AVIATION NOTES

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11662, 29 October 1923, Page 4

AVIATION NOTES

TRAMP AIRSHIPS COMING VALUE FOR EM PIKE DEVELOPMENT GREAT COMMERCIAL VALUE. The aeronautical engineering supplement to the “Aeroplane” for September last contains a very interesting, informative, and suggestive article on the development of airship transport. '‘Tramp 4 ' airships, holds the writer of the article in Question, are a great commercial possibility of the not far distant future, and are destined to play a most important part in developing and binding Kill more closely together our far-iluug Empire- Indeed, as one reads, one has* visions like that of Tennyson, in “Lockesloy Hall,” when he—- " Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails. Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping clown with costly bales.” One sees the airship and the aeroplane realising at long last the noble aspiration voiced by Tennyson in his ode, written for the opening of the first International Exhibition. One sees the airship and the aeroplane overleaping, not only the barriers of time and space, but all * other barriers between the nations of tlie earth. One sees them — "From growing, commerce loose her latest

chain, And let the fair, white-winged peacemaker fiy To happier havens under all the sky, And mix the seasons and the golden

hours, Till each man finds his own in all men s good, And all men work in noble brotherhood; Breaking their mailed fleets and armed

towers, And ruling by obeying Nature’s powers, And gathering all the fruits of earthy And crowned with all her flowers.” "Dipping into the future, far as human eye can see,” getting "a vision of the world, and all the wonder that will be.*' ono looks to see the world-wide goodwil’. resulting from such team work between each ond every nation and nation for the good of each and all, knit race to race—- " Till the war drum throbs no longer, and the battle flags are furl'd In the Parliament of man, the federation of the world.” THE USE OF AIRSHIPS. It is pretty generally known, says the writer in the "Aeroplane,” that Hie characteristics of the airship differ considerably from those of the aeroplane; and there seem 6to be a fairly widespread recognition of the fact that the airship is not so much a competitor with as a complement of the aeroplane. It is generally believed that the airship ! has as its main field of utility the rapid I transport of passengers and mails over vast distances, and that th© airship of the future will replace the great passenj gev and mail steamers on tho main ocean I highways. This, as a matter of fact, is ! probably the most obvious and spectacular field for the airship; but it is far I fiom being the only field, and it will ! piobably be found that ultimately only a relatively small proportion of the world’s airship tonnage will be employed on express services. Very curiously —despite the fact that all the useful British airship work during the war was performed by comparatively small airships—all the talk about the desirability of re-establishing the airship industry in the Old Country, ha 3. he points out, been concerned with tho revival of largo rigid ships for long- i distance passenger and mail services;! whereas the smaller and slower types of airships hav© distinct commercial possibilities. Also, the technical problems of construction and operation of small ships present appreciably fewer difficulties than those which attach to "giant” rigids. POWER AND LOAD. Both aeroplanes and airships are subject to a law which applies also to every other transport vehicle. That law is, briefly, that the faster you travel the less the load you can carry for the expenditure of a given amount of power. That is, in effect, to say that cheap transport is slow transport. In the case of practically every type of vehicle there is a lower limit to the speed which can commercially bo used. In the case of an aeroplane the lower limit is fixed by the fact that if you want to fly slowly you must use a relatively larger wing surface; and after a certain point it is found that, although the total weight per horse-power can be increased, so much of this total weight is machine that the useful load per horse-power begins to fall. In the case of the airship no limit of this type is encountered. A given airship hull will maintain a definite weight in the air, whether it be stationary or flying at 100 miles per hour. But at 100 miles per hour the weight of engines and a reasonable amount of fuel absorbs nearly all the lifting capacity of quite a large airship, and at. this speed the useful load per horse-power of the airship is about the same as that of the aero* plane of equal performance. WHERE THE AIRSHIP SCORES.

But the airship’s speed can bo reduced indefinitely with continually increasing capacity for load-carrying, owing to the saving in engine and fuel weight. At speeds in the neighbourhood of 70 miles per hour the airship can carry very much larger useful loads per horse-power than the aeroplane. In cases where the climatic conditions are favourable, or for traffic which can afford to wait for a day or two till a heavy wind has blown itself out, much lower speeds than this could in fact be used; and at 40 miles per hour really heavy merchandise can be carried by the airship at relatively low cost. "The British Isles at the present moment are seriously over-populated. Tho British Empire as a wholo is underpopulated. The solution of this difficulty looks obvious; but it is less obvious than it appears. For the British Isles contain a highlv developed industrial community. The British Empire is largely undeveloped commercially, and the British industrial worker is not very happy on a farm. AIR TRANSPORT AND EMPIRE DEVELOPMENT.

