THE FALLEN ZEPPELIN.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume VI, Issue 272, 2 November 1916, Page 2

THE FALLEN ZEPPELIN.

VALUE TO AIR SERVICE. ALL SECRETS REVEALED. London, Oct. 25. A detailed description of the superZeppelin L 33, brought down on the Essex coast on September 24, states: The length is 680 ft., and the weight estimated at 50 tons. The cubic capacity is 2,000,000 feet. There are 24 inner balloonets, four gondo.as, two on each side amidships; six engines, aggregating 1140 h.p.; six propellers. The petrol capacity is 2000 gallons. The fjpeed is I presumed to be 60 miles an hour in a ! still atmosphere. She was armed with nine quick-firers and apparatus for 60 bombs., The crew was 22. Mr. H. Vv. Wilson, writing in the “Daily Mail,” says: “The British air service now knows all super-Zeppelin secrets, including the manner in which to bring them down. Fire destroyed : the outer easing and the balloonets of ! L 33, but all the elaborate contrivances j of the murder gear, the operating eni gines, and the tackle for manoeuvring i the ship remain. The monster's skele- • ton is a strange spidery affair, a deli- ! cate trellis work of silvery metal. The i gilders are sumost inconceivably light; i what looks like a prodigiously bulky I portion can be lifted with one hand. i The whole structure seems like a device ; from another world and age. _ It is i aVnost_as long and rather larger in bulk • than tlie Lusitania. Ths navigation i was carried out from forward, in a stout aluminium 30-root gondo.a con- ; taining three compartments, in which j were the captain’s wireless and the : engine-room. Also there were two ! machine guns. The gondolas amidships ! were smaller; each contained a 240 h.p. s Taibach-Morcedes engine, and dynamo ! and machine-gun. In the large gondola ' astern there were three similar engines and dynamos and two machine guns. | These “gondolas were linked up by a i narrow gangway running the whole ■ length of the kee’, in which were bomb ■ compartments; also the lavatory. The i bombs were released from the captain’s I compartment. They hung on hooks over sliding shutters. The vessel was well equipped against aerial attack. There were two gun platforms forward near the nose and one astern, each mounting a half-inch quick-firer. No searchlights were found, but the crew may have dropped them at sea. There was ; apparatus aboard apparently for producing smoke clouds in which to hide. A petrol tank marked 14/7/’l6 indicates that the vessel was completed on or after that date.”