NEW ZEPPELIN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22259, 11 May 1934, Page 16

NEW ZEPPELIN

LARGER THAN FAMOUS GRAF COMFORT AND EFFICIENCY. . Passengers on the new Zeppelin L.Z.129, now nearing completion in a hangar not far from the shores of Lake Constance, Switzerland, will have many comforts that have never been provided hitherto in a Zeppelin. The L.Z.129 is a bigger and better sister ship of the Graf Zeppelin, the dirigible that has worked services across the South Atlantic to South America with clockwork regularity. The middle section of the new airship, consisting of eight main and 24 auxiliary ribs, with a total length of 363 feet, was finished as far back as last July. By September, 980 feet of the framework was ready and since that time work has been pushed forward until at present only the stern skeleton, with its complicated steering apparatus, remains to be set in positipn. Without the stern section, the ship measures 367 feet, but the completed length will be 744 feet —some 40 feet longer than the Graf Zeppelin. Despite the only slightly greater length, however, the L.Z.129 will have almost double the gas capacity of the Graf Zeppelin.

Its circumference will be 41.20 metres (134 feet), and the new airship will carry 200,000 cubic metres of gas, as compared with the Graf's 105,000 cubic metres. The new airship will be the biggest in the world. Meanwhile, the interior construction is progressing rapidly. The passenger cabins are nearly finished. They will contain hot and cold water pipes, which are now being laid. The waste water will not be discharged, but run into a special tank to serve as ballast. Other innovations to be installed in the airship will be an electric lift to facilitate loading and unloading cargo, and huge wheels, fixed ':o the pilot gondola and the lower fin, to assist landing operations. These wheels can be turned in any direction.

The airship will be the first German airship on which smoking will be permitted. This has been made possible owing to the use in the airship of helium gas, hitherto used only in American airships.

The Zeppelin Works have specifically barred silk or wool as "overing materia' Long experience has shown that silk or artificial silk is not sufficiently waterproof, while wool is lacking in elasticity. Engineers of the Zeppelin Works claim that in varnishing the L.Z.129 they have greatly improved on the mixture used for the Graf Zeppelin.