BALLROOM IN THE SKY.

Waipawa Mail, Volume XLIX, Issue 149, 7 September 1928, Page 1

BALLROOM IN THE SKY.

ROLLS-ROYCE AIRSHIP. LONDON, July 13. Members of Parliament and Dominion High Commissioners last week were invited to inspect the new 5,000,000 cubic feet Burney Rolls-Royce airship, RIOO. Evidently no general invitations to view the ship have yet been issued either to the local or overseas Press, but Major C. C. Turner, aviation correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph,” seems to have been one of the privileged party. In his account of the visit he says:—

“The ship is so nearly completed that I was able to go over the living quarters for passengers and crew besides inspecting the hull and machinery. But it is not likely that the RIOO will be hauled out of the shed (by some 250 men) to make her first trial trip before the beginning of October, and almost certainly the LZI27, the German Zeppelin, a smaller ship now nearly ready at Friedrichshaven, will visit the country before that date.

“When the RIOO is ready for trials she will he handed over to the Air Ministry in accordance with agreement, and the trials will be earned out by Major G. H. Scott, in command, Squadron-Leader R. S. Booth, second in command, Fliglit-Lieutean-ant 11. C. Irwin, third pilot. These officers and others, who will be in the RIOO, are on the establishment of the Royal Airship Works at Cardington.

After the trial flights the Airship Guarantee Company may exercise its option to purchase the RIOO from the Air Ministry for £150,000. “I was able to enter the airship’s living quarters by the closed-in gangway, which, when the airship is moored at her tower, will extend from

the top of the tower to the nose of the ship. This alley is 200 ft. in length. a few steps, and there is soft diffused light galleries, spacious floors, rows of cabins, and stairways, the architecture and decorations of which, although choice of wood and metal are restricted by need for lightness, are an artistic triumph.

“Close examination discovered a clever use of mahogany-ply, prettily moulded, whilst the rails and banisters prove that duralumin is artistically adaptable, suggesting a new era in interior architecture. A DANCING FLOOR.

The dining floor is large enough for fifty diners at a time, and is capable of serving as a dancing floor; adjoining it is the kitchen, with a maze of heating installation and a big cooking range. Below are the crew’s quarters. There are forty in the crew, and they have their mess deck and berths arranged as in a ship. For passengers there are four .four-berth and forty-two two-berth cabins. The walls are of special double cotton treated to he light and fireproof. In the making of the doors that remarkable very light wood, Balsa, is used. “Outside are the promenade deeks on either side, and from them the passengers will be able to observe the moving landscape through windows placed in a sloping screen of fabric. Not yet does an airship afford a deck walk extending the length of the ship and open to the air and stars. “Smoking will not he permitted, but it must not be imagined that this will always be the ease in airship travel. Already in some airplanes it is permitted. “The whole of its passengers’ quarters constitute a suspended unit. This unit is 43ft. in length fore and aft, and is 60ft. distant from the fuel tanks. The dining saloon is 160 ft. from the hows of the ship. NO AIR SICKNESS. “Airship voyages will be comparatively short,” Major Turner goes on to say; not, as a rule, more than 48 hours; and, therefore, the comparison as regards many of the conveniences should be rather with the Continental railway train than with an ocean liner. The airship wins every time, for it is free from vibration and very clean, whilst any rolling motion is so slight and gentle that sickness should be unknown. The noise of the engines is no more than a distant murmur, for they are far away from the passengers’ quarters, and moreover are not, as in an airplane, run at high speed. “From the passengers’ quarters neither hull nor machinery can he seen. But before the passenger boards the ship, and he is taken up the mooring tower in the lift, he can see the great hull, 700 ft. long, and its three engine cars, two amidships, side by side, and one, centrally placed, a little astern of them, each containing two 700 h.p. Rolls-Royce engines, each engine with its big air-screw. The cars arc abou! 30ft. in length. Under the hull is one slight protuberance caused hv the control cabin, the centre of the nervous system of the ship, with its rows of switches and instruments. It protrudes downward 7ft. at its forward end and 3ft. aft. The maximum diameter of the hull is 132 ft. “The hull is a sixteen-sided polygon, and is built in sixteen hays, in fifteen of which are gas containers, the stern bay being without a gasbag. The frame of the hull is of curved built-up duralumin girders, running from how to stern, and one great girder piercing the ship centrally from bow to stern, the gas bags having a central tube to take it. The girders are of helical tubing riveted at the join.