The Waikato Times With which is incorporated The Waikato Argus. TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1919. THE FUTURE OF THE AIRSHIP

Waikato Times, Volume 90, Issue 14026, 1 April 1919, Page 4

The Waikato Times With which is incorporated The Waikato Argus. TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 1919. THE FUTURE OF THE AIRSHIP

Partly owing to the extraordinary development that has taken place during the war in the power and speed and reliability of the aeroplane, and partly, no doubt, owing to its proved superiority to the airship in war, the future of air travel has, to ,a very large extent, come to be regarded as resting with the winged machine. Yet there are many signs that for.purposes,of peace the. airship has many claims to consideration, particularly as regards commercial traffic. The airship, as was pointed out in a memorandum recently issued by the British Air Ministry, is essentially a long-distince weightcarrying craft; an aeroplane, with its small loading capacity, is likely to he utilised chiefly for comparatively short distance work. There are advantages in the airship which are obvious to everyone. It is not compelled to make a forced landing in the event of engine trouble, it can stay in the air on an even keel, if necessary, for days at a time; it provides much more room, and, therefore, more comfort, for passengers; it can travel in weather that would he unsuitable for an aeroplane, and its lifting power being much greater than that of an aeroplane, it can carry much more than the latter. The fact that hydrogen, used for filling the envelope of an airship, is a highly inflammable gas, constitutes an element of danger to which the aeroplane is not subject, but the memorandum referred to points out that throughout the war, during which British airships covered more than two and a half million miles, only one vessel caught fire in the air, and the cause of that accident has since been ascertained and eliminated. This is encouraging, hut a much more reassuring fact, to which, curiously, the memorandum made no reference, is the recent discovery that helium, an inert, noninflammable gas, the next lightest to hydrogen, and with only 8 per cent, less lifting power, can be produced on a large scale at moderate cost. The cost of separating helium gas, ranging from £3OO to £I2OO per cubic foot, was so great as to make its use for airships prohibitive. But it appears that when America entered the \yar the British Air Board notified the, American , Government that one of the most important contributions that country could make to the Allied cause was the industrial’ production of helium. , The result is, that to-day there are now four large plants in the United-Stales engaged in producing this gas, and the chief American aeronautical officer lately announced that at the end of the war they were able to have compressed on the deck of a vessel, ready for floating, 147,000 cubic feet of pure helium, which would shortly be produced at the rate of 50,000 cubic feet daily, at an estimated cost of 5d per foot. As stated, the lifting power of helium is rather less than that of hydrogen, but against this must he put the fact that its non-inllamma-bility will permit of the engine and other machinery of an airship being placed within the large outer envelope, instead of suspending them at some distance below, and this will make for greater speed.

The development of the airship, though not so spectacular, lias really been greater than that of the aeroplane. In 1914 the typical German rigid airship could cruise for rather loss than a day, her maximum speed being about 50 miles an hour. To-day the German L/0 class can maintain sustained flight at 45 miles an hour, for rather more than seven days, the maximum speed being 77 miles an hour. The largest British vessel yet built has a considerably greater capacity than these airships, and has an estimated cruising capacity, at 45 miles per hour, of nearly nine days. The Air Ministry claim tl|at the. bigger the airship the greater its efficiency, and they look forward to the construction of ' airships ■ 1100 ft long, with a capacity of ten million cubic feet—more than three ’ times greater than any yet built, capable of cruising for throe weeks at 40 to 45 miles per hour, with an attainable maximum of 70 to 80 miles, and a nonslop cruising range of over 20,000 miles, or nearly once round the world. Such a monster would cost between £200,000 and £300,000, anil would carry, apart from the crew, ballast, petrol, etc., some 200 tons. With much smaller airships than these, the transAUantic (light should be a comparatively

trifling- matter. Certainly we seem to be approaching the time described in the dreams of the owner of Locksley Hall, who

“Saw the heavens fill with commerce,

ergo; and magic sails, Pile is of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales.”