Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1930. AIRSHIP ENTERPRISE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 22 October 1930, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established Over 50 Years.] WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1930. AIRSHIP ENTERPRISE.

The Great War proved the vulnerability of airships, and development since the war has enhanced the value of aeroplanes for those duties whiclT modern warfare demands of the air service. The post-war efforts exerted by British airmen and engineers for the improvement of airships have been inspired by quite other motives. Partly national prestige has compelled Britain, when all the world has been taking to the air, to prospect every means of aerial navigation. To the work of British scientists and mechanics in heav-ier-tlian-air craft all the world bears tribute. The non-rigid type of airship—-styled the “blimp”— was thoroughly tried out during the war, and did much useful service. But it was not the craft for bad weather or for heavy loads, and, with all the accidents and losses suffered by the German Zeppelins before and during the war, it was recognised that there remained from German experience with the rigid type of airship something that challenged human ingenuity and enterprise. Rigid airships can rise a storm. Equilibrium has been attained with increased nicety of control. The growth of wireless communication offers vast new opportunities for warning of atmospheric dangers. More than that the very need with expanding demand for air travel of intensified study of weather conditions all over, the globe urged upon British enterprise the need for experiments with the ships of the air which, being essentially cruisers of great range, would most require the services of extended weather-obser-vation stations. If aerial naviga-

tion is to become as familiar as navigation by sea, the currents of the upper air must be studied and charted like those of the ocean, wind forces and effects at varying altitudes must be recorded, and a vast range of meteorological intelligence opened up. This work cannot be done satisfactorily without great airships which will explore the world anew from above. It is known, for instance, that to some extent, at altitudes imperfectly defined, there are Atlantic air currents corresponding with sea currents below. Those currents make an airman’s passage across the North Atlantic easier from west to east than from east to west. Farther south, between (say) North Africa and South America, the opposite seems to hold good. But in the main, the range, strength, and constancy of air currents around the globe are not yet known.