The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1907-10-15
JOHN BULL
AIRSHIP
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF The
CRAFT RECENTLY TESTED AT
ALDERshUT.

] 6.-tOr week ! have been camping
/ on the plains Of Aldershot to watch the
/ construction OF Great Britains first
/ military airship. Housed on the plains
/ i'm a great corrugated building. which
with its tall clearstory roof looked
/ like a cathedral with its steeple blown
on, the airship after two years expert
menting is shortly to start on its mi
/ tial voyage I'm the air. Military men
all over the world are naturally In
| terested in Englands move. The war
Office had been spurred into atcion by
the progress Of both France and Ger
many i'm the use of dirigible balloons
/ for war purposes.
On the French and German frontiers
rival airships face each other at sew
eral centers. France has voted 81
| 600 900 for the construction and study
of aerial vessels and the Germany army
/ has 200 men wholly devoted to this
department The French ship La Pa
| trie in a trial test maintained a speed
of eighteen miles an hour against
strong wind Vile de Paris, another
French vessel the other day Nwent
| twenty-five miles an hour without a
hitch Major Gross German ship re-
manned in the air five hours without
! descending. 1t "pirouetted" and des-
/ cribed figures like a skater, seemingly
under perfect control
Indeed, one of the first spectacles or
a Franco-German war would be a
scene such as Roger Bacon dreamed of
! six centuries ago and which Tennyson
in the last century described as airy
navies, graphing in the central blue.
Observing this progress on the con-
/ tinent, Great Britain has begun to fear
she may be caught tagging in the
military preparedness of which she
boasts. The cry has arisen that air
ships equipped with ammunition must
soon appear along the British littoral
and great hope is centered in the Al
dershOt experiment.
l do not pretend to know all about
the new airship, for its mechanism is
somewhat of a state secret, British
military officials being very reticent
and sensitive over simple matters. But
the essential facts as | have learned
through field glasses and other surrep-
titous sources, are as follows:
The balloon is sausage shaped, 100
feet long and 30 feet in it's greatest
diameter. 1t is made of goldbeater's
skin and silk and is divided into com
partments, so that one bullet hole
would not necessarily risable it. Be
sides the aeroplanes, or steering APP
paratus, it has two fan propellers,
which, driven by petrol motor engines
are capable of 1000 revolutiOnists a
minute. The lifting power is one ton
= so that with a crew of three it leaves
/ ample margin for ammunition
The general scheme is patterned af.
ter the airship of the Wright Brothers
. Dayton, o. The construction is in
charge of Col. Capper of the royal en-
tached to the Japanese balloon section
in the war in the far east, and f.
Cody, an American. Mr.. Cody is no
in the British army, but is enrolled OF
the pay books Although he wear
long hair curled up beneath his ha
and celebrated his arrival at AldershO
by giving an exhibition of cowboy pis
tol shooting, he disclaims any rela
tionship to Buffalo Bill" He is tn
? inventor of a man-lifting kite, whicl
. has been built extensively by tn
British army. The man-lifting kite i
y really a kite with a basket suspende
and rises on a thin cable held up by
dozen other kites
Once started, the British army nov
intends to Great a whole fleet of aeria
: craft. Along the side of Fox hill, tw
miles from here, sliding skid ha
been erected for experiments wit
: aeroplanes. The vessels are slid dow
y the hill so that by the force of win
;. acting in the wings they are lifted o
, the ground. The theory is that tn
bird principle of flying should be do
y veloped before artificial motor power
~ applied. Among the questions raise
n by military men are:
To what practical use in case of wa
can the airship be put?
D. Would it be serviceable in relievin
u or destroying a besieged city.
u What chance would 1t have If fire
III on by an enemy?
To these questions the answer is thu
the dirigible balloon is i'm its elements
stage. Undoubtedly 1t would prov
little more than a pricked bubble
struck by a cannon ball 1t is still
,. kind of military toy. But who ca
= say it ever will remain a plaything?
~ It might be said that the Unite
n States has not the need which German
/, and France and Great Britain have Il
no a high-strung anticipation of war En-
ee land keeps an unsleeping eye on &c
n many and 1t was not many months az
!, that the suggestion of a channel tunn