FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1930
UNTITLED0 - 0084.PDF
FLIGHT, JANUARY 3, 1930 TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF AIRSHIP PROGRESS By LIEUT.-COL. W. LOCKWOOD MARSH THE state of airship development about the time FLIGHTstarted its existence, apart from Zeppelins, whichwere further advanced than airships in other coun- tries, cannot, perhaps, be better summarised than by quoting the specification issued early in January, 1909, by the French military authorities of their requirements in designs to be submitted to .them for the supply of new airships for the French army. It was stated that the airships would be required to maintain a. speed of 31 miles an hour for 15 hours, carrying a crew of six, with an average weight of 165 lbs. They were to be capable of reaching a height of 6,500 ft., and were to have a maximum volume of 230,000 cub. ft., with a maximum length of 297 ft., maximum height of 66 ft., and maximum diameter of 28 ft. Perhaps the most signifi- cant of these figures was the difference of 38 ft. between the maximum diameter and the overall height, as this represents, allowing for the height of the car (which would probably amount to some 10 ft. at most), the distance below the envelope at which it was in those days found necessary to suspend the car of a non-rigid airship. On December 24, 1908, the French President (Monsieur Loubet, who has just died) had opened the second French Automobile. Salon, which con- tained almost as many air- craft as motor-cars. Slung from the roof in the centre, .and dominating the building, was the Ville dc Bordeaux, a •Clement - Bayard airship. Like most of its contempo- raries, except for the semi- rigids of the Lebaudy type, it was strikingly reminiscent •of the Renard airship built at Chalais Meudon in 1884, a prototype which dominated French airship construction for nearly 30 years. It had an enormously long car, constructed of steel tubes which was really a girder designed to overcome the rigging difficulties. Only a small portion in the centre was used for carrying the engine and crew, the rest serving for the support of the twin rudders at the rear. Its envelope, -which measured 175 ft. long, with A maximum diameter of 50 ft., containing about 100,000 cub. ft. of hydrogen, ended at the rear in four larg» pear-shaped protuberances, which were supposed to give directional stability. At the forward end of the car-girder, which was no less than 92£ ft. long, was a triplane elevator. This girder, by the way, it is interesting to record, was made by Robert Esnault-Pelterie, whose name figured so large in contemporary aeroplane development. The engine was a four-cylinder 80-h.p. Renault. The example of the Lebaudy school of semi-rigid construc- tion existing at this time was the Liberte, the fourth of the type. Like its predecessors, it had a sharply-pointed nose, with a rounded tapering stern, where four dart-like fins were mounted. Along the under side of the envelope was a long keel girder, with the rudder at its rear extremity. The •envelope was 190 ft. long, with a maximum diameter of 35 ft., the volume being 145,000 cub. ft. It was driven by a Panhard engine of 135 h.p. In Germany, two types of airship, apart from the Zeppelin, were being developed. Gross II, the second airship designed by Major Gross, of the German army, was frankly on Lebaudy lines, but with a cylindrically-shaped envelope made by the Riedinger firm, in Augsburg. It had a volume of 176,000 cub. ft., and was driveu by two 75-h.p. Daimler engines. •On September 11, 1908. it made a flight of 176 miles in 13 hours, with a crew of four, which wasimuch the longest airship fligh up to that lime. None the less, the type was never really successful, and was soon abandoned, after about four had been built. The Motorluftschiff Studiengesellschaft, formed a little earlier at the personal instigation of the Kaiser, had taken in hand the development of the non-rigid airship ideas of Major von Parseval, who had been associated with Capt. Sigsfeld in the design of the famous Drachen balloon of 1897, Before 1909 : The Barton airship antedated FLIGHT by about nine years, having been produced round about 1900. (FLIGHT Photo.) and had, at the end of 1908, produced Parseval II, which was immediately bought by the German military authorities. The feature of all Parseval airships, right up to the war period, was that they had no elevators, but relied on alter- nately forcing air into and valving it from the two ballonnets situated fore and aft. Parseval II had a cylindrical envelope with a pointed stern measuring 190 ft. long, with a maximum diameter of 31 ft. Its rapacity was 135.000 cub. ft., and it was powered by a four-cylinder 100-h.p. Daimler engine driving a propeller with four blades of fabric on a steel tube frame. The short car was suspended 41 ft. below the gas-bag, and could be wound backwards and forwards on rollers on one of the suspension cables, to alter the longitudinal trim of the airship. England was at the beginning of 1909 without an airship. The Nulli Secundns, which had originally appeared in 1907 and been reconstructed in the spring of 1908, had been finally deflated in the autumn, it having been re- corded on her last flight, or one of her last flights, that she " went out and came down bump." A new air- ship was, however, in course of construction, and made its appearance on May 11, 1909, with Colonel Capper as pilot and Mr. Wade as engi- neer. This was the Baby, the first, and smallest, of a long line of small non-rigids of the type which the British Army and Navy made peculiarly their own. She had a gold- beater's skin envelope of only 24,000 cub. ft. capacity with three inflated fins on Clement-Bayard lines at the stern. The car was boat- shaped, with skids underneath for landing, and carried a large balanced rudder and a divided elevator at the rear. An interesting feature was that in spite of her small size she had two three-cylinder Buchet engines, though of only 8 h.p. each. Italy had already began experimenting on individual lines with the semi-rigid types in which, after a short time, she was to become for many years the leading, and only, exponent. Two airships of the " P" class, designed by Captain Ricaldoni, with the advice of Captain Crocco, were in exist- ence' The box-kite type of rudder, with automatic gear to relieve the pilot of much of the work of keeping the ship on her course, invented by Captain Crocco, was already a feature. Otherwise these airships were chiefly notable for the exceptionally good streamline shape of the envelope, which was a very considerable advance on anything seen up to that time, and. indeed, would hardly disgrace a modem airship. It measured 216 ft. in length, with a maximum diameter near the nose of 36 ft., after which it " ran home " in a gradual taper to the sharp pointed stern. These ships were powered with a 70-h.p. Clement-Bayard engine. The volume was about 180,000 cub. ft. Early in 1909 there also appeared the Leonardo da Vinci, the first of the semi- rigids with a tubular steel keel designed by Ing. Forlanini, in which wires carrying the weight of the keel were carried up through the interior to the upper surface of the envelope. The compartmented envelope was 130 ft. long, with a maxi- mum diameter of 78 ft., and had a volume of 120,000 cub. ft. It was driven by a 40 h.p. engine. This rapid survey of the type of airship existing in different countries twenty-one years ago will give some idea of the state of flux in which the science was at that time. In spite of the number of years start that the airship had had over the aeroplane, little real progress had been made, partly, perhaps, because practically all development had been in the hands of Governments, and there had not, therefore, been much opportunity for the exchange of ideas. Even where private firms were involved the same spirit of secrecy prevailed, and, consequently, each type was proceeding on parallel lines by a process of trial and error, so that each was able to learn nothing from the other, and they were all prone to 84
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
