NOTES.

Progress, Volume III, Issue 6, 1 April 1908, Page 196

NOTES.

Count Zeppelin has started the construction of a new airship which he is building for the German Government. The dimensions of this new airship are given as follows • — Length, 130 meteis (426-J feet) ; diameter, 12 meters (39| feet) ; horse-power, 240, consisting of two Daimler motors of 120 horse-power each, which will be used instead of the two 85 horse-power motors with which the present air-ship is equipped. The new airship is being constructed in a shed mounted on floats at Manzell on Lake Constance. It is the fourth airship that Count Zeppelin has built. The promoters of the aeronautic exposition of Turin wish to give special importance to the show, and to this end they propose to establish two international Grands Prix for aerial navigation. The first prize of $50,000 will be awarded for airships, and the second prize of $20,000 for heavier-than-air apparatus. It appears that the organisers stipulate that the winning apparatus is to be turned over to the Italian Government after being placed on exhibition at the show. After hearing of the project King Victor Emmanuel wished to show the great interest which he is taking in the question, both as to the progress of science and the application to military affairs, and accordingly he decided to award a royal cup, which will be competed for during the next international airship contests. On the other hand, it is stated that Lord Northcliff has just established a prize in the name of the London Dailv Mail of $500, for an aeroplane which will cover a flight of half a mile, or a quarter of a mile each way, remarking that M. Farman could now easliy win this prize. The interest is increasing in Great Britain, and we hear that Mr. Patrick Alexander recently made a wager with Mi. Griffith Brewer of 2500 dols. that he will accomplish a flight during the year following sth November of one mile in a close circuit. Aeroplanes are active in Paris, and any morning may be seen the owners of wellknown names on the Issy practice ground. All eyes are of course upon M. Farman, the Englishman who has astounded " Tout Paris " by winning the Archdeacon prize. It is a matter of ordinary gossip that he altered his machine substantially before he won the prize. He placed the carburetter higher up, and he lightened the machine some 40 tbs. To these alterations the victory is considered to have been in some part due. Since the victory he has been engaged in experimenting with increased weights, with the result that he very soon found, before he had got anything like a heavy weight aboard that the machine would not rise at all. The weight which proved thus prohibitive was 500 kilos, and Mr. Farman has since flown one mile and a half with a machine weighing 650 kilos. i: Amongst the aeronauts at work is Le Bleriot, with an aeroplane which he has declared to be very fast — fifty miles an hour — but of which it is said that he is as yet unable to manage the same ; which perhaps accounts for the absence of news since the day it nearly killed its inventor by running him into a tree. :je * * * * * M. Bishoff is another with an aeroplane which persists in trying to run head down. And the Brothers Zens are very busy building somewhat on the Farman lines. They are making improvements in the direction of two superposed plane surfaces with a rudder in front, and a 50 h.p. Antoinette motor.