ARE AIRSHIPS WORTH IT ?

Manawatu Times, Volume LV, Issue 7412, 20 December 1930, Page 8

ARE AIRSHIPS WORTH IT ?

[E disaster to RJ.OI is one of a series that has overtaken British, American, and German airships. Of the postwar accidents it resembles the tragedy of R3B and the loss of Shenandoah in the United States, says Commander Kenworthy, M.P., writing in the "NewsChronicle.’’

The lessons of the disaster only confirm what so many of us feared before: that the airship is inherently unsound and now obsolete. It filled a gap, 15 to 20 years ago, before the heavier-than-air airplane had been improved.

For military purposes it had been discarded already, for its imwieldiness and great bulk made it too vulnerable to the airplane. It was even given up by the Germans for raiding purposes in the last 18 months of the war. and the last assaults on England were made by airplanes which could- ill be spared from their legitimate fighting functions.

For naval purposes the airship must still be limited for long-distance scouting in the Atlantic and Pacific. But here again, as I shall point out presently, it is absolutely dependent on mooring masts and sheds which can only be provided in certain places and cannot be improvised. Warships can make use of any enclosed anchorage anywhere in the world; seaplanes can use any smooth piece of water; any flat piece of earth makes an airplane base. But the airship is tied down to her gigantic shed, which alone costs about a quarter of a million, with equipment, and its mast, costing £70,000 at the cheapest.

In naval operations an airship can do little that cannot be done by large flying boats or airplanes in carrier-ships.

We now come to tlie> use of the airship for commercial operations. To be run on a paying basis it would be necessary to charge very high fares, while the freight charges for all but the most urgent cargoes must be prohibitive. But it will take years to restore public confidence to such an extent that wealthy passengers will prefer the airship to the liner. As far as can be seen, therefore, it will depend on heavy subsidies, paid for Imperial reasons—and opinion is hardening that this money would be better spent in developing our airplane services.

The weakness of the airship, In addition to the necessity for huge and costly sheds, is the immense number of men required to get her in and out of the shed. A team of at least 200 men is needed, and they must be skilled and disciplined.

We tried to get the Air Ministry to enrol unemployed ex-Service men for this purpose when RIOO was being built at Howden. But the work is so exacting that it was felt that only regular soldiers could be employed.

The next drawback is the airship’s liability to fire and explosion, which is unfortunately what seems to have happened in the case of RlOl. The only non-inflammable gas known is helium, which is costly and limited in supply. Most of it is found in the United States, where the only sure supplies are, and there was a proposal that we should exchange technical knowledge with the Americans for helium gas.

It has been sought to minimise the danger of fire by using engines designed to run on heavy oil fuel. But so long as there is gas there will be always danger from sparks and lightning.

The airship’s great bulk puts her at the mercy of storms. The airplane can land and can sit tight till a storm passes and blows itself out. but the airship cannot land anywhere, unless new designs can be perfected allowing her to alight on water, and then it must only be' on smooth water. The air route to India has an airship shed and mast at each end—Carding-

Big Flying Boats Safer, Cheaper And Have Greater Range, Says Cdr. Kenworthy

ton and Karachi —and nothing else but the mast near Cairo. If an airship meets really bad weather, therefore, she has to run before the storm and then find her fuel exhausted, leaving her incapable of making for the nearest mooring mast. For all these reasons, therefore, I do not consider airships are worth the money it will cost to develop a regular and extended service.

From first to last since the war we have spent some seven millions on airship development one way or the other, and this money would have established regular airplane mail services years •ago between England and the Cape of Good Hope and England and Australia,

What should be our policy now? We have RIOO left, and the Indian Government has erected an experimental shed and mast at Karachi. I should advocate experimenting still further with RIOO. She will need alterations for tropical flying, for she was designed primarily for the Atlantic cross-

ing. But though I am more doubtful now than ever of the eventual success of airships, there is still much to be learned from them, and we had better satisfy those who still believe in them that they are never likely to be a commercial proposition. There have been reports of even larger and more costly airships to be built, and money was actually voted this year for designs and planning. Not another penny should be spent on providing new airships at least until RIOO has been experimented with and until the inquiry has sat and reported.

The disaster, however, must not be allowed to discourage public belief in the future of aviation both for national defence and commercial transport. Not nearly enough attention has been paid in the past to the large flying-boat, which is specially suited for use In the

British Empire. For a tenth of the cost of RlOl you could build a large, stout, multipleengined flying-boat to carry up to 40 passengers, capable of making libps of 700 miles, of flying in rough weather and landing on the surface of the

sea even in conditions of some roughness.

Flying-boats of advanced design have been sent to Iceland and are cruising In the Baltic now. They are also used for patrol purposes in the Persian Gulf. These are flying warships. We should aim at the development of flying-boats for commercial use and for passenger carrying. It should be a national project, and we should devote our resources and energies to their development as we have to the development of the airship.