5 JUNE 1909, Page 2

Count Zeppelin has eclipsed all his previous achievements in the

remarkable flight which began at 9.45 p.m. on Saturday evening and lasted nearly forty hours. Starting from Friedrichshafen, he sailed to Leipzig rid Ulm, Nuremberg, Bayreuth, and Zwickau. Turning south from Bitterfeld, about noon on Monday he was obliged to land for fresh supplies of petrol at Goppingen, east of Stuttgart and north of Ulm. Unluckily, at the moment of landing on hilly ground, a gust of wind drove the ship against a tree, ripping the envelope and damaging the aluminium framework. Although the weather is described as not specially favourable, Count Zeppelin succeeded in covering nearly nine hundred miles in about thirty-eight hours, which works out at an average speed of about twenty-four miles an hour. The superior efficiency of the airship over the aeroplane is strikingly illustrated by the fact that he carried a crew of ten men. The untoward accident which befel Count Zeppelin does not impair the significance of a very remarkable achievement, and, as it was, with the aid of a company of sappers the airship was sufficiently repaired to enable it to start on Tuesday afternoon, and reach Friedrichs- hafen early next morning.