LARGEST AIRSHIP

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22632, 25 July 1935, Page 16

LARGEST AIRSHIP

The largest airship ev'er made, LZI29, is nearly ready for launching. I visited her at the historic home of airships, Friedriclishafen, where 35 years ago the first Zeppelin was launched from a floatins shed here on Lake Constance, writes Major C. C. Turner in the Daily Telegraph. » The new ship will probably be launched end s of July. There are trained personnel to spare for her. Dr Hugo Eckener, chief of the Zeppelin Company, is lying very ill at his home just outside this town. It is hoped that he may recover in time to be present at the launching of the airship. • Dr Durr, Dr Eckener's chief designer, superintended the building of the ship. She is 810 ft in length and 134 ft in diameter amidships. Her enormous construction shed alongside the one. used by earlier airships is only a few feet longer than the ship itself. It is 162 ft high and 208 ft wide. The now completed skeleton seems to fook larger than the shed which contains it. The skeleton is now being covered with /abric. It is one of the sights of Germany. In one day alone about 6000 people., each of them paying 6d, passed the gates. Large numbers of people visit here every day. It was confirmed that Dr Eckener will lay down three new airships, one forthe North Atlantic under American auspices, one for the South Atlantic (a German enterprise), and one for India and Batavis. with Dutch,co-operation. Friedriclishafen will in future be only concerned with construction. An airship operating base is being built at Frankfort, which has the advantage of being nearer to main traffic routes, and. at a lower level, does not impose the altitude handicap of Friedriclishafen. This has the effect of reducing by three tons the load with which the "airship can start a vovage. Dr Eckener has arranged with the Spanish Government for the construction of a mooring mast and gas plant in Seville. The new operatintr company, in which the German Government is inter-'-t<-ii. i= expected to start with-a capital investment of about ■ £835.000.