FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1915
1915 - 0148.PDF
[/LIGHT Avenue, next to the restaurant outside the gates. It was very opportune, for the rain made a prolonged stay in the open anything but a pleasure. I found the new offices well appointed, and Messrs. Warren, Lindsay and Smiles know how to make their friends comfortable while " talking shop," to the accompaniment of " My Lady Nicotine." While enjoying these comforts I was told some of the future plans of the firm, but, as I think I mentioned before, Warren believes in doing before talking, so "'nuf said." Just wait and see ! XXX The all-metal aeroplane is still a thing of the future, at any rate as far as this country is concerned, but there are many who think it is bound to come some day, and quite a lot has been going on in this direction abroad. A strong believer in this type of construction is Mr. Mayro, of the Mayro Steel Construction Co., down Shaftesbury Avenue way, and he is ever so interesting when he is expounding his views and demonstrating their practicability with some convenient specimen of his system of metal construction for aeroplanes. According to Mr. Mayro, who has, by the way, had considerable experience in connection with metallurgy, one of the reasons why metal construction has not been more extensively employed is that when such attempts have been made, full advantage has not been taken of the peculiarities of the metal, which has simply been employed to replace some other material, whilst being kept to the same form as the original that it was intended to replace. The metal Mr. Mayro uses chiefly is an aluminium alloy, and the advan tages claimed are obtained by building up the metal in various forms of corrugations of different section. For obvious reasons it is as well I should not here go into minute details, but one example of this work that I saw FEBRUARY 26, 1915. was an aileron for a well-known type of aeroplane. The weight was about the same, but the strength was claimed to be about two or three times as great as that of a similar aileron built up of wood in the usual way. Mr. Mayro says that he can build any design of wing which will be of exactly the same dimension, have practically the same characteristics, and yet be considerably stronger than the wood-built wing. Owing to the outbreak of war, and pressure of other important work, the develop ment of his system has been temporarily checked, but with larger works in contemplation, Mr. Mayro hopes to be able to resume his efforts in this direction in the near future. xxx Whether it is another attempt by the Germans at pro voking a war with the United States I do not know, but I hear that the German Wright Company of Berlin has been dissolved. Ah, well! At any rate I suppose that will mean that we shall in the future have one less type of " high speed scout" to contend with. XXX All our pilots are not at the front just now, as I noticed several the other night at Daly's Theatre, witnessing that charming musical play "A Country Girl" in which Mr. Robert Michaelis and Mr. W. H. Berry represent characters in the Naval Service. Possibly this fact had something to do with the presence of the aviation brigade, or it may have been the introduction into the first act (Daly's fame for up-to-dateness is pro verbial) of a Taube aeroplane, which is promptly brought down by one of the naval heroes. Anyway, the boys are not bad judges of what is worth seeing, as the cast also includes Miss Gertie Millar and a very clever and sprightly " mate " to Berry, Miss Mabel Sealby. "^EOLUS." GERMANY'S IN the last issue of FLIGHT we were able to include brief mention of the wreck of the German naval Zeppelin " L3," on the Danish island of Fanoe on the 17th inst. A few hours later came the news that a second airship had been abandoned off Blaavand on the west coast of Jutland, and it subsequently transpired that this was the " L4," the newest Schutte-Lanz airship, also belonging to the German Navy. Writing of the first disaster, the Daily Mail correspon dent at Copenhagen said •— "The airship had left Hamburg at 4 a.m., and had been cruising during the day off the north-west coast of Denmark. Her motors failed one after the other, and at about six in the evening the airship landed with a crash on the beach of Fanoe Island, snapping in two as she struck. Her crew of 2 officers and 14 petty officers and men jumped out uninjured. Immediately after the airship landed she burst into flames. The captain declares that he set the Zeppelin on fire purposely "in order to prevent her from being blown further ashore and imperilling lives and the adjacent buildings.' In any case the ship was already utterly destroyed. The crew had time to land their ammunition and bombs. They were interned for the night at a local hotel. Much activity on the part of airships has been reported during the last two days on the west coast and at the bottom of the Great Belt. In some cases the airships have been seen exchanging signals with warships." gave the following A Daily Telegraph correspondent additional details:— " Her commander was Capt. Fritz, and her second officer was named Luncker. The commander stated that the fituation of those on board the airfhip was most critical, as he feared that the bombs which it carried would have caused an explosion. Capt. Fritz stated that he was on the way to reconnoitre the North Sea, and ® ® ® @ WRECKED AIRSHIPS. that he himself fired the airship, after the motors were damaged, because he wished to prevent the Danish authorities seizing the air ship and learning the secrets of her construction." According to other information from Copenhagen the officers and crew were interned at Nordby, while the Danish military authorities took possession of the remains of the airship, which included four large bombs and two machine guns. The following message was received in Amsterdam from Berlin on the 18th inst. :— *' The airship L3, while on a reconnoitring voyage, descended during a storm owing to a defect of its motor on the west coast of Jutland. The airship has been lost, but the crew were saved." With regard to the second wreck, the first news was received through eleven men presenting themselves at the coastguard station, north of Blaavand, first stating that they were the crew of a trawler sunk by a mine, and then, on being interrogated by a magistrate, that they were the survivors of an airship which they had had to abandon. The story of the wreck was thus told by the Daily Mail Danish correspondent:— " It now appears that the second German airship lost on the west coast of Denmark was ' L4,' a Schutte-Lanz, one of the most recently constructed. She was returning south when she ran into bad weather, first meeting with fog and then heavy storms of sleet and snow. Two of her motors failed, and the great airship becoming unmanageable, the crew decided to abandon her. When near land and over the surf at Boersmose, near Blaavand, on the west coast of Jutland, the men jumped from the airship. Two officers and nine petty officers and men landed safely, but one man who delayed taking the plunge fell from a considerable height and I48
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
