NEW GIANT AIRSHIPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14133, 7 August 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

NEW GIANT AIRSHIPS.

GERMAN VESSELS WITH 500-H.R ENGINES.

Details are now published ■ of, two new German airships. One, which will shortly be begun at the well-known Lane machine works at Mannheim, is a wooden vessel designed by Professor Schutte 3 of Danzig. It will be considerably more powerful than the Zeppelins, will have a gas capacity. of 19,000 cubic metres, and will be driven by motors of between 500-h.p. and 600-h;p. The inventor expects to develop a speed of from thirty-five to .forty-five miles an hour.

■This vessel is 1 built on the Zeppelin "rigid" system, but the . use of wood instead of aluminium will render possible the employment of wireless telegraphy, which is impracticable in the Zeppelins. - The second new vessel is approaching completion at-the works of the SiemensSchuckert Company, near Berlin. It '.is equipped with four motors of 125-h.p. eacii —Zeppelin 11. ha 6 engines of 220-li.p.— which the builders think will give it a vastly greater; radius of action than that of any airship yet constructed. The.vessel, which is of the "non-rigid" type, is 420 ft long, 43ft diameter, and has a,gas capacity of 13,000 cubic metres. The navigator of the new vessel will be Captain Krogh, a famous Army aeronaut.