BRITAIN'S NEW AIRSHIPS

Taranaki Daily News, 11 October 1929, Page 9

BRITAIN'S NEW AIRSHIPS

UNKNOWN STRANGER SEEN “LITTLE USE COMMERCIALLY” OPINIONS OF THE DESIGNER By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Australian Press Association. London, Oct. 9. Sir Cecil Burney, in a book on the future of aviation, admitted that the airships RlOO and R.lOl would not be of much use commercially. Experience with the Los Angeles and the Graf Zeppelin showed that the cruising speeds of all airships were too low for commercial purposes. The speeds should not be under 90 miles per hour from the viewpoint of the safety of the passengers.

Sir Cecil said RlOO and RlOl were largely given attention because he was the designer of RlOO. He pointed out that engines of a new type were necessary, but these would have to be differently placed, involving an alteration to the airship structure.

The Government had spent £2,000,000 on the airship programme, instead of the £400,000 proposed. It was up to the Government not to leave him to defend the expenditure. All the airships of the present type were useless as vessels to run regularly on .a business basis. They were “merely the preliminary steps in the evolution of a practical commercial vessel.”

The Daily Express aeronautical expert comments: “The airy dream of a commercial air service to India and Australia is thus dissolved by the leading airship advocate of Great Britain.”

The paper editorially states that the repeated postponement of the RlOl trials is not only boring the public but is making them suspicious that all is not well with the mammoth of the air, whose debut is go mysteriously delayed. It will be a costly experiment if the airship, as big as an Atlantic liner, is proved to be a failure. It had bben hoped it would be possible to take the new airship RlOl out of the hangar at Cardington at daybreak to-day, but unfavourable weather necessitated a further postponement of her launch.