Zeppelin

“ One's first sight of the interior of a deflated Zeppelin—in an inflated one the bulging ballonettes obstruct the view considerably—is quite as impressive in its way as the premier survey of it from the outside. No 'tween decks prospect in the largest ship afloat, cut down as it is by bulkheads, offers a fifth of the unbroken sweep of vision that one finds opened before him as he [143] climbs up inside the tail of a modern airship. ”

“ Unfortunately the men manning our searchlights below kept one of their beams upon us as well as another upon the Zeppelin, and I must confess that both Teddy and I, in our excitement, consigned them to a place with an atmosphere slightly warmer than the one we were at that moment experiencing. It seemed as though the anti-aircraft gunners, knowing the airship to be now out of range, were seized by a sudden curiosity to see what we were doing chasing the Zeppelin away as we gradually rose above it. ”

“ The Zeppelin from its position 1,000 feet or more above the water, in clear weather, has a tremendous range of vision; the horizon is about 40 miles distant, as compared with approximately 8 miles in the case of the torpedo-boat. Of course an object, such as a battleship, may be detected at a far greater range. Consequently the German naval programme is to send the Zeppelin a certain distance ahead of the battleship squadron. ”

“ It seems that the Zeppelin had profited by the mist to slip by our watchers at the front, and had reached the very outskirts of the city before it was sighted by the air guards of Paris. The Boches dropped several bombs near the Gare du Nord and in the vicinity of Le Bourget. Then they had vanished into the mist. "How could they ever find the railway-station in the dark?" I asked. "That's easy," he answered. "The Zeppelins are equipped with a small observation-car that hangs down on a long cable. It is built something like an aeroplane and travels about five thousand feet below the dirigible. ”

“ As the weeks passed by and the months, and still no Zeppelins came, the menace became a jest. The very word of Zeppelin was heard with hilarity. There were comic articles in the newspapers, taunting the German Count who had made those gas-bags. There were also serious articles proving the impossibility of a raid by airships. They would be chased by French aviators as soon as they were sighted. They would be like the Spanish Armada, surrounded by the little English warships, pouring shot and shell into their unwieldy hulks. Not one would escape down the wind. ”

“ But, fortunately for those of us who live in London, a Zeppelin is so huge and unwieldy that it can only be started with considerable difficulty, and it cannot alight and fly up again as can an aeroplane. Moreover, it requires an enormous shed for its protection when it is not in the air, for on land it is a very helpless machine. ”

“ Commencing in 1908 Zeppelin devoted his energies to perfecting aircraft. There were many epoch making achievements, not only the record flights and increasing efficiency and performance tests but continuous discoveries and inventions no less important and significant because they were for the time being accomplished within the walls of laboratory and factory. ”

“ Route of the Zeppelin L-59
One of the first flights, under the new organization, was that of the new Zeppelin Z-1, April 1st, 1909, from Lake Constance to Munich. Before it could land at Munich a heavy southwest wind pushed it back from the field over which it hovered. The Commander decided to “weather the storm” in the air; and for the first time in the history of aerial navigation the airship remained aloft, [12] her nose against the wind, her motors turning over just enough to keep her in the same spot. ”

“ Although the Zeppelin was accepted as a perfect machine it has never been possible to disperse the atmosphere of disaster with which it has been enveloped from the first. Vessel after vessel has gone up in smoke and flame: few craft of this type have enjoyed more than an evanescent existence; and each successive catastrophe has proved more terrible than its predecessor. ”

“ IV." had been no accident which reflected at all upon the plan or construction of the craft—unless the great bulk of the ship be considered a fundamental defect. What it did demonstrate was that the Zeppelin, like the one-thousand-foot ocean liner, must have adequate harbour and docking facilities wherever it is to land. The one cannot safely drop down in any convenient meadow, any more than the other can put into any little fishing port. ”