In very many cases tho cause which is retarding industrial and even agricultural development in the outer districts of the Empire is the lack of any reasonably cheap method of transporting to tho site of operations tho plant, tools, and materials which are necessary bci'ouj industrial activity can begin, and of distributing tho products when it has begun.

Roads, railways and canals of any magnitude arc expensive items, and it has never yet been, possible to develop them to any great extent in an area which is not yet populated. Undoubtedly expenditure on such facilities in districts as yet unpopulated would he a sound investment for any concern which could afford to wait twenty years or so for a return on its rnpitu). But such concerns arc difficult to And. Aircraft offer tho only method .vet in existence whereby reasonably rapid transport over long distances can bo provided without sinking large suras on civil engineering work.

Tho aeropLue. unfort unatoly % ri quite unsuitable for the transport; of the majority of those articles which must be transported during the early periods of’ development; but the airship, with its enapeity to carry large loads at relatively low cost over any type of country at speeds which, though slow as compared with that of the aeroplane, are high compared even to that of the average railway. can undoubtedly serve a very useful pumoso. In Canada tho airship could be mad©

a very potent aid to the development of the country’s latent resources. There is a very lino railway service running east and west of the southern strip of Canada. North of that strip there are no communications worth mentioning. The airship can provide not only means of survey and forest, patrol, in some respects more effectively than the aeroplanes at present used for the purpose, but it can provide also for tho transport of goods of commercial bulk into districts at present served only by canoes and porterage, and can thus give opportunities of development which . will ultimately justify the building of roads and railways.

Central and Northern Australia nrovide similar opportunities for airship work of a type utterly distinct v from the express mail and passenger services, which have recently been so much discussed; and it seems likely that work of this type may become in fact a much more important factor in the development of the British Empire. Work of this character calls for airships of a much smaller, simpler, eafer, and less costly type than the airships which are necessary for the Inter-Im-perial mail services. With the recent development of engines using paraffin mixed with hydrogen, of armouring of fuel tanks, etc., the commercial "tramp” type of airship should be one of the safest and most reliable forms of transport in existence; as explained above, should be relatively oheap if intelligently and efficiently used.

FIRST BRITISH CARGO AEROPLANE. The old Vickers "Vimy” Instone airliner, "City of London,” has been turned from a passenger machine into a transport of merchandise, and is now making daily flights between Lonaon and Cologne. She is the first regular cargo airliner to be put- into commission. Built by Vickers, Ltd., in March, T§2o, the "City ot London” has always had RollsRoyce "Eagle” engines on account of their well-known reliability over long distances. These enginos arc of the same type as those which flew across the Atlantic in 1919 and flew to Australia in the same year, and also achieved the conquest of tho South Atlantic last year. RDLIBILITY AND ENDURANCE.

From October Ist, 3922, the date on which the various British air lines began operating under tho present subsidy scheme, to July 316 t, 1923, the RollsRoyce engines fitted in the Handley Page aeroplanes running on the London-Paris route have achieved a remarkable record •of reliability and endurance. During that period they have flown a total of 8380 online hours, covered 278,000 miles, and carried 5077 passengers without a singlo failure, causing injury or loss of life to 7>issengers ■ These figures give an excellent indication of th© safotv of flying when reliable engines are used.

TRIAL FLIGHT OF Z.R. 1. GIANT UNITED STATES AIRSRCEP. On September lltli the giant rigid airship Z.R. 1„ whioh has been built at Lakchurst, New Jersey, U.S.A., made her first trial flight. Leaving hor at Lakehunst, the airship steered a course for New York City, nearly 300 miles away. ‘The greet airship circled over the city, escorted by a squadron of aeroplanes, and. her appearance was greeted with enthusiasm by thousands of spectators who had collected on the flat roofs of tfho New York sky-scrapers. Passing tlie statue of Liberty, the Z.R. \ dipped her flag, and then proceeded to Philadelphia, whence she returned to her shed at Lakehurst. . No attempt was madb to drive the chip at full speed, a comfortable cruising speed of about 50 miles per hour being maintained with the engines throttled down.