The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-12-04
THE COMING BATTLES
 ID BE IN TIE AIR Baden Powell Thinks They Will Be a Long Time
 Coming. BUT HE EXPECTS THEM Also Expects to See Guns In vented to Fight
 Balloons.
BUT HE EXPECTS THEM

That immense strides have been made by the English military authori- | ties in the development of the airship | as a useful fighting machine is un- i doubted, writes Maj B. Baden-Powell, I in the London Daily Mail.
 .have seen the airship under the | care of Col. Capper, but I cannot, of i course divulge the secrets of it's con- struction It is sufficient to say that | have seen the French and German cre- ations of the same kind, and l think l that we are not being left behind by the foreigners.
 The French first brought out di- riglble balloon about 1882, which was wonderful success, considering all things, but after working it for several years they dropped it for some reason, and have not done anything more with | it until now. Probably they were un- able to hit on means of improvement before. One thing that has made tie possibilities greater in the matter is the coming of the petrol engine, For merly trials were made with electric \ engines, which were very heavy and not too reliable. The lighter petrol en- zines, which are safe and easily con- structed have enabled great develop ments to be made 1 was very pleased with the French airship that I saw. It is beautiful and strongly made ma chine, of good ship-shape style, and not of the gimcrack, temporary char acter as many of them have been.
 It is difficult to say if the English one is as good until 1t has undergone proper trials. It may look all right, but for some reason or other 1t may be found that it will not go. From what l have seen and heard of it, however, think it will be found to be satisfac- tory. We are going ahead, although we have not got much money to spend over the experiments, but what little we have Is being well expended. Other ships are being laid down, and the trials will show Us what can be done with them.
 The largest airship is the German one of Count Zeppelin, which Is over 400 feet long I have seen 1t out twice Although it is of such an enormous size, it is quite correct theoretically, but in practice 1t is a big thing to manage It has gone thirty miles an hour, but not much has been done with it lately Building an airship is gl glsomething like constructing an Atlan- tic liner with no.small steamer built in advance from which to gain experl- ence The English airship Is not built on the lines of that of Count Zeppelin. The latter is like ship with big frame, covered in with stuff to make 1t rigid, and there are several separate balloons inside. It Is much larger than lany others have seen, and weighs several tons
 The machines steer pretty well, but the wind, of course, Is bound to af- feet balloon airshlps very largely, and their practical use would depend upon the direction of the currents They are propelled in the same way as steamer, but the great difference be- tween marine steamer and an airship is that the former seldom encounters sea current running more than five Imiles an hour, whereas In the air wind currents blowing twenty or thirty miles an hour are common That Is where the difficulty lies, and we must obtain greatr speed in order to stem the wind currents l think it will be overcome. We get airships now which can be propelled at thirty miles an hour, and we may reach fifty miles, but do not think we shall go beyond that with balloons.
 There is no doubt in my mind that the airshlp section will be the most important branch of the service event. ually. We cannot foresee what Is in the future, but if we get machine capable of going lip in any weather, and with a speed of thirty or forty miles an hour--I think they may ultl- mately go even faster---it would cer- tainly have a tremendous effect not Ionly on military, but also on naval warfare.
 Their first importance would lie in reeonnoiterng an enemy's country. By their aid we could learn exactly where bodies of troops were, they would be able to detect any Notifications, and get plans of them, which would make an enormous difference to any army in
 the field. When one comes to think of the South African war one can see what an advantage an airship would have been 10 us then. If every day we had known where the Boers were, and where their intrenchments lay, fl would have made all the difference in the world to that campaign.
 l do not believe that airships will be of so much use in dropping explosives into an enemys camp or Qualifications although it is possible that may ccrae about. They would not be able to carry a great weight of projeotiie but 1t may be that they could be armed with a very small shell containing q high ex- plosive of light weight, On the other hand, however, there would be a difi-
 culty in dropping the explosive in the lrtght place, unless it were porsible to hover exactly over the objective spot , do not say it is impossible, but at first raconnoitering will be tho most practical use of an airship, which will z only carry a crew of five or six men Some people say that if war broke out tomorrow airships would be of
 vast importance. think they would be
 important in a way, but they will not
 make any great difference to an army
 until 1t is possible to have a number 7 of them working together In practi-