The Morrell Disaster.

Progress, 1 October 1908, Page 418

The Morrell Disaster.

Little seems to have been heard of the collapse before these chronicles of the great American "' dine ible'' launched m San Franciwo for business purposes The 'cute Yankees lost their usual canton m the matter of that <urship. They took it for granted that the art of building the type had reached perfection, they projected a ''.spec" on business lines, launching a tremendous airship 450 feet long, 36 feet diameter, of a gas capacity of 500,000 feet. This was an opening trip of what was intended to be a regular service of aerial transport. The cable narrated how. after rising to a great height, the thing suddenly collapsed, and. after a breakneck fall for some hundreds of feet, pulled itself tip in some mysterious the tangle of the wreckage acting as a sort of parachute, bringing the sixteen passengers (and their champagne) to earth with nothing worse than a terrible shock and some broken limbs. This was many months ago, and so far as the cable is concerned, nothing more was heard of the remains. When the balloon was at a height of 300 feet it was seen to tilt with its nose downwards, and the pilot, John Byrne, mounted to the top of the gas bag to balance it. The gas accumulated in the rear end and then burst the envelope, and the balloon fell slowly until it was 75 feet from the ground, when it collapsed altogether. The people m the car tried to save themselves by jumping. The accident was witnessed by a large crowd. Nevertheless there was something more. It was not a rehabilitation, with flourish of trumpets; that is a thing left to Governments. The 'cute. Yankee took no further chances of the business order. Sixteen people spilt out with nothing but a mystery to show why they were put in danger of their lives, and a further mystery to explain why they did not lose the same, was enough for his business instincts. The sequel appears to have been an investigation. An American writer ascribes the collapse to the stoppage of three of the six engines, whereby one end of the craft sank down, with most disastrous results to the equilibrium. This, he added, emphasised the fact that a great deal of trouble has been caused by overheating in aerial engines, so that protracted flights have hitherto been impossible. "Until engines can be depended upon to work for a considerable period without falling off seriously in power, just as- those of motor cars do, little progress will be made while experimenters base their schemes upon the maximum output as given off in the first ten mmutes or so." All this was duly reported to the Aeronautical Society at its next meeting. One of the speakers, describing the present position of mechanical flight in France, remarked that airship engines are often difficult to start, are inclined to overheat, complicated, and uneconomical. Their cooling, too. is often so inefficient that one may have little more than half the estimated power at one's disposal. Unless this is borne in mind we may expect to hear of

accidents when the motor is depended upon for negotiating air currents or maintaining equilibrium, as appears, indeed, to have been the case with the enormous American dirigible. However, one is bound to admit that the bag flight achieved by the veteran Count Zeppelin, from Lake Constance, as detailed even though the weather was good, was a remarkable performance. It proved that at any rate the engine problem was being solved on apparently the right lines. But immediately after that great performance the craft was wrecked by the wind, which, suddenly springing up, smashed one of the cars, and the engine, coming to grief in consequence, set fire to the fabric, which was burnt to the air's edge, if the term is permissible. It was another appearance of the unexpected which dogs the footsteps of the airship.