Part 5 (1/2)
An approaching cyclone, which would have made it almost impossible to handle the airs.h.i.+p at Mineola, was responsible for a rather hurried start back at midnight of Wednesday, July 9th. She visited Broadway in the midst of the midnight glare, turned over Forty-second Street a little after one o'clock in the morning, and put out to sea and her home airdrome. The voyage back was mostly with favoring winds, and she landed at Pulham, the airs.h.i.+p station in Norfolk, after 75 hours and 3 minutes of flight. The voyage back was practically without incident except for the failure of one engine, which in no way held back the airs.h.i.+p. She was turned off her course to East Fortune by reports that there were storms and head winds which might hold her back in case she kept on her way.
The voyage was probably the most significant in the history of flying. It brought home to the public the possibilities of the airs.h.i.+p for ocean commerce as nothing else could have done. The s.h.i.+p remained in the air longer than any previous airs.h.i.+p, and pointed the way clear to commercial flying. It is, in fact, only considered a matter of time before companies are started to carry pa.s.sengers and mails across the Atlantic at a price that would offer serious compet.i.tion to the fastest steams.h.i.+ps.
The airs.h.i.+p has been very much neglected by popular favor. Its physical clumsiness, its lack of sporting compet.i.tion in comparison with the airplane which must fight to keep itself up in the air, its lack of romance as contrasted with that of the airplane in war, have all tended to cast somewhat of a shadow over the lighter-than-air vessel and cause the public to pa.s.s it by without interest. It is a very real fact, therefore, that very few people realize either the services of the airs.h.i.+p in the war or its possibilities for the future.
During the war the airs.h.i.+p was invaluable in the ceaseless vigil for the submarine. England early stretched a cordon of airs.h.i.+p guards all about her coasts and crippled the U-boats' work thereby. The airs.h.i.+p had a greater range of vision and a better downward view than any sea-vessel; it could travel more slowly, watch more closely, stay out much longer, than any other vessel of the air. The British credit their airs.h.i.+ps with several successful attacks on submarines, but they give them a far greater place in causing a fear among the under-sea boats which drove them beneath the surface and greatly limited their efficiency.
The German Zeppelins, on the other hand, stand out in public imagination as a failure in the war, especially because the British shortly established an airplane barrage which proved to be their masters. This view is correct only in so far as it applies to interior raiding, for which, indeed, the Zeppelin was not designed. How untrue it is of the Zeppelin as the outpost for the German fleet British officers will readily admit. Indeed, they credit them with the escape of the German fleet at Jutland, one of the deepest regrets in British naval history. As eyes for the German fleet in the North Sea, the Zeppelins, with their great cruising range and power of endurance, proved almost invaluable.
Airs.h.i.+ps have, then, behind them a rich heritage and before them a bright future. Much work that the airplane can do they cannot do; while, on the other hand, much work that they can do the airplane cannot. The two services are essentially different and yet essentially complementary. Between them they offer nearly every facility and method of travel in the air which could be desired. Each must be equally developed in order to increase the efficiency and the value of the other.
The great difference, of course, between the airplane and the airs.h.i.+p is that the former sustains itself as a heavier-than-air vessel by the lifting power of the air in relation to a body driven hard against it by its powerful engines, while the latter sustains itself as a lighter-than-air body because of the large amount of air displaced by a huge envelop loaded with gas much lighter than the air itself. The contrast is obvious; one vessel is small, agile, and very fast; the other is slow and clumsy. The airs.h.i.+p cannot attain anything like the speed of the airplane, nor can it go so high or maneuver so quickly, but on the other hand, at least for the immediate present, it can stay afloat very much longer and carry much greater weight.
Moreover, the airs.h.i.+p has certain other easily perceptible advantages over the airplane. Ordinarily an airs.h.i.+p need not fly at much more than a thousand feet, which not only makes far less cold traveling than at higher alt.i.tudes, but also allows the pa.s.sengers to enjoy the view far better than from an airplane, whence the world below looks like a dull contour map. An airs.h.i.+p also flies on an even keel; it does not bank as an airplane does nor does it climb or descend so quickly.
At present airs.h.i.+p travel gives a greater feeling of comfort and security. Sleeping is a calm experience; moving about comparatively simple. Also there is less noise than in an airplane where the engines beat incessantly and the wind rushes through the wires and struts. An airs.h.i.+p has no wires and can at the same time slow down and even shut off its engine, so that it need be no more noisy than a motor-car.
Engine failure also is not so serious as in an airplane, for the gas-bag will always keep the s.h.i.+p up until there has been a chance for repairs.
Up to the present, too, the airs.h.i.+p is less of a fair-weather flier than the airplane. A surprising record has been attained in the war by British airs.h.i.+ps, as is shown by the fact that in 1918, a year of execrable weather, there where only nine days during which their vessels were not up. This is, of course, in considerable contrast to airplanes as at present developed, but it may reasonably be expected that the latter will very soon develop to the same point of independence of the weather.
Of course, the great difficulty of airs.h.i.+ps has been their ungainly size and the difficulty of housing them. The sheds, particularly those for the Zeppelins, have been most costly, but the British have recently developed a system of mooring masts which make much of this expense unnecessary. If such a device can be successfully put into every-day use it will enormously increase the ease of loading and unloading pa.s.sengers, which now makes for considerable discomfort and loss of time.