“ The Zeppelin Organization and Facilities Today The Zeppelin organization today is prepared to build, deliver and operate rigid airships for any purpose. It has under contract virtually all the competent airship personnel in Germany. Practically all the engineering staffs and workmen employed in developing Zeppelins have been retained, one way or another, that they may be prepared to guarantee satisfactory performance of any Zeppelin turned out. ”

“ Over and above the stimulus which Count Zeppelin's great endeavour has given to the aeronautical world, two special triumphs are his. He has shown balloonists how to make a perfectly gas-tight material, and has raised powerful petroleum motors in a balloon with safety. ”

“ But it must not be forgotten that the very factors which give the Zeppelin its invulnerability against attack practically destroy its value as a fighting machine. No one—not even the commanders of the Zeppelins themselves—would pretend that, flying at a height of 12,000 feet or so on a dark and cloudy night, they can say with certainty where they are, or that they can drop their murderous bombs with any sure hope of hitting an object which would be their justification from a military point of view. ”

“ While the boys had faith only in the heavier-than-air machines, they conceded that the risk taken [57] by the Zeppelin crews entitled the latter to brush elbows with the crack flyers of the other kind of bird craft. It was also true that when a Zeppelin got anywhere it was a tremendous factor in war. And it was no question but that the Fatherland had gone Zeppelin mad.
Woe betide the hostile airmen who dropped the bomb on the Zeppelin works at Friedrichshaven if Roque had the means of catching them. ”

“ I write this on my return to London from viewing—twenty miles away—a tangled mass of wreckage and a heap of charred trunks that are all that remain of a Zeppelin and its crew which—whether by accident, intent, or the force of circumstances will probably never be known—rushed in where two others of its aerial sisters feared to fly, and paid the cost. ”

“ In November, 1917, the Zeppelin L-59 made a non-stop flight from Jambol, Bulgaria, to a point just west of Khartum in Africa and return to Jambol in 95 hours (4 days) covering a distance of 4225 miles and carrying more than 14 tons of freight besides a crew of 22, which performance remains a world’s record for all kinds of aircraft, airship or aeroplane. ”

“ If not, why was the Zeppelin limping along the airways so slowly through the fog? The commander of the great machine had been called to the forward deck, and that not merely for the conning of the ship on its course, Tom was sure. 160 Suppose he had been the means, after all, of crippling the Zeppelin?
The thought filled the young American’s heart with delight. Much as he was depressed by the death of Ralph Stillinger, the American ace, Tom could not fail to be overjoyed at the thought of setting the Zeppelin back in this attempt to reach England. ”

“ Because of the small size of the scout machine—with only a 26-foot wing spread—and its speed of more than a hundred miles an hour—compared to the Zeppelin speed of 60 or 70 miles—the aeroplane was invaluable for scouting over short distances, for duels in the air, for directing artillery-fire, for contact patrol; and the larger aeroplanes were useful for bombing in huge fleets.
In all other purposes of war the Zeppelin is far superior to the aeroplane. Even the contention that the aeroplanes stopped the Zeppelin raids on England is absurd. ”

“ Though never actually assaulted, it was only the stolidity of the British character that kept people’s hands off his effigy during the Zeppelin raids on London. Visitors were too proud, I suppose, to touch him, and from the time the first German airship was brought down in flames on British soil Count Zeppelin’s model began to be ignored.
A British matron quietly remarked, as she stopped an instant in front of the portrait, “So you’re going the way of all our enemies—beaten at your own game.” ”

“ It can ascend with remarkable speed—it is said that a modern Zeppelin can soar upwards at a speed of 4,500 feet per minute, and can reach the safety zone of about 12,000 feet almost before artillery on the ground has secured the range. A large Zeppelin can carry about seventeen tons, of which about two tons consist of explosives. All Zeppelins are fitted with powerful searchlights, and a car which can be let down from the gondola by steel ropes so as to enable the men in it to make observations from a lower level. ”

