BUILDING AIRSHIPS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20228, 12 April 1929, Page 8

BUILDING AIRSHIPS.

COMFORT OF. TRAVELLERS; NAVIGATION IN | MAKING USE OF WINDS. | BY LIEUT,-COMMANDER W. H. WATT, R.N.B. Formerly Squadron Commander, l&yal Naval Air Servico, Commading Airship • R26. No. 111, There is one point in particular -which I wish to bring to the notice of those who may in time contemplate travelling by airship, and that is the fact that they need have no fear of air-sickness. There is no rolling whatever in a rigid ship, and the only movement of any kind is a - slow pitch, which never gives the feeling of the ship suddenly going from under your feet that is experienced ir. a steamer on a rough sea. The suspension of the engine cars from the hull of the airship does away with vibration, and there is very little noise. Also, owing to the size of an airship, one does not experience in flight that uncomfortable sense of height noticeable in smaller aircraft. Weather conditions play a big part in connection with airship operation, but the airship is not handicapped by weather to the extent that people are inclined to believe. For instance, in order to demonstrate the effect of a gale on an airship, let us imagine a toy balloon filled with gas and attached to a piece of string. If you hold on to this string and take the balloon out into the wind, the balloon is immediately blown so as to bring the string into a horizontal position. Let go the string and then see -what happens—the balloon blows away with -the wind, the string gradually takes up a vertical position, and soon the balloon is moving along at the same rate as the wind. In other words, the balloon has become detached from this earth, and, although it is moving rapidly over the land or sea, still it is in a dead calm in the air. Assume that you have an engine attached to a balloon and yon now start this up. The only horizontal force now acting upon the balloon is that caused by the speed at which it is being .propelled through the air. Of course, in a wind the airship will, apart from the speed caused by its propelling power, drift in a direction snd at a speed equal to the direction ari& speed of the wind; This has to be counteracted and is a matter for the navigator., The wind is to an airship as the current of the ocean is to a sea-going vessel. By means of careful meteorological observations the airship navigator makes use of the storms, and it pays him,to go hundreds, if not a thousand miles or so ont of his course, so long as he can work in with suitable winds. It is, therefore, for the navigator, not just a mattffl- of making a direct course to the nearest point across an ocean, bat of working round the storms to advantage, making np his loss in distance by considerably increasing his speed over the sea or ground by the assistance of a favourable set and drift. The airship alter flight will moor to a mooring tower, which is a structure of over 200 ft. in height, so built that the top part of the mast moves round as the ship changes direction in the wind. The ship can approach the tower in all weathers and with the assistance of balf-a-dozen men can be brought safely to rest. Passengers alight through the bows of the ship on to a reception platform, from which they are taken to the ground by means of an elevator.