Honolulu star-bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1912-2010, 1912-07-11
melvin VANIMANS SPECTACULAR
Death FROM DIRIGIBLE

land dreamed of when he slept
| Il shall never forget the feeling in
Imy heart when he left me- at ; O'Clock
lthis morning. ! had a forewarning OF
trouble | believe il now as truly as
i / can believe anything and | am not
la superstitious woman, either
Witnessed Fatal Plunge.
"Yes, | saw them fall, saw one
man Jump. Something tells me that
liz was my husband | saw him spread
out in the air fiat, as he fell. and then
oh! can scarcely speak of it-all
grew dark before me. They were SO
/ high in the air-it must have been a
thousand feet.
Before | tainted. / now remember
! that the car turned with one end
downward and it fell towards the sea
Hike cloth. all in a string. / can re-
/ call that picture all the rest of my
days; it is photographed on my
mind
"All these years OF my husbands
struggle, he and | have been as one
| | planned with him, shared his trou-
bles and did what could to eneour-
tage him.
/
AT times, in Europe, things were
very depressing But Mr. Ziberling
of Akron, his financial hacker, has
been a splendid friend We have
never heard from him one word ex-
lcept in praise.
This Akron he was using for ex-
iperiment only in a field that he be-
lieved already past in the science of
iaeronautics. His particular reason
! for going up today was to try out a
Icontrivance he had for estimating the
speed an aeroplane travels, an inven-
| ton of his own, based upon measure
ments on ground glass of an inverted
camera showing the earth or sea NOV
ing down below"
After the first excitement and shock
had passed, Mrs. Vaniman again col
lapsed and later in the day was under
the care of physician She is suffer
ing frequent fainting spells and her
condition is serious.
Speculation on Cause.
There are many theories as to the
cause of the disaster. One is that air
got into the gas bag Another that
the rays of the morning sun expand
ed the gas and caused the great en-
velope to burst A third was that
flames reached the gasoline and a
fourth theory advanced was that a
stray rope. caught in one of the pro-
pellers, that it was whipped around
and striking the gas bag tore hole
in it, letting out the gas.
The flight was the second that the
airship had taken this years. After
tinkering all winter on the ship Vani-
man took the Akron out for short
flight Saturday morning, June 1. At
that time the balloon was nearly
wrecked by some of the mechanism
going wrong, but it was landed with
out serious mishap.
The. longest fight the balloon made
was last fall, when it spent the great
er part of the day in the air in the
vicinity of this city. At that time the
gas in the bag was not sufficient o
keep the big ship constantly in the
air and it had to make several land.
ings. During the winter Vaniman inn
proved the ship through lessons
learned in that flight
Looked Like the "America..
In general appearance the Akron
was not unlike the America, in which
Walter Wellman and Vaniman at
tempted to cross the Atlantic ocean
in October, 1910, but there we're many
differences in the construction. The
gas bag was thirty feet longer than
that of the America, but was smaller
in diameter. The dimensions werei
Length of bag. 258 feet; diameter, AZ
feet. The bag was made of a compo-
sition of rubber and was constructed
in Ohio
Beneath was the car, similar in
shape to the Americas, but longer
perhaps $50 feet long The bottom of
the car was composed of round steel
tank two feet in diameter and about
loo feet long. In this tank was stor-
ed the gasoline. The car was connect
ed to the gas bag by steel tubing of
light construction. On top of the
tank was platform of two-inch
boards and on this rested one 100
horsepower motor, two of S0-horse-
power, one 17-horsepower motor and
small dynamo.
To reporter recently Vaniman ex-
pressed the fullest confidence in the
Akron to make good" He was con-
stantly aware of the dangerous nature
of the gas used for initiating the bag,
but he felt that it was safe from ex-
plosion. as no flame could reach it.
Gov. Wilson Wires Sympathy.
SEAGIRT, n. j., July 2.-Governor !
Woodrow Wilson expressed his sym
pathy to Mrs. Melvin Vaniman over
the death of her husband in a tele- !
gram addressed to her at Atlantic City
tonight. The message read as fol- I
lows:
May | not extend to you my heart |
felt sympathy for your tragic loss?
''(Signed) WOODROW WILSON"
Mn UATc M HUIMH