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Aviation History
1926
1926 - 0196.PDF
MARCH 25, 1926 SOME GOODYEAR " STEPPING-STONES " : This illustration is intended to show, for comparison, four types of airship, viz :—from left to right, the " Pony Blimp " of 49,500 cub. ft. ; the " RS-1 " described this week, the rigid " Los Angeles " of 2,470,000 cub. ft., and the super rigid G-Zl (projected). The air ballonets, with a total capacity of 224,000 cub. ft., are also divided into four by these diaphragms. The nose of the envelope is provided with 19 duralumin battens secured to the keel extremity, laced to patches on the envelope and supported laterally" by five sets of brace wires and two telescopic rings of duralumin tubing. The nose is also provided with mast mooring equipment. The keel, which forms a great vertebrate spinal column, is constructed of duralumin columns, Phoenix type, of a maxi- mum length of 10 ft. These columns are connected by a ball and socket joint in a forged lynite housing, which housings are part of the rigid transverse triangles. The tension wires of the keel are of streamline form. The fuel, oil, and water ballast tanks, and fore and aft drag ropes are suspended in the keel from the transverse keel frames. A control car, 35 ft. long and entirely enclosed, is suspended from the keel under the nose of the ship. This car contains the navigating controls, sleeping facilities for officers and men, a motion picture camera and a radio installation. It is constructed of duralumin framework with fabric and metal sheathing. The control room is separated from the rest of the car by a hollow partition which houses the control cables coming down from the keel. The equipment of the pilot car, in addition to the latest navigating instruments, includes an SCR—135 radio set, a type B-3 camera, bomber's <$> <$> Air Minister's Assistant Private Secretary THE Air Ministry announces that The Rt. Hon. SirSamuel Hoare, Bt., C.M.G., M.P., Secretary of State for Air, has appointed Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd to be his Assistant PrivateSecretary (unpaid). The African Flights THE four R.A.F. Fairey HID biplanes (Napier " Lions ")under Wing-Commander Pulford continued the Cairo- Cape Town flight from Kisumu (Kenya) on March 17 andreached Tabora, via Mwanza. At Tabora they carried out Army co-operation exercises with the 2nd Battalion of theKing's African Rifles on March 18, and resumed their journey on March 22, when they flew on to N'Dola. Proceeding the cockpit and equipment, four berths, an auxiliary power-driven5,000-cub. ft. capacity air blower, map table, &c, &c. The car weighs 1,900 lb., exclusive of radio, camera, and bomb sight. The armament includes bomb racks of 3,500-lb. capacityand single machine-gun mounts on both sides of the forward end of the pilot car ; a gun mount can easily be arrangedfor at the extreme bow of the ship, if required. Owing to the fact that the RS-1 is the first of the semi-rigidtype to be built in America, it has been designed to have a high factor of safety, under all conditions, performance being asecondary consideration if it interfered with adequate strength. It has been designed for training, photographic, and patrolduties, and will later be equipped with a newly designed suspension device to pick up and release a small aeroplaneduring flight—a development with which the U.S. Army Air Service has experimented for the past three years. Although considerably smaller than the American rigidairships—the ill-fated " Shenandoah," and the " Los Angeles " —the RS-1 has been designed so that it can be moored to themasts erected for the rigids. It may be mentioned in con- clusion that the RS-1, while the first airship of the semi-rigidtype constructed in America, belongs to a long line of lighter- than-air craft turned out by the Goodyear Tyre and RubberCo., which some little while back acquired the patent rights of the German Zeppelin Co. for North America. next day, they arrived at Broken Hill, in Northern Rhodesia-Lieut. Medaets and his two companions, who are flying from Brussels to Kinshasa on a Breguet XIX biplane, reachedMongalla from Atbara on March 17. By March 19 they had got as far as Lisala, in Belgian Congo, and on Sunday morning,March 21, they reached Kinshasa, having thus completed about 5,000 miles in 12 days, or 55 hours' flying time. Plans for another flight to Cape Town are reported, thistime a Swiss effort by Lieut. Mittelholzer (who recently flew from Switzerland to Teheran). This pilot, who will beaccompanied by Lieut-Col. Gouzy, a Swiss journalist, will make the attempt on a seaplane, flying via Athens, Cairo,and Zambesi. The object of the flight is to take films arid ph:>tographs of wild animal life in the forests of Africa. 176
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