use of helium gas, and while helium has not the buoyancy of hydrogen, there is very small loss in lifting power, and even this is not worth considering when the removal of the fire menace is considered.

“The only thing necessary for the development of rigid aircraft in this country is capital—and, I might add, courage. With encouragement there is nothing to prevent the United States from leading the world in airship building and in the exploitation of the rigid craft for great profit and the development of many industries. I am convinced that they can be well built here, anfi that there is no uso going outside the country. “ The sphere of the airplane is for short distances and high speed, and in this field the airship is not a competitor. The latter are essentially long-distance craft, and would not bo economical on routes of less than 500 to 700 miles. In tho airship, too, it is not the quick, daring flight that counts, but rather the average sustained speed. There is no competition between the airplane and the airship. One supplements the other.” The first ship projected for the New York-CJhicago line will have a cruising

radius enabling the airship, with fifty passengers and eight tons of express and mail cargo, to make the trip and return without, refuelling. 'Jbe radius may be shortened in vessels of the dirigible type to increase the cargo capacity, or vice versa. The radius, the lifting capacity, and proportions of airships to be operated in the service when extended beyond Chicago to the Far West will bo regulated according to requirements of the traffic.