Airship Travel

Hokitika Guardian, 10 February 1922, Page 4

Airship Travel

POSsfflßfUs' OF IIvIMuAL

SERVICES,

■ J ' (•;-< r.‘l i AUSTRALIAN AND N.Z. CABLE ASSOCIATION.

• LONDON, Feb. C. ( . Major J. H. Scott ,of the Royal Air Force, in a paper read before the Air Ministry’s Conference, expressed tlie opinion that, without awaiting further improvements, airships were now technically capable of us e for commercial and defence purposes, and. that, given provision of bases and mooring masts, the airship was the most promising means of solving the . vital, problem of speeding iip Imperial communication. A regular seryiep to India via. figypt 'could bo immediately operated when bases were provided. The available meteorological data- did pot justify a definite opinion as to whether equal regularity could be maintained with Australia, though the genera] weather conditions between India and Australia offered no special difficulties. The establishment of an Imperial chain of airship bases and mooring masts would be’com e a most vital factor in national defence, particularly in connection with naval operations, the protection of trade routes, and possibly as fighting machines superior to aeroplanes and as aircraft carriers. The cessation of airship research would lie false economy, because the progress which other countries wer 0 certain to make in the next-two years would necessarily entail the revival of British experiments at much greater cost than they could be carried out now. The position demanded that even- effort should be made to finance an Imperial chain of bases. Tf Australia was unable to finance the Inst stage they ought to concentrate on tbo link between England and India.

Major Scott advocated airships of a capacity of 2.500,000' cubic feet, giving a gross lift of 75 tons, enpable of carrying 35 passengers, besides seven tons of mails by non-stop journeys of 2000 miles at 50 miles an hour. Ho pointed out that the R. 38 was constructed in 1918 when military needs demanded a high “ceiling” in order to outfly the Germans. This reduced the margin of safety. Commercial machines were not subject to this condition, and therefore they would be safer.