TO AUCKLAND BY AIR.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 April 1925, Page 5

TO AUCKLAND BY AIR.

NINE DAYS FROM LONDON, NINETY MILES AN HOUR. PROPOSED AIRSHIP SERVIUfL London, Feb. 26. With the new type of airship wbicto ia to be built by the Airship Guarantee Company for the Air Ministry, it is calculated that the journey from Great Britain to Auckland will occupy nine days. The air vessel is to be of a capacity of 5,000,000 cubic feet. Commander C. D. Burney, M.P., and his chief designer, Mr. B. N. Wallis, are the inventors of many new developments in construction, and the new air-liuer will be something very different from what has been built in the past.

The airship is designed on the streamline principle, all excrescences being ,aa far as possible, removed. The passenger saloons arc within the body of the vessel; the control and observation compartments are within the nose. This simplification of design, it is stated, ensures, as proved by the experiments at the National Physical Laboratory, a considerable increase in the range of flight. With a greater flight-range it will bo possible to place the bases for stops on greater distance from one another. Carefully-worked-out desigus provide the England-India-Australia route a accommodation for passengers within the body of this new streamline vessel superior, it is claimed, to any yet devised for airship travellers. There will be ample sleeping, eating and rest rooms. Hot meals will be provided, and passengers will enjoy far greater amenities than those provided by long land journeys. So far with super-airships of 5,000,000 cubic feet gas capacity, the estimated speed has been in the neighbourhood of 70 miles an hour. The new atreamlin. ship, as shown by wind tunnel testa which have been made with tiny models of it. should, despite its weight of 150 tons, cleave the air at 90 miles an hour. Calculations indicate also that its range of non-stop flight, even when carrying a full load, should be 3500 miles. This is 1000 miles farther than the previous estimate for such big machines. If freed of a commercial load, and when on urgent Government service, such a craft should be aldb to fly from England to Australia without a halt. ROUTE OF EMPIRE FLIGHT. Rising from a station near London tha ship will fly in two days without alighting—as compared with 17 days by earth transport—as far as Bagdad. A second stage will take it to Colombo, where it will arrive in four days from London as compared with 22 by steamer. A third, stage will take it to Fremantle, this trans-Empire air journey being reduced from 11 days—the previous best airship estimate —to only six and a-half days. The final stage will be to New Zealand. The airship will save 30 days on the England-New Zealand journey as contrasted with steamship times. In addition to being erected at the permanent land stations of a trans-Em-pire airship service, it will be possible to have mobile refuelling stations for the airships when they are crossing wide tracts of ocean. These will take the form of masts erected on naval monitors or other vessels, and the airship will be able to moor at them at any pre-arranged point, taking in whatever fuel or other supplies she may require. The only external projections will be towards the rear of the ship, whore four curs are placed, which contain the 4800 horse power engines, and the air screws driving the ship, NEW MOORING METHOD. A new form of mooring mast has ahw been evolved. It provides an entirely new method of attachment for an airship to a mast, and for the first time mokes it possible for an air-vessel to be moored consistently to a floating base. The new type has two aims, which, when the ship is moored, embrace its nose and secure it firmly. The arms rotate, thus enabling the airship to approach from any-quarter, according to the direction of the wind. In one of the arms is a gangway, along which passengers will pass to the airship, and the usual lift up the mooring mast is provided. The Burney-Wallis mooring mast can be used on ships, and it has been approved by Dr. Eekner, of the Zeppelin Company, and Herr Lehman, of the GoodyearZeppelin Company of America. When the airship is approaching a floating base she drops two bridle ropes from either side of the nose, temporarily united at the extremities. These are picked up by a motor-boat from the mooring vessel, to which they are «onveyed. They are the main guides to safe harbourage within the arms of the

mast. On reaching the mast other guides and ropes are attached, and gradually the great vessel is not only drawn into position, but so anchored there that, whatever the weather, a rigid connection is made between the arms and the vessel at two points on either side of the nose.