AIRSHIP OR PLANE?

Evening Star, Issue 20061, 29 December 1928, Page 11

AIRSHIP OR PLANE?

THE TWO COMPARED What arc tho possibilities of international or interstate airship services in the near future? (asks the Melbourne ‘ Age ’). Tho recent flight of tho Graf Zeppelin across tho Atlantic has again turned attention to this question. In the opinion of those whose business it is to watch developments of the sort on behalf of Australia, tho chances of flying to Sydney or Brisbane aboard some Leviathan of tho air in tin's generation are remote. The outlook for international travel by airship is considerably brighter. The aeroplane is heavy and steady, but the “ blimp ” must always be built for lightness.' Jn its delicate tracery of duralumin spars, none of them thicker than a man’s arm, it is a miracle of engineering skill, the human counterpart of the spider’s web, but of what use is a spider’s web when a feather duster brushes it?

Possibly nobody in Australia is competent to express a weighty opinion on the potentialities of the airship. What little is known about these -craft is largely in the hands and heads of the Germans. There are many knotty problems to be overcome. For instance, what increase in strains and stresses will be set up as the result of increasing speed from seventy-five miles an hour (which airships have not exceeded in the past) to IU(J miles is entirely in realms of conjecture, for no useful tests can be made which might shed light on tho problem. The airship, much more than the aeroplane, is dependent on the meteorologist. Tho plane can meet a hurricane of 100 miles an hour with little more strain than would be set up in still air. lb may literally stand still in raid-air unable to make headway, but, while it is doing so it is coming to no harm. On the other hand, any violent disturbance such as a typhoon is likely to _ shatter the strongest airship ever built. But with timely forewarning an airship should generally be able to avoid tho worst storm centres.

Certainly not until 1931 will airships make the attempt from England to Australia. Much will depend on the trials of the two super-airships, RIOO and 11101, which are now nearing completion in England. Test flights on shorter routes—i.e., from England to Egypt, and from Egypt to Karachi and Natal, must come before the Australian flight is attempted. With these satisfactorily accomplished Australia will probably be asked to participate in the trials to this country. Meanwhile valuable data as to the behaviour of airships in similar conditions will doubtless have been gleaned from the Spaniards, who will shortly inaugurate transAtlantic services to Brazil and the Argentine, using German-made crafty for the purpose. The question , of_ initial cost alone renders the airship impracticable for inter-Sfcate transport. It is understood that the combined inclusive cost of the 11100 and RlOl will be £1,000,000. The safest gas for airships, because non-inflammable, is helium, which is found in commercial quantities only in the United States. Regular airship services here would have to make use of hydrogen, an inflammable gas, which would greatjy increase the risks of travel. It is an axiom in aviation practice that for distances under 5,000 miles the airship cannot rival the aeroplane. It is at greater distances! that the lightcr-than-air comes into its own. But whether engineers will be able to build into its slender struts sufficient strength to withstand the furious onslaught of a roaring hurricane remains to bo seen. Australia will watch developments carefully. But though Cabinet has already indicated its interest in the subject, there is slight prospect that in the next few years the Commonwealth will take anything more than a watching role in the evolution of the airship.