MAMMOTH AIRSHIP

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 816, 9 November 1929, Page 11

MAMMOTH AIRSHIP

INTERIOR OF RlOl LIKE HUGE HOTEL SEVENTH OF A MILE LONG When the RlOl, the State-owned passenger airship which has just been completed after three years* incessant work, was revealed to members of the public for the first time, they stood gazing up at it in silence. Its size was staggering. This mammoth flying hotel, which, with the sister ship RIOO, may cost more than £2,000,000. It is about as high as the Nelson Column In Trafalgar Square; has the circumference of Piccadilly Circus; is one-seventh of a mile long, and has four stabilising fins at the tail, each almost as large as a tennis court and twice as thick as the body of the winning Schneider Trophy seaplane. I climbed up a ladder into the huge hull and lost myself in a maze of corridors and staircases, says a

“Daily Mail” writer. In the passenger quarters, which resemble those of a liner, I found a white and gold diningroom with flower-decked tables, lighted by great windows at one side, and served by two lifts from the kitchen below. Pictures on Walls

I passed to a lounge as spacious as that of many big hcftels. It ran right across the ship, and at either end was a verandah. Pictures on the walls gave the room a restful and solid appearance. It seemed absurd to imagine it floating away to Egypt or India. Close by were the white corridors from which opened the tiny twoberth cabins. Down below, on the “ground floor,” was the smokingroom, with a metal floor as a safeguard against fire; the electric kitchen; and the crew’s quarters. The RlOl is a State airship, but not a military one, and on its first flights Major G. H. Scott, the commander, his officers, and the crew will all wear civilian clothes. Probably the only man in uniform on board will be the chief steward, Mr. A. H. Savidge, who was steward in the R 36. Among the instruments in the control cabin there hangs a beautiful reproduction of an old painting of a saint hovering iu the air. This picture was given to the airship by somebody who had brought it from Italy and said that it represented “The Lady of the Fair Winds.”