TIT-BITS ABOUT ZEPPELINS.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 132, 14 January 1916, Page 2 (Supplement)

TIT-BITS ABOUT ZEPPELINS.

These hoop girder.- divide the skeleton of the airship into a scries of compartments, in each of which is fitted a gasbag. i * * * The central idea is that if one g-i-- ' bug springs a leak, or is punctured I y : n procetilo, only that one bag eollaps- ! es, and the weighting of the ship is so arranged, .-ays Mr. C. G. Grey Editor of the 'Aeroplane,' in the 'Daily New-, that even if four or five gasbags are entirely deflated, the remainder are enough to float the ship when all ballast, ammunition, and other non-essen-tials have been thrown overboard. i # *• * The outside covoi ng of a Zeppelin ts treated with "dope" or varnish, which makes it impervious to water, light, or petrol, and practically fireproof. ##* ' # A Zeppelin has four propellers, each driven through a long shaft and bevel gearing by a separate engine, so that each can be worked, or can be stopped, independently of the others'. This not only adds to ense in manoeuvring, but is a safeguard in case of one or more engines or propellers being damaged. , The most advanced type of Zeppelin built before the war was the Lll. which was built at. Johannisthal in October of I9l;l. This ship was 540 ft. long and 40ft. in diameter at her deepest point. * * # Her speed was between forty-five and fifty mdes an hour, and her theoretical longest journey without replenishing gas or fuel was 600 to 70(1 miles. * * * * Her total lifting-power was about thirty ton-, and her own weight complete was twenty-five tons, leaving a " useful" lift of five tons, which would have to include her petrol and oil for the engines, her crew, all their suppl'e- and equipment, the wirelo.-s plant, machine-guns and their ammnn. . ition, bomb-dropping gear, and bomb l ;. * * "" * In the more modern ships the engines are said to be of 1,000 horsepower, and the higher power, combined with small refinement- in the ships themselves, is said to have put the speed up to over sixty miles an hour.