Some of the plans for future airs.h.i.+ps are unbelievable to one who has not followed their development carefully. Already there is planned in England a monster s.h.i.+p known as the ”ten million,” for the reason that it will have a gas capacity of ten million cubic feet, over four times that of the largest Zeppelin. The length is placed at 1,100 feet, the speed at 95 miles an hour, the cruising range 20,000 miles, and the cost at about $1,000,000. As a matter of actual practice, however, the best division of the s.p.a.ce and lifting power of this airs.h.i.+p would be for it to carry a crew of about 20, a useful load of 200 pa.s.sengers or 150 tons of merchandise, and 50 tons of petrol, which would give it a non-stop run of about 5,000 miles.
Airs.h.i.+p travel would undoubtedly be expensive. The gas alone to maintain such a vessel as described is expected to cost about $30 an hour, which, added to the original investment for the s.h.i.+p and its house and the wages of the crew and the 200 or more skilled men at each station, would come up to a high figure. At the same time, the airs.h.i.+p would not afford the element of very high speed which is so certain to justify any expense which may have to be put into the airplane. Nevertheless, with the improvements that are sure to come, with the ability to reach places not touched by other methods of travel, the freedom from all the delays, inconveniences, and expense of trans-s.h.i.+pment, this preliminary charge will be largely compensated for.
Those who sponsor the airs.h.i.+p urge that it will be used almost exclusively for long-distance flights beyond the range of the ordinary airplane and very little for short local flights. For transatlantic travel, for instance, it is being particularly pressed, as s.h.i.+ps even of to-day have all the capacity for such a voyage, without the dangers which might surround an airplane if its sustaining engine power were to give out.
There are several records which would easily justify it. Besides the flight across the Atlantic by the R-34 and the four-day trip of the German airs.h.i.+p from Bulgaria to Africa and back, a British airs.h.i.+p during the war stayed up for 50 hours and 55 minutes, and another, just after the armistice, stayed up for 61 hours. An American naval dirigible a short time after the armistice made a flight from New York to Key West, 1,200 miles, at 40 miles an hour, for 29-1/2 hours, with one stop at Hampton Roads. As an example of some of the difficulties of airs.h.i.+p travel, this landing was possible only after the s.h.i.+p had circled the town and dropped a message asking the people to go to a large field near by and catch the dirigible drag-net when it approached the ground. Even at that, however, the time of less than a day and a quarter for what is usually a very arduous train trip from New York down the coast to Florida gives some indication of the possibilities of this method of travel when properly developed.
Practically all the new airs.h.i.+ps contemplated look to a much greater speed than the pre-war speed of about 40 miles an hour. It is not at all uncertain that they will not run up as high as 100 miles, though at the present time that figure is extreme. But granted that they no more than double the pre-war speed and reach the actual figure contemplated of about 75 miles an hour, they still would triple the best pa.s.senger-steamer speed, which would make them a matter of the utmost importance in all long ocean voyages.
Just how the balance will be struck between airplanes and airs.h.i.+ps is a big question. It is interesting to note, however, that the supporters of the airs.h.i.+p have worked out a general theory that the lighter-than-air vessel with its already demonstrated cruising and weight-carrying capacity will be used for all long routes, and for that almost exclusively, while the heavier-than-air vessel, with its great speed and facility for maneuvering, will be used for local flights. This, in their viewpoint, would mean that the world would be girded by great lanes of airs.h.i.+ps, fed from a few main centers by swift-scurrying airplanes radiating in from every direction.
IX
THE CALL OF THE SKIES
The day of the air has undoubtedly come. The old order of the world has been entirely changed. A new life is breaking in over the near horizon. Almost in a moment the span of the world has shrunk to a quarter of its former size, so that where before we thought in terms of countries very soon we must think in terms of continents. The world is shortly to be linked up as it never has been before, till the great continents are brought as near as were the near-by nations of the past years.
Any one who doubts the future of aviation should realize the helplessness of the science after the armistice because of the complete lack of international laws to make possible its application in Europe, where it was most highly developed. With men and machines ready, they had to hold to the ground largely because there was in force no treaties a.s.suring them the right to cross frontiers. The broad plans for international routes were held up because aviation itself was so big in its expanse that it could not meet its just fulfilment within national lines.
As a result a new law must be written. The law of the air will be one of the most intricate and the most fascinating in the world. It presents problems never before presented and covers a scope paralleled only by the laws of the sea. Very fortunately, however, aerial international law may be written at the very start of the science by a common international standard and practice, thus obviating the greatest part of the divergences which long years of habit have grafted into the maritime laws of the various nations. The slate is clean so that uniformity may be a.s.sured in a law which is soon to come into the most vital touch with the daily lives of the nations.
Who, for instance, owns the air above the various nations? Obviously the individual landowner has rights, especially as to freedom from damage. The nation also has rights, especially for its protection and for police work. How high, however, does this jurisdiction go? Some a.s.sert that a maximum alt.i.tude should be set, say five thousand feet, above which the air would be as free as the seas; others that each nation must have unqualified control to the limit of the ether.
Then comes the question of pa.s.sports, customs, registration, safety precautions, and damages. As already shown, the man on the ground is helpless against the airplane which chooses to defy him. People and goods can cross national lines by the air without pa.s.sports or customs. There will be no main ports of entry as in sea or train commerce, and it is too much to think that any nation can patrol its whole aerial frontier in all its various air strata. Undesirable immigrants or small precious freight can be smuggled in with the greatest ease through the route of the air.