THE COMING AIR LINER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18897, 20 December 1924, Page 21 (Supplement)

THE COMING AIR LINER.

A FASCINATING PROSPECT.

BY AXBSHIP.

We had been invited to take passage in the Airship Guarantee Company's latest airship liner while she' carried out her final trial flight before entering the. passenger and Royal mail ten-day service between England "and New Zealand. We accepted with pleasure,. and so one fine morning found us motoring out of Bedford toward Cardington, the hamlet where lay the great building sheds andfabric shops of the air leviathans.

After a mile or two we sighted the distant tops of the sheds above the trees, and shortly afterward we swept inside the entrance gates to the well-kept grounds and drew up at the foot of the mooring mast. Above us, 300 ft. over our heads, with her nose tethered to the pivoting top of the mast, floated serenely in the air 1100 ft. of shimmering, silver beauty.

The ugly fairy of our imagination bad been superseded by the beautiful princess of reality. Her graceful lines "tapered gradually away to the point of the tail. Eight streamlined engine car units nestled under the swelling bulk of her hull. She was all graceful curves from her rounded nose to the final finish of her cars. She looked the ideal embodiment of power expressed through beauty.

We entered the electric lift at the foot of the tower and soon found ourselves on the platform near the top, around which the great nose slowly swung in the light breeze. We followed the captain of the ship along the gangway which led us down the walking way into the liner. The crew of 60 men.were at their stations and so we gladly followed our guide into the control car to witness the process of slipping from' the mast. We were told that a sir;) can slip from or return to a mast in any weather. We gazed with interest round the roomy cabin, which was built into the structure of the lower forepart of the ship at the commencement of the sweep of the nose. Big windows gave us a practically uninterrupted view in all directions. It looked like an aerified version of the bridge of an ocean liner. Ocean charts, navigational instruments, meteorological charts of air currents, maps of countries, air speed and ship's trim indicators, altimeters, gas valve and water, ballast controls, elevator and rudder wheels at which were the coxswains, engine telegraphs, telephones—all in turn caught the eye and spoke for themselves; each laid emphasis on "Romance." Already we seemed to picture to ourselves the' 1 tremendevs panorama of countries, states, capitals, ■continents and ".vast oceans as the ship passed above the world. It was a stupendous thought Mankind had achieved the impossible. Imagination had been transformed - into reality. Abaft the control car was the wirele.s telegraphy cabinet. Wireless had become the eyes, nay, almost the very brain, of the airship. By directional wireless telegraphy her captain can at any time ax the exact position of his ship" in space. No longer need Ji-> fear low clouds'arid fogs which lay .a impenetrable blanket upon the face of the earth; no longer need ho worry about cloud formations above him which obscure sun or stars and make astronomical observations impossible. By means of wireless he can keep constantly in. touch with meteorological stations and so obtain essential weather information which will enable him to rise or sink to the level of favourable air currents, or warn him of approaching storms so that he can go round or over them. Storm areas are limited. Often a deviation oi 50 miles will enable one to avoid the fringes of. a disturbance. And 50 miles is a mere 'flea-bite to an airship! She cau polish that off in half an hour! Off on a Trial Trip. The tinkle of the engine telegraphs caught our . attention. The engines had been started up, though the propellers had been left ', declutched. A signal to the watchman on the tower caused him to press an electric button. The large jaws which held the nose fitting t-i the mast opened, and we were free. Again the telegraphs tinkled. The propellers were clutched in and whirled round to a rapidly attained satisfying roar, the ;-',reat ship gather-id way till the air speed indicator showed 80 m.p.h., objects on the ground fell away and were dwarfed into toys, and we were off on our trial trip. We followed our guide on a short tour of inspection. He led us down into the heart of the ship along a long corridor through the sides of which we got glimpses of gre;>'., gasbags, intricately braced duralumin girders, a maze of bracing wires, big cylindrical fuel tanks holding half a tor., water ballast tanks, etc > Eventually wo crme to the passengers' quarters. Once again we received the impression that we were in an ocean liner. The neat, comfortable cabins giving accommodation for 120 passengers, spacious lounge, smoking room, bathing arrangements, kitchens— spoke of comfort, though, of course, the fittings were made of special material which combined maximum strength with lightness. Indeed, a big airship is a very fine engineering problem. The designers need an exact knowledge of the stresses and strains their structure may be required to withstand. They must be able to design in material which provides utmost strength with extreme lightness. If they err in their knowledge a too small factor of safety will mean failure somewhere from metal fatigue, with, of course, disaster for all on board. On the other hand, if too large a. factor of safety is allowed it means the ship will be heavier and therefore will carry considerably less cargo and movable weights, and so will be uneconomical and inefficient.

Luxury in the Air. We sat down to lunch in the saloon. An able staff of chefs provide the passengers with excellent meals. We gazed out of the windows and watched the country slipping by, wo felt like travellers on a magic carpet. Neat, green checkers of jmeadows, the blue haze of miniature woods, white ribbons of roads threading ruddy squares of ploughed loam, toy houses and trees, lakes looking like sapphire jewels in settings of vivid green, the elaborate lay out of country mansion with its drives, rolling lawns, orchards, trim clipped yew hedges, old world gardens; the black tentacles of railways reaching out to the ' towns, flaming patches of red where poppies lifted their faces to the sky, bright, yellow patches of mustard, blue streaks of riversall were spread out for our gaze, wisps of cloud floated beneath us and occasionally obscured the landscape. As we sipped our verve cliquot and toyed with our ptarmigan we agreed that we had indeed solved the problem of long distance transport. The thought of a ten days' trip to New Zealand became very tempting. All good things conic to an end. With regret we saw again the familiar spire of the mooring mast. We came slowly down to it head to the wind, let go the cud of our big trail rope, which was quickly shackled on to a wire rope which led through the jaw fitting at the top of the mast. An electric winch rapidly hove us into position, the jaws closed once more on the knob on our nose and we were captive again. A few years ago, before the invention of the mooring mast, a small army of 800 men would have been required to safely land such a big ship. To-day two men suffice. As we drove back to our hotel wo shook ourselves and wondered if we had been dreaming. A glance back showed us the beautiful shape still serenely swinging to the mast, and we realised that sometimes the dreams of man can, by-his very genius, be brought to fruition in reality.