The New Airship
ILAY on a little duralumin bed in a buff-distempered, -11- fire-proof cabin, with a mica porthole, imagining myself flying to Canada or Cairo. It was a dream, but one that may come true this autumn, for Commander Burney's great airship has been clothed with half its skin and all its passenger accommodation.
At present it fills the huge hangar at Howden from top to bottom and from end to end. In a few months it will be ready to fly. It is like some mammoth in a museum, but bigger than any mammoth, and instinct with the present instead of the past. The engine gondolas have not yet been fitted, nor the fins and rudder, but three hundred men are working on it day and night, and before the year ends we shall see the largest airship in the world come gleaming over London.
To the top deck cabin, where I lay thinking, came the sound of many voices and the tramp of feet from the people who were inspecting the ship. Vibrations of both voice and movement will always be apparent to the air traveller I should imagine, for the partitions between the cabins are thin and the whole framework resilient. But the engines will be almost inaudible, for they are far astern. Sea-breezes and seasickness will be unknown, for the motion is expected to be very gentle and the passengers will be completely enclosed by the envelope, and, although able to look out through windows in it, will not come in contact with the outer air save through ventilators. All the fittings are extremely light and neat.
The companion-way leading from the top deck cabin to the dining-room is of aluminium veneered with mahogany. A buffet and electric grill opens on to the saloon on one side. Opposite is another companion leading to the crew's quarters, while further cabins open out from the saloon to port and starboard. Beyond the cabins there is a small promenade deck (still inside the envelope, however) where a small dance could be held. On the lower deck there is not much to see. The crew's quarters are bare, save for a fascinating electric switch- board, reminding me of the Daily Mail Ideal Home for A.D. 2028. There is nothing in the captain's cabin or in the navigating room as yet, nor in the control car which will be directly below it and form a projection outside the envelope. Baths there are none throughout the ship.
The cruising speed of ' R.100' will be about seventy miles an hour, derived from six Rolls Royce engines developing 4,200 horse power. The general shape of the ship is like a very fat cigar, 709 feet long and weighing 156 tons, with a blunt nose swelling out to a midship girth of 188 feet and then tapering to a fine-run tail. One hundred passengers with their luggage will be carried over a range of 8,500 miles in calm air. And the Atlantic type of airship, which Commander Burney is already planning, will carry 156 passengers for 6,000 miles at a cruising speed of 95 m.p.h. The cost of such a ship will be about £500,000, and it would be capable of a non-stop flight of from London to Bombay in a little over two days. • What are the dangers and difficulties confronting the makers of ' R.100 ' ? To begin with, her handling. She is as big as the Mauritania ' and would nearly fill Northum- berland Avenue if she were laid in it. To manhandle such a monster without tugs and winches will be very difficult. The mooring mast as it exists to-day is suitable for demon- stration flights but is hardly sufficient for a regular service. A complete equipment similar to that available for sea-going ships has however been invented and patented by the Airship Guarantee Company, and as soon as the necessary money is forthcoming they will be applied to the ' R.100' and her prospective sisters and heiresses-apparent - - Another danger is that the ship will break up owing to structural weakness, as did the ' R 38 and the ' Shenandoah.' Commander Burney claims that his ship can withstand conditions five times as severe as that which broke the Shenandoah.' He would admit, I think, that there are conditions which would be dangerous to the R 100,' but with the advance of MeteorolOgical knowledge a very reasonable margin of safety can be assumed. Danger from fire is more serious. ' R -100 ' carries 30 tons of petrol, contained in a confined air-space throughout the envelope of the ship. Oozing and weeping at some of the many joints in the system is inevitable : in tem- perate climates, petrol is not sufficiently volatile to render this a great source of danger, but under tropical conditions it might easily become inflammable and Com- mander Burney does not intend to fly to India until he can eliminate the petrol engine altogether. His Company has already developed a new engine (the Hydrogen-Kerosine) and Diesel engines of the necessary lightness are being experimented with : it is only a question of time before the power for airships will be derived from engines of far greater efficiency than those now in use, burning a heavy non-volatile oil.
Soon the ' R 100 ' will make her maiden trip across the Atlantic. Here is no grandiose dream of the far future, but a child of this dangerous and delightful year of grace, with all earth's sky for nursery. Bigger children of the air age will follow (the next airship will be half as big again), and England may well become carrier of the world by air as she is by sea if she will listen to those of us who see a new world to win, richer than was the Spanish Main. All civilization will be affected by what we do, or fail to dare. Steamship rates will fall, school teachers from the Middle West will fly to Europe for their fortnight's vacation, the world will emancipate itself from tariff walls, currencies, armies.
The mutterings and rumblings of this change are upon us. Time and space are being altered before our eyes, if we will but open them. It is an adventure greater than any in history. Let us not loose our sense of wonder nor stifle our admiration for the men who have made this possible. Commander Burney has prepared a thunderbolt that shall shake the world.
F. YEATS-BROWN.
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