“ The list is full of wreckage; what it does not show is the immense progress made in a few years. As early as 1907 Count Zeppelin made a voyage of eight hours in his third airship, covering 211 miles. In 1909 he voyaged, in stages, from Friedrichshafen to Berlin, landing at Tegel in the presence of the Emperor on the 29th of August, and returning safely to Friedrichshafen by the 2nd of September. But the growing efficiency of the Zeppelin and the growing confidence of the German public are best seen in the records of passenger-carrying flights. ”

“ The favourite housing place for the Zeppelin airships has in the past been on Lake Constance, near Friedrichshafen, so that they could be taken out under protection from the direction of the wind. It is also much safer for large airships to make their descent over the surface of water. It has been estimated that the most powerful Zeppelins have a speed of some fifty miles an hour. ”

“ His impressions gained during the American Civil War, where he had the opportunity of making captive balloon ascensions, and also in the Franco-German War where he had the opportunity of watching the numerous balloons leaving Paris during the siege, no doubt, first originated in Zeppelin’s mind the thought of developing a large rigid airship. In fact, as early as 1873 he designed a large rigid airship, sub-divided into single compartments and he emphasized the importance of such aircraft for long distance transportation in order to help in the civilization of mankind. ”

“ By this time Zeppelin, retired from the German army, had begun to devote himself to the study of dirigible construction, and, a year after Schwartz had made his experiment and had failed, he got together sufficient funds for the formation of a limitedliability company, and started on the construction of the first of his series of airships. The age of tentative experiment was over, and, forerunner of the success of the heavier-than-air type of flying machine, successful dirigible flight was accomplished by Zeppelin in Germany, and by Santos-Dumont in France. ”

“ The aëroplane scouts, their vision shadowed by the broad wings of their machine, had not seen the Zeppelin until the explosion brought them sharp round toward it. Then, with a sudden upward swoop, they leaped forward in pursuit. But nothing could overtake that monster,—it was speeding too fast, it was already far away, and in a moment disappeared over the hills to the west. ”

“ But what is more important is the fact that the Zeppelin is so large that it furnishes an excellent target, unless it sails considerably higher than is comparatively safe for an airplane. And when the Zeppelin is at a safe height it is too far above the ground for your scout to make accurate observations. Similarly, when the Zeppelin is used for dropping bombs, it must be too high for the bomb thrower to show much accuracy."
"You think that the use of flying machines for scouting purposes will be of considerably more importance than their use as a means of attack?" ”

“ Trained crews were necessary to handle them, and they had to be housed in huge and expensive sheds, as will be realised from a glance at Fig. 82. But for the one ardent pioneer, Count Zeppelin, it is doubtful whether large, rigid craft would have been built at all. After costing many thousands, they ran the risk of being dashed to earth in a squall and hopelessly wrecked. ”

“ In judging of the value of the Zeppelin for purposes of reconnaissance on land, as compared with the aëroplane, we must take into account the fact that a large number of aëroplanes can be built for the cost of a single Zeppelin, and manned with the crew of a single Zeppelin, and that these many aëroplanes, operating in concert, will be able to do much more effective work than one Zeppelin. ”

“ The boys would have liked nothing better than to have had a chance to explore the Zeppelin and see the many interesting and novel features embodied in it, but their hopes in this direction were doomed to be disappointed. ”

“ As an example, the effect on the screen of a miniature—a "fake"—Zeppelin falling through the clouds, a blazing mass, was convincing, thrilling and easy to produce, whereas from the spectator's point of view it would have been well nigh impossible to make a satisfactory photograph of a real Zeppelin consumed by flames and falling to destruction, even though it had been both possible and financially worth while to burn a real dirigible. ”

“ They had justified the inventor’s faith and inspiration. He had [21] never abandoned his ideas of world transportation and was completing a survey of requirements and conditions to be met when, during a flight, he contracted inflammation of the lungs. Though mortally ill and old in years—he was seventy-eight—Count Zeppelin held conferences in his sick chamber, passing on to his assistants the big idea of airship transportation. They have since continued the work where Count Zeppelin left it. ”