YE "BIRDS" OF WAR!

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 378, 15 July 1911, Page 6

YE "BIRDS" OF WAR!

The launch of the British naval airship, the first of the projected fleet of aerial Dreadnoughts, attracted a great deal of attention at Barrow. The ship had been built in a large shed and guarded jealously day and night by armed marines, so that no unauthorised person had been able to get a glimpse of it prior to the launch. Bugles sounded at dawn on May 22nd, and a sail cloth screen was withdrawn from one end of the shed, which had been built over a dock. It was seen that the polished gondolas which depended from the huge cigar-shaped gasbag were resting lightly on the water. Presently the ship began to move out of the shed amid gasps of astonishment from the crowd. Its length was seen to be over 500 feet, and the largest diameter about 50 feet. "Beneath the enormously long green-ish-grey body," wrote a newspaper correspondent, "could be seen the polished gondolas where two or three naval lieutenants were moving amidst webs of ropes and wires and tubing, giving instructions to the crews of the boats tendering the aircraft. The whole thing suggested Julea Verne; the birth of his queer, shining monster with its semi-transparent skin, blunt nose and fish-like body and fins seemed something too fantastic to be quite credible." Sailors were clambering about the sides of the airship, and the spectators realised that they were watching no mere balloon of billowing silk. The frame has been built of duralumin, the new alloy which gives the strength of steel with onethird its weight, and it was absolutely rigid. The Lows had been specially strengthened, so that the full force of a gale may be faced with confidence. The Admiralty authorities stated that no flight was contemplated until the engines had been tested thoroughly and the behaviour of the ship while at moorings ascertained by experiment. The craft is essentially of a naval type, and its resting place is to be on the water. It will be anchored to a post in the harbour, so that it may swing freely and keep its head to the wind.