The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-07-02
10th Anniversary Of First Trial of a
 Zeppelin Airship

This is the fifteenth anniversary of the Zeppelin airship. as it was on July 2, 1900, that the first trial of a, Zeppelin was made at Lake Constance While Count zeppenn's invention has not reached the point of effectiveness in warfare which was previously pre- dfcted, the Germans have apparently not yet abandoned their hope that it great conflict. All the details regard ing the present status of airship con- struction are closely guarded by the German government, but it has been runored that great fleets of these aerial monsters, larger and more for naidable than any constructed in time of peace, have been built Up to date, the Zeppelin raids on Antwerp and England have accomplished nothing hnore than the killing of 9, few non- conbatants and the destruction of a little property. In scouting the aeroplanes. The destruction of a Zeppelin by Reginald A J. Warne- ford, the young Canadian aviator, last month, proved that in aerial combat the aeroplane, comparatively small and inexpensive as it is, possesses 8, decided advantage over the bulky and costly dir1gible- Up to date, the Yankee notion of the Wright brothers has been far more effective in warfare than the invention of
 
 The development of the Zeppelin airship in the last fifteen years has been arleed by many tragedies, and hundreds of lives have been lost in bringing to its present stage of devel- opInent the invention from which so the name of Zeppelin was synonym for terror in England, but the deVel- opments of nearly a year of warfare have diminished rather than increas- ed the fear of a Zeppelin invasion of John Bulls island. Considering the number of accidents and fatalities connected with the deveIopme of the Zeppelin in times of peace, it is not unlikely that since the war began the Zeppe1ins have caused the deaths of more Germans than of Germany's foes.
 Count zeppehn's first airship, con structed in 1900, consisted of a row of seventeen balloons, confined inf a rigid cylindrical shell 416 feet in length and with a diameter of thirty eight feet, with pointed ends and with capacity of 399,o00 cubic feet. At the beginning of the war the largest military zeppelins had nearly twice this capacity-7So,eoo cubic feet and length of 512 feet The bal looms in the cylinder served to lift the airship. Large screw propeuors were used to drive the Zeppelin backward or forward, and the struc- ture was steered by pair of rudders one forward and one aft. The crew and passengers occupied two alumni mum cars, suspended below the body of the balloon shell, one forward and one aft Each car had a benzine en- zine of 16 horsepower.
 The first trial of the first Zeppelin was over Lake Constance. With five persons on board, the Zeppelin reach ed a height of 1,30O feet above the lake and travelled 3-4 miles in sev- enteen minutes. Count Zeppelin was not wholly satisfied with the trial and in 1905 he produced a new and improved airship in which the capaci- ty of the engines was vastly increased without corresponding increase in weight. In 1910 he built a passenger carrying airship, the Deutschland but it was soon wrecked. Many of the early Zeppeins came to grief, and the various dirigible disasters were at tended by a heavy sacrifice of life