MANY FAILURES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 May 1939, Page 2

MANY FAILURES

HISTORY OP AIRSHIPS MANY LIVES LOST. ZEPPELINS AND OTHER CRAFT. Some one hundred and fifty rigid or semi-rigid lighter-than-air craft have been built since the beginning of the century. Fewer than ten are now in service and not one of these is used for commercial purposes. The history of the airship, or Zeppelin, has been one of continual failure and disaster and, since the war, at least 350 lives have been lost in crashes involving only the larger type of ship. Pilatre de Rozier, the pioneer of lighter-than-air flying, braved the elements in a hot-air balloon for the first time in November, 1783, but it was not until the late 1890’s when’Alberto Santos Dumont, a young Brazilian, and Count F. von Zeppelin started their experiments that anything resembling the airship as we know it today was evolved. Zeppelin flew his first rigid ship on July 2, 1900, and continued to build and improve on them until his death in March, 1917. Dumont, however, made little progress. At the outbreak of war Germany had 30 Zeppelins in commission and 70 more were built before the close ol hostilities. A large number of these were lost in the war or scrapped before its conclusion and, when the Armistice was signed, there were only 14 large-sized fighting ships and a few first-rate commercial craft left. The Allies demanded that these be handed over to them but, following the example of Scapa Flow, six were “honourably” destroyed in their hangars by the Germans. The others were distributed to France. Italy, Belgium, Japan and England. Only those given to France —the L 72 and the LZ 113 — were ever flown again. The former, renamed the Dixmude, after capturing the world duration flight record, crashed into the Mediterranean with the loss of 52 lives.

No more airships were built in Germany until 1922 when, at a Council of Ambassadors’ meeting in Paris, Mr Lloyd George suggested that, as reparation for the six Zeppelins that were destroyed, the Zeppelin Company should build a ship for the United States, who had somehow been forgotten in the post-war distribution. The result was the Los Angeles. Delivered to America in 1924 she proved one of the most successful craft of her kind. Not until 1934 was she condemned as being unfit for further flight. In May, 1936, the Graf Zeppelin, another airworthy ship, was launched. She cost a quarter of a million pounds to build and, compared with later craft, was not very large. Encouraged by its success the Germans launched the giant Hindenburg, a vessel meastiring 803 feet long with a capacity of 6,709,660 cubic feet, in 1936. Its disastrous crash in May last year has probably spelt the end of the airship as a means of commercial transport in Germany until the United States agree to supply them with the non-inflammable gas helium, of which America has a virtual monopoly. The Zeppelin Company are still building military craft, two giant ships are now under construction, but they will be filled with hydrogen. Of the 278 lives lost in ten major airship disasters between 1920 and 1935, 99 were killed in British crashes and 129 in American. The first successful British attempt at airship building was achieved during the war when the R 33 and 34 were copied from the German L 33 which was shot down during an air raid. The R 33 made the first lighter-than-air Atlantic crossing in the spring of 1919.

The year 1921 saw the building of a large number of ships in England, but only one of them was ever flown. She was the ill-fated R 33 which was sold to America but blew up before leaving the country. Forty-four were killed, including some of the best authorities on aviation in England and America. Airship construction in England was then shelved until the R 100 and R 101 were built and launched in 1929. Costing £450,000 and £527,000 respectively they proved a costly failure for, after the tragic end of the R 101 with the loss of 48 people on October 5, 1930, her sister ship was sold as scrap. These two airships were x>f about equal size, i.e., 5,000,000 cubic feet capacity. The United States did not dabble in this mode of transport until 1922 when the Roma, a semi-rigid ship, was bought from Italy. Shortly afterwards she was ignited on a high-tension wire and 34 men died.

America’s first home-built airship, was the Shenandoah. Launched in 1923 she crashed with the loss of 14 in 1925. The Akron was the next attempt. Costing . £l,6oo,ooo—more than any airship has ever cost —and with a capacity of 6,500,000 cubic feet, she was launched in 1931 and went to her doom on April 3, 1933, with the loss of 77 lives. Nothing daunted, however, the Macon, a similar vessel, was launched a few days later only to meet the same fate in 1935. This time only two men were killed.

Apart from a few small military craft airships are no longer used in the United States.

Of the other nations France has built no large airships of her own, but Italy has had fair success with the semi-rigid type. Notable craft were the Norge and the Italia, both of which, after a number of years’ service, crashed with resultant death. Russia and Japan have also tried airship construction with no greater success and considerable loss of life. So, today, except in Germany, airship building is at a standstill. After years, generations of research and at the cost of untold millions of pounds and hundreds of lives the airship is still not a profitable or safe means of transport.