ATLANTIC AIRSHIP

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11652, 17 October 1923, Page 8

ATLANTIC AIRSHIP

NEW YORK TO HAMBURG KEEL OF LUXURIOUS FLYING VESSEL LAID. SMOKE ROOMS AND GARDEN. The keel has now been laid of the first airship for use on the New YorkHamburg service. Designed to give a speed of 100 miles an hour with 300 passengers aboard, the vessel will be the first of its kind built. The name “ship” is well-deserved, for it has been planned with a hull which wall float on water with safety. This is a further step in a scheme, which, in conjunction with Commander Burney’s project, will result in an air route three-quarters of the way round the globe. Borner, the famous Dutch aeronautical engineer, is responsible for the design, and the vessel is to be called! the Arno-Borner airship. Allowing for adverse winds, the trans-Atlantic journey ia expected to take about 45 hours. Fittings will be luxurious, but the Syndicate behind the venture intend competing, even in this respect, with steamship companies. There will even be an enclosed roof garden. The ship now building is to he 950 ft long, 165 ft wide at its broadest point, and I4oft high. The design is simple. There is ample space for state rooms, dining rooms, and such other accommodation as is provided in ocean-going liners. In addition danger from fire or explosion is eliminated, and for the first time on an airship the provision of smoko rooms will be possible.

The fire danger is avoided by the use of what is known as the “three chamber” system, which, although it involves an additional cost in construction, shows a great saving in re-gass-ing, and will also mean very greatly reduced insurance premiums—one of the biggest items in the balance-sheet of all air transport concerns. Completely enclosing the hydrogen envelope will be another envelope filled with nitrogen. If the envelope should catoh fire the flames would be extinguished by the escaping nitrogen (in which most substances cannot burn). Power will be provided by 12 motors, each developing 260 h.p. Each engine will drive a separate propellor, but the Borrier system, makes it possible for the air screws to he adjusted, together of in groups. At the outset it is intended to make two tripe each week between New York and Hamburg. The ability of the craft to float into 1 harbour does away with the need for hangars or mooring masts. Plans of the airship harbour which is to be constructed at Hamburg show it to he like a huge railway terminus with a dome built in a single span over the water. Leading up to this are two short sea walls, between which the craft will float up to a kind of pier or stage to land, or take on board passengers or freight. All food served on hoard will be cooked in an electrically-equipped kitchen. Sleeping accommodation will be of the most luxurious kind, and there will be neither the noise nor the sudden movement that is experienced in an aeroplane. Both American and European capitalists are understood to be interested in the venture.