VII
So far I have spoken only of heavier-than-air flying-machines. There is also the airship to which many people pin their faith for future long-distance air-transport.
The airship was neglected in England after the War because experience seemed to show that it was incapable of playing a useful part in warfare. Its revival was chiefly due to Commander Burney, who continually drew attention to his conviction that the airship could be made a safe and successful long-distance air-transport vehicle.
Most airship advocates believe in the bigger the better theory. If the gas-capacity of an airship is doubled, the disposable lift may be quadrupled, and the size will be only about 1.3 times that of the smaller vessel. For this reason the two English airships now being built are each of 5,000,000 cu. ft. gas-capacity. One is being built by the Government, the other for the Government to Commander Burney’s general design.
These airships have provided matter for many speeches on Empire air-ship-routes of the future. At the recent Imperial Conference airships were spoken of as the right vessels for long-distance air-lines. These forecasts are based on slender foundations.
Since 1914 only one successful commercial airship-service has been run. The ‘Bodensee’ in 1919 made 103 trips between Berlin and Friedrichshafen and carried 2450 passengers. Those 103 trips seem to be an insecure basis upon which to build calculations about voyages halfway round the world. The new airships may go from England to Egypt in 2½ days, and from England to Melbourne in 12½ days, but nothing has occurred in airship-development to strengthen the probability of such events. The two new airships are nothing more than a gigantic experiment.
I must make some unpleasant remarks about airships, but, before doing so, it is necessary to record admiration of the English airship policy. I do not agree with the man with a genius for mixed metaphor who described the airship scheme as the “thin edge of the white elephant”. On the contrary, in initiating this experiment the Government has shown imagination and daring. Airship enthusiasts are to have an opportunity of testing their theories. If the experiment is a hopeless failure no money and no time will have been wasted, for the knowledge gained will be of value in directing future aeronautical development.
But to the question: Will the airship become the long-distance air vehicle of the future? I answer No.
I base my view on an examination of airship history and on the opinions of airship pilots. Upon that basis the probable future of the 5,000,000 cu. ft. vessels will be this:
The first one to be completed will make a first flight, and come to its 200 ft. mooring mast successfully. For several months it will cruise periodically, and minor structural modifications will be made. It will fly to India and back. Paying passengers will be accepted, and after considerable delay the first long-distance passenger-flight will be flown. Some two or three years after the airship comes from its shed, it will meet with disaster.
More airships will be designed and built, larger still than those now building. There will be another disaster.
By then the heavier-than-air machine in the moving-wing and fixed-wing forms, will have proved itself capable of doing all that airships can do and doing it more safely, more quickly, more regularly, and more cheaply. The airship will gradually disappear, and its place will be taken by the heavier-than-air craft, as the balloon is gradually disappearing and its place being taken by the airship.
There is only one major difference between balloon and airship, a difference in the amount of control exercised by the airman. The same difference exists between airship and aeroplane. The aeroplane is the more controllable. It can rise and descend with less preliminary juggling; it can turn more quickly; and it can land more quickly.
In support of my pessimistic forecast I append a brief outline of air-ship-history.
Lighter-than-air man-carrying flight started in 1783 when Pilâtre de Rozier, the world’s first aeronaut, went up in a Montgolfier balloon. In the same year a hydrogen filled balloon flew from Paris to Nesle. In the following year an oblong balloon propelled by parasols as oars was made by the Duc de Chartres.
In 1852 a small airship propelled by a steam engine was made. In 1882 Tissandier’s airship worked by an electric motor was flown, and in 1884 the airship ‘La France’ was flown. Count Zeppelin built his first airship in 1900. Santos Dumont constructed an airship, and, in 1902, flew it round the Eiffel Tower.
It will be seen that the airship has passed through a longer period of development than the heavier-than-air flying-machine, even if the claim that Clement Ader flew in 1897 be accepted. Lighter-than-air flight, indeed, dates back to 1783.
The result of that longer development period is not such as to warrant too sanguine a belief in the airship’s future. The accidents to non-rigids and rigids have been many in proportion to the number of vessels actually flown.
The last type of non-rigid built in England was the North Sea type, one of which was destroyed by lightning soon after the War. Nine people were killed. Among the rigids, R.34, which made the double Atlantic crossing, was damaged beyond repair in 1921. R.33 has had many adventures, among them being her break-away from the mooring-mast in 1925. This was hailed as a proof of the safety of airships. R.33 is still alive, though she is treated with the respect due to her age.
R.36, the first British airship to be adapted for commercial purposes, is still in existence though not in service. R.38 broke up over the Humber in 1921 and forty-four people were killed.
The U.S.A. have the ‘Los Angeles’, which is the name now given to the German designed and built ZR.3. The ‘Shenandoah’ broke away from her mast in 1924, and was destroyed in 1926. According to survivors’ stories, the ‘Shenandoah’ was wrecked by the same kind of vertical air-currents that wrecked an early Zeppelin in 1913. In all, nine American airships have perished violently since the War.
The French ‘Dixmude’ was the ex-Zeppelin L.72. She created a world’s record in 1923, and then disappeared off Sicily with all hands (54 people).
Considering how few large airships have been built, and how short a time they are, on the average, kept in service, the proportion of serious accidents is high. In war that proportion is prohibitively high.
The Zeppelin works have turned out more rigid airships than any factory in the world. The fate of every Zeppelin airship completed since 1915 was recently given in a French technical paper. I do not vouch for the figures, but they come from a fairly reliable source. Out of 76 airships no fewer than 37 (or nearly 50%) were put out of service before they had completed one year’s work. Only four airships were kept in service for more than three years. This is the record of the firm which knows more about airships than any other firm in the world. Yet airships have had longer to develop than aeroplanes.
How can an airship be said to be superior to a fixed-wing aeroplane? It can hover, it has a longer range, it provides a higher degree of comfort for its passengers. How is it inferior to a fixed-wing aeroplane? It is slower, it requires more elaborate ground organization, it is less controllable. Since the moving-wing aircraft is, as yet, far from fully developed, I leave it out of discussion.
The argument that an aeroplane is always using a part of its power for lifting is counterbalanced by the argument that an airship is always using a part of its power for driving its bulk against the wind. An airship cannot stand still and use no power. There is always some wind at a height, and the airship must either use power or drift. An airship with all its engines stopped is as helpless as an aeroplane with all its engines stopped. The aeroplane, while gliding, still retains a large measure of controllability, and the pilot can select its landing ground within 50 yards. The airship has less controllability when its engines are stopped. Its commander would be lucky if he could select its landing ground within 50 miles.
It is right that the airship should have every chance to develop. If it prove successful, so much the better. I do not think it will prove successful. If it is made to work, it will be at more than ten times the cost in money and lives, at which heavier-than-air machines have been made to work.
Sometimes it seems regrettable that even a small part of the sums spent on developing airships cannot be spent on developing the passenger-carrying aeroplane.
I will give airships the last word by recalling that Sir George Cayley in 1816 expressed his belief that airships would eventually prove the most efficient and safest means of air travel, and by quoting Dr Eckener:
“A modern airship”, said Dr Eckener, “is at least as capable in heavy weather as a modern aeroplane. A storm will never have more effect than delaying or speeding a trip, and it can become directly dangerous only inasmuch as it may delay the voyage beyond the reach of fuel supply.”