TO AMERICA BY AIR
By E. N. B. BENTLEY IWONDER how many people realise that in 1919 (eight years before Col. Lindbergh's flight) several dozen men had already flown across the Atlantic. The first flight, via the Azores, was made in May by Lieut.- Commander Read and his crew in U.S. naval flying boat. In June, 1919, Alcock and Whitten-Brown, flying a Vickers Vimy aeroplane, made the first non-stop flight across the Atlantic ; and in July Captain G. H. Scott and 29 others flew to New York and back in the airship R.34.
Once the Atlantic had been flown the next obvious, although far distant, stage was the establishment of regular passenger and mail services between Europe and North America. In the seventeen years which have passed, air travel has increased in a manner which nonebut the most optimistic could have visualised, but the North Atlantic is still without a regular air service ; although England and the United States are now preparing for experimental flights with flying boats.
A careful study of a map of the world's air lines will show the fundamental reason for this hiatus over the Atlantic. The air services connect the big towns and cities, so that every three or four hundred miles the air liner can land and take on fuel. The shortest distance across the Atlantic, from Ireland to Newfoundland, is about 1,700 miles ; which is well beyond the 'range of existing commercial aeroplanes. There are a few types which could fly that distance by sacrificing most of their "pay-load" and carrying extra petrol in place of passengers and goods. But an aeroplane which carries nothii g but -its crew and its fuel ceases to be a commercial aircraft. Various schemes, such as refuelling in the air, floating seadromes ." and so on have been evolved for over- coming this difficulty of long-range commercial flying ; but a practicable idea has yet to be tried.
Both Germany and France now run flying-boat services across the rather shorter and easier South Atlantic route, from West Africa to Brazil. Even so, this means a very long oversea crossing, especially for aircraft which cannot keep flying if one engine fails. Each of these lines has .suffered from the inevitable tragedy of a flying boat which set out on its journey and has never been seen again. The skill and courage of the men who fly over this route command the highest admiration ; but the fact remains that these services are far from being true commercial aviation.
For technical reasons, which cannot be explained in en article of this length, an airship has a far greater range than the heavier-than-air craft and is the obvious vessel for long-distance ocean travel. The airship Hindenburg,' with enough fuel and to spare for the three thousand mile journey from Frankfurt to New York, can carry a pay-load (consisting of 50 passengers, mail and goods) of 19 tons.
Considered on its technical merits alone, the airship should play. a far greater part in the development of commercial aviation than it does at present. Unfor- tunately there are other factors to be taken into account, the most powerful of which is public opinion ; and it is fear which is holding back the progress of the airship. Most people still think of airships and disaster in the Same breath, so to speak ; and until this attitude of mind can be altered, the technical merits of the airship might just as well not exist. The regular and uneventful voyagings of the ' Graf Zeppelin ' and the ' Hindenburg ' are beginning to have some effect in changing the public attitude towards airship travel, but it is a slow process.
The- airship, when considered as a passenger-Carrier and not a war-machine, has a far better record of safely than any other modern means of transport ; and it is the only one which can claim that it has never killed a single paying passenger. Sonic accidents, although not due to war-time action, have occurred to airships built for war purposes ; and in some of these cases risks have been deliberately taken in the design and flying of tiv airship in order to obtain the maximum performance. Another factor which is very likely to lead to trouble is flying an airship with an inexperienced crew ; if it is a new experimental airship the risk is all the greater ; and if in addition the crew fly it into the centre of a storm when they don't know how to handle it, there are all the essentials for a spectacular crash. Sometimes an airship may prove to be unsatisfactory on its first flights, and yet the crew will risk flying it in order to find out and remedy the defects. The 8.101 disaster was partly due to this cause.
This may seem an alarming list of possible dangers, but the whole point is that they are all due to ciretinistar c2s which could not arise in a regular commercial service. Consider the record of Germany's civil airships ; over .50,000 passengers carried without a fatal accident, and many of them in the early days of the airship, beforz the War. For two or three years the Graf Zeppelin ' In :; been running every summer a regular foemightly service between Germany and South America. This airship is eight years old and has well over three-quarters of a million miles to its credit ; and all that accumulated experience has been made use of in the ' Hindenburg,' which is in almost every respect a big improvement on the ' Graf Zeppelin.'
To return to the subject of future Atlantic air services ; the first essential is the ability to carry a reasonable number of passengers. As a minimum the total weight of passengers and goods carried should at least equal the weight of fuel on board, otherwise the service could not pay its way without an impossibly extravagant subsidy. None of the flying boats to be used by England or the United States in the projected flights are capable of carry- ing a reasonable pay-load over this distance ; and in this respect the airship is almost immeasurably superior. The second and equally essential requirement is safety ; and here again the trans-Atlantic airship has an unequalled record. Speed is the third requirement ; in this respect the aeroplane and flying boat have a big advantage over the airship. But speed, without pay-load or safety, is quite useless for commercial aviation. The flying boats now being built cannot carry more than a few passengers teross the Atlantic, neither can they provide the comfort of the airship ; and they have yet to prove the absolutely essential qualification of safety over 3,000 miles of ocean. If our designers can succeed in building com- mercially successful flying boats at least three times as big as our latest, then the airship may be outclassed. But a knowledge of the technical difficulties involved indicates that such a possibility is extremely remote.
Ten years ago our Government laid before the Imperial Conference a scheme for an Empire airship service which was well received by the Dominions ; and airship mooring- masts were erected in England, Canada, Egypt and India. It is not too late for us to start again ; the designers, builders and most of the crew of our successful airship R.I00 are still here. At the present stage of the world's aeronautical development; and for many years to come, the airship provides the only solution to the problem of long-distance ocean travel ; and no nation needs such services more than England and the British Empire.
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