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Aviation History
1916
1916 - 0222.PDF
IGHT MARCH 16, 1916. AIRSHIPS By R. P. LOKI> MONTAGU'S excellent speech in the House of Lords last week should do much to arouse the Government to action in the matter of airships. And it is to be hoped that Lord Haldane's advice about " violent thinking" will be acted upon by the people who, years ago, should have been putting their minds to this problem. It is rather pathetic that so many public men in this country should still regard the airship as something new which has been sprung upon us as a surprise. The Zep pelin has been before us for more than ten years. For even a longer period we have been tinkering with toy air ships, varying the programme now and again by buying vessels from abroad—to save us from thinking out some thing new ourselves. The Results of Neglect. The deplorable results of this neglect are very evident today. We have no school of airship design ; we have very little data, and practically no experience; our theorists are at sixes and sevens; and our energy is frittered away in discussion. For my part I would prefer to have seen some action—even "violent action"—which would have given us crude types of airships that could be developed. It is better to make a start with a defective model, and peg away doggedly at improving it, than to dismiss the subject as useless after some thinking. Lord Haldane was right to insist upon deep study of the problem, but coupled with that we must have practi cal experiment and full-scale constructional work. If the Government five years ago had said : " We want a fleet of British airships. Here are our requirements as to speed, load, range of action and climbing power, &c." Then it would have been possible to create in this country the necessary industry for building the ships. There would have been failures, but with that Government offer before us most certainly some of our designers and builders would have made good. Naval Airships. Now we have Mr. Balfour referring regretfully to the lack of airships as naval scouts. The British Admiralty sees more clearly at this juncture that Germany scores an advantage in naval reconnaissance through her Zeppelins. But why was not this thought out years ago ? It is not a new discovery that an airship at a height of 5,000 ft. has a range of visibility of ninety miles. If an airship can put to sea in company with a fleet, it can almost guarantee that no enemy fleet can outmanceuvre the ships which it keeps watch for. The Zeppelin commands such a wide field of vision that surprise by an enemy fleet is well-nigh impossible. Germany has been testing that work for years with her naval Zeppelins. Why have we not followed suit ? The one reason is that we have not had rigid airships. The whole problem turns on the speed factor. Until Geimany was able to evolve high-speed airships the sea-going airship scout was impossible. The non-rigid and semi rigid airships have not the requisite speed for open sea work, and yet Mr. Balfour qualified his remarks on air ships the other day by hinting that he did not necessarily mean rigid ships when he expressed the need for scout ing craft. HEARNE. Slow Ships Useless. Here is proof that the problem has not been fuDy thought out. The airship for open sea work must be of the Zeppelin type, for the simple reason that no other type of airship has the requisite speed. The slow ship is useless for the work. Over the sea the winds are usually strong, and unless an airship has a good margin of speed it cannot be usefully employed save in calm weather. Take the case of a semi-rigid or non-rigid ship with a maximum still air speed of 30 miles an hour. Put this craft against a twenty mile an hour sea breeze and the net speed of the ship is ten miles an hour. In practice it would be lower still, for the engines could not be main tained for a long period at their maximum power. Now if this ship set out to escort a fleet, and if its speed dropped to, say, about eight miles an hour, owing to the persistent wind, the fleet would be compelled to slow down to the same speed, or else it would leave its scout far behind, and thus incur great danger. A change in the wind might hold up the 30 mile an hour ship completely, or drift it far out of its course. In short, the fleet would find this airship useless for the high-speed scouting essential in war. It will be said that eventually non-rigid and semi-rigid ships can be made faster. But the reply to that is obvious. The naval Zeppelin of to-day is more than twice as speedy as the best of the other types of ships. Why struggle to make non-rigids and semi-rigids faster when an existing design of ship gives us the very feature which we require ? The race for speed has been going on for many years, and the rigid has come out triumphant. Why the Rigid Ship is Superior. The reasons for superiority in this respect are not far to seek. Both the non-rigid and semi-rigid ships are limited in size owing to constructional reasons. The non-rigid ship is like an inflated sausage skin. Its shape is maintained by gas pressure. It is essentially a small-size ship, and hence a low speed and short range ship. Properly employed it has its features of usefulness, but it can never equal a Zeppelin in speed or range of action. The semi-rigid can be built to a larger size than the non-rigid, but here again we have an inflated and flexible skin called upon to bear the load to a considerable extent, and also the strains set up by high speed. In the rigid ship alone have we a stiff and unchangeable form of envelope. Instead of propelling an inflated sausage, or a sausage with a stiffened base, through the air we move a rigid body specially designed for high-speed work. Of course the advantages of the rigid design must be paid for. I need not dwell on the many defects of the Zeppelin, for the British public have been kept well posted in this branch of the subject. But as speed is the essence of success in airship work of the more advanced forms, such as sea scouting and long distance raiding, it is evident that the 65 miles an hour Zeppelin stands well ahead of the other types of vessels whose maximum speeds are about 35 miles an hour. Improve ments may come which will alter the comparison, for of course all airships are still crude. 222
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