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Aviation History
1919
1919 - 0929.PDF
Flight, July 17, 1919 I Mm I B^ Samcv-AFT ^ji W 1^*~ f ENGINE E£L First Aero Weekly in the World. Founder and Editor: STANLEY SPOONER A Journal devoted to the Interests, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE ROYAL AERO CLUB OF THE UNITED KINGDOM No. 551 (No. 29, Vol. XI.) JULY 17, 1919 reokly, Prico M. Post Free, 7d. flight The Aircraft Engineer and Airships Editorial Office .• 36, GREAT QUEEN STREET, K1NGSWAY, W.C. 2 Telegrams: Truditur, Westcent, London. Telephone: Gerard :St8. Annual Subscription Rates, Post Free: United Kingdom .. ats. id. Abroad 33.1.0^. These rates arc subject to any alteration found necessary under war conditioi s CONTENTS —• Editorial Comment: PAGS The Voyage of R 34 931 Speeding the Commercial Side .. .. .. .. .. .. 932 Peace Joy-Flights .. .. . .. 932 Coal and Industry .. ..' ., .. ,. .. .. 932 Flight—and the Men : Mr. Short .. 933 The Vickers-Vimy Commercial Biplane . 936 The Royal Aero Club : Official Notices 942 The Transatlantic Voyage of R 34 944 Airisms from the Four Winds .. .. .. .. 953 Some Developments in Aircraft Design 955 The Royal Air Force „ 961 Side-Winds .. 96 EDITORIAL COMMENT Y her successful double journey across the Atlantic the airship R 34 has erected another milestone, additional to the one we recorded last week, on the long road of aerial navigation. It may be true that she has done no more than was expected of her by those who knew the capabilities of the rigid airship, but it is just as true that her voyage will be of inestimable value from the point of view Th V °* ProPa&anda. She has demonstrated 6 0° ya8e for the education of the layman that R 34 long-distance aerial service for the carriage of passengers and mails is not only a possibility of to-morrow, but the accomplished fact of to-day. She has further demonstrated that it is possible for the airship to voyage to a time-table, and that stress of weather can be combatted success fully with almost as great certainty as by the ocean liner. Lest this should seem to be too great a claim to make, we would remind the reader that on her outward voyage R 34 encountered at one time a head wind of some fifty knots velocity, and that nothing but the possible exhaustion of her fuel supplies caused a moment's anxiety to her commander and crew. The obvious lesson to be drawn from this is that the air liner of the future must be of greater size and possessed of ample fuel reserves to allow for such circumstances of weather as R 34 actually encoun tered. We notice that some of the newspapers in their comments on the flight make rather a point of the hurried departure of the ship from America on account of the warning of the U.S. Weather Bureau that a depression was advancing from the Great Lakes. This is used to point the moral that there is a long way to go yet before regular airship services will be possible over such routes as the Atlantic. We agree that we have by no means reached the ultimate development of the airship, and that ships of the future will be much more advanced in design and construction than we are able to appreciate to-day. As R 34 is to the original Zeppelin, so will the airship, possibly even of 1921, be to existing types. But we do not think it is altogether fair to the airship to make capital for counter-argument out of the hurried departure from America. This was principally due to the fact that R 34 was moored out, owing to there being no sheds capable of accommodating a craft of her size, and that to have remained was to have courted disaster. The giant airship without a shed is as much at the mercy of the elements as a ship without a harbour. No seaman would remain at anchor in an open roadstead with fires drawn if he had received warning of a gale expected from seaward. Nor, if he took the wiser counsel and proceeded to sea to avoid the risk of being driven on to a lee shore, would anyone argue that the steamship is insufficiently developed to be a reliable means of transport. It seems to us that the real lesson to be drawn from the incident is that before airship services can be properly developed,, sheds, which are to the airship what harbours are to ships, must be provided. That is fully appreciated by those who s and behind the airship and its development for com nercial purposes, and it is, to say the least, a little unf L 1 that the want of proper accommodation should be used as an argument against the craft itself. There remains now nothing to be done but to con gratulate Major Scott and his officers and crew on the E 1
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