R100’S FINE PERFORMANCE,

Hokitika Guardian, 4 October 1930, Page 8

RIOO’S FINE PERFORMANCE,

A PASSENGER’S IMPRESSIONS

LONDON, August 22

Gales, storms, rain, and fog thoroughly tested the airship IUOO on her voyage across the Atlantic, but 5i hours after leaving St. Hubert airport, Montreal, she was moored at Carding ton with 3200 gallons of fuel in her tanks. Apart from damage to the electrical cooking equipment by rain which penetrated the fabric, the flight was without accident. While refuelling after mooring, however, one or two petiol tanks broke loose and crashed through the envelope. On Sunday the airship was transferred to her shed. Mr Montagu Slater, Daily Telegraph special correspondent on the voyage says in his description of the flight that while there may be excitementmostly by implication— in the clouds, there is more interest in life below. But there is a well-grounded conviction that it is only a matter of time before transatlantic airships will be the . most commonplace things in the world.

“There was scarcely a. suspicion o' pitch or roll,” says Mr Slatei. No liner could be so steady. In the slnall hours of the stormy night I went out to do my shift at the pumps. Certainly the rain was coming through., in some places fairly heavily, but no ony seemed inconvenienced. From the beginning our lives settled into a jogtrot rhythm. We slept in cabins with two ov four bunks, just as in a. ship. Toilet arrangements were almost exa'd1v like those on an American sleeper. Meals, till tjie cooler broke down were excellent.

“Dr. Johnson called a man a foo' who went to sea without being forced, and certainly if a man 1 does not enjoy prolonged looking out of the window he will not like airship travel. In a sense what we Saw out of tire window* was the real matter of our voyage. We thought of ourselves quite simply as being in a. ship. For some reason, even at 3000 feet, we seemed to he flying low. In the control room, where the water seems so close, and the two steersmen manhandle the wheels: where the navigator marks his chart and the skipper works the engine signals (which arc of the ordinary ship's pattern) to a rattle of signal bells: and where the .light has the greenish tinge of an aquarium—why, it is as clear as this green daylight that we are on a ship’s bridge! THE WHALE. “Tl\e oddest thing was our shadow® : in the morning it would swim behind ns, but as the sun got higher it came closef below. We called it the whale —and it looked like one. except for its curious purple tinge. In the evening it went ahead—sometimes you could see it swimming along far away as though heading us back. We got so used to thinking of our whale as a whale, and of our ship as a ship, that when on Saturday morning the ship took to the land, and the whale took to jumping over hedges, it seemed wrong.

A REMARKABLE PROPOSITION. ' “It is a fine aeliievement, of which all connected with RICK) may he proud,” says the Daily Telegraph, ni a leading article, “and it is full of encouragement to go on. Tt is true that no records were broken, hut re-cord-breaking is not the first consideration, and on the homeward as on the outward run, with a little more luck of wind and weather much better times would have been accomplished. But the trip has proved that the regular air service which Sir Dennistoun Burney desires to establish between Great Britain and Canada is a realisable proposition. “Those whose one idea is to reach the other side at something better than top-most speeds may gladly endure the cramped monotony of airship travel. But, it will he long before the shipning companies need grow nervous of their new and adventurous rival.”