R101'S DESIGN CONDEMNED

Hokitika Guardian, 11 October 1930, Page 8

RlOl'S DESIGN CONDEMNED

DRASTIC CRITICISM. NAVAL ARCHITECT’S WARNINGS. OF THREE YEARS AGO. In view of the disaster that , has overtaken the RlOl it is interesting to scan a volume published three years ago by a noted English naval architect. Wholesale condemnation of the design of the ship is to be found in the book, which is.call “This Airship Business/' by E. F. Spanner, of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors (retired), anu member of the Institution of Naval Architects. In 1927 he read a papei on “The Case Against the Airship’’ before the Institute of Marine Engineers, and when no action followed, he said: “The seriousness of the position andi'the deliberate refusal of the An Ministry to attempt to justify their adventure on technical grounds has led me .to the conclusion that I must make yet further effort to awaken technical men to .a true knowledge of the character of ‘this .airship business,’ notwithstanding the apparent hopelessness of expecting to achieve anything by a frontal attack upon a Government Department.” The author contends in his book that the experiments in airships that had been carried on at Home were simpLy so much waste of money. He holds that the airship 'cannot stand up against heavy weather, and that any idea of a commercial service is out of the question at the present time. The use of airships in war is on a different footing. “We know why Germany built airships in the pre-war days,” says Mr Spanner. “It was not to make them a commercial proposition. They- never have -been a commercial, proposition, and never will be. The Germans have certainly never claimed a (commercial success for their small airships—they knew the truth.” VARYING EXPANSIONS. Criticising the construction of the RlOl, Mr Spanner wrote: —“A combination of duralumin frames and stainless steel .girder-work does not appeal to be as at all a sound proposition, and that for. the very simple but fundamental reason that ‘the co-effi-cient expansion of duralumin is nearly twice that of steel’ .... For the me I cannot understand how it will -be possible to combine these two materials -so that the effect of their different degrees of expansion will be entirely eliminated. . ! . . If they are not entirely eliminated the eventual fate of RlOl is determined before she leaves the ground.” Another point on which Mr Spanner condemned the RlOl was the size of the “panels,” that is to say, the size of the areas of fabric between the metal frames. He said that in the R3B the biggest panel would he about 10 square feet, whereas in the RlOl there would he panels getting on for 1800 square feet. The big panels on; the RlOl would be much larger thananything on the German airships, and. necessarily a source of weakness. Mr. Spanner goes on to say, “In RIOO and RlOl the designers appear to have thrown discretion to the winds, for, in my opinion, it is obvious that panels of doped fabric, having a practically unsupported area ten times greater than the similar panels in earlier rigids, must fail when they are called upon to stand air pressures which are to he appreciably higher than those met with, in the earlier ships. “COURTING DISASTER.” “It is courting disaster to expect a panel of 1800 square feet in area to stand up to heavy wind and air pressures. This point has been entirely overlooked by the new airship ‘experts’ Such is my considered opinion. I cannot believe that any attention whatever has been given to this point, or its tremendous importance must have been recognised. “I am of .opinion that the first time RIOO or RlOl is flown at speed, or the first time eithfer airship is tethered to a mast, whether single-point, or bridle fashion, the envelope will be torn to ribbons by the first severe gust that hits the ship. The biggest panel in any other shjp has not, I believe, exceeded 180 square feet. The panels in the new German airship are not appreciably larger than those in the earlier ships.” Later on in the book he said : “Our airships will be filled with hydrogen. There is no known device by which it is possible to ensure that the formation of an explosive mixture within, or adjacent to the outside of. the main- envelope shall fbe certainly prevented. Such an explosive mixture may be ignited by the spark from an electrical discharge, the necessary difference of .potential to cause such discharge resulting from one of several different sets of circumstances;” Mr Spanner contends emphatically that any airship coming to earth inadvertently would probably become a total wreck. “T do not see how it is remotely possible to ensure against this in RIOO and R 101,” he writes, “for in both cases the practical elimination of the keel girders, and the taking up into • the hull of all the external structures by means of which it has always .been possible, hitherto, to control and-grapple an airship coming to earth.owing!to loss of buoyancy, must render the problem of doing anything at all with these new airships one of most extraordinary difficulty, I wonder if any consideration has..been, bestowed upon this question?”