FAST GERMAN AIRSHIP.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1501, 25 July 1912, Page 5

FAST GERMAN AIRSHIP.

SPEED OF FIFTY MILES AN HOUR. By Telesraph—Press Association—Copyrieht Berlin, July 23. The German War Office has accepted the Zeppelin 111. This dirigible l«as a speed of 19 1-5 miles an hour, and is the fastest in the world.

WHAT AIRSHIPS CAN DO. Commenting on the flight Inst month of tho airship Zeppolin 111 from Friedrichshafen to Hamburg, the "Taegliche Rundschau" declared: "It is now a certainty that a Zeppelin ship can fly 4'.'5 sea miles and still have petrol enough on board to remain for a long time in the air. What that mean 3is immediately clear when one realises that the distance from Heligoland to Kosyth is exactly 425 sea miles. Owing to the greater stability of tho temperature at sea, the Zeppelin could, in fact, cross to Rosytli in war timo and obsevvo the gathering of British superDreadnoughts with greater easo than shecould fly up tho Rhine Valley. She could either fly back or, if she chose, hang on tho horizon for days, transmitting all that she saw to tho German coast by wireless, and float on the sea when the means of propulsion and suspension became exhausted. "Even easier would bo a reconnaisanco over Harwich, which is only 285 sea miles from Heligoland. Dover with the battleships and cruisers at Sheerness are, so to speak, only aiuexcursion flight and could be patrolled simultaneously with tho other ports. "So soon as the German Admiralty possesses four rigid airships it will be possible to scout along the whole English coast." The article concludes with a triumphant picture of a helpless fleet of British transports conveying troops across the Channel to France, with German airships circling overhead. <.T]io .utility of the airship, in another sphere was painted out at a recent'riieeting of tho Berlin Aeronautical Association by Dr. a prominent medical authority, when lecturing on the ben-, eficial effects of high altitudes on tuberculosis. Ho pointed out that fifteen minutes' exposure to the sun's rays during an airship flight at high altitude meant certain death to the tuberculosis bacilli.