The Caldwell watchman. (Columbia, La.) 1885-1946, 1916-12-01
Built of Aluminium, It Is $50 Feet
Long, but Weighs Only
so Tons.
FOUR GONDOLAS FOR CREW
British Experts Estimate Cost of Con-
struction Of Giant Airship Recent
Iy Brought Down in Essex at ST.
O00-Driyen by Six
Engines.

LOuuOll.-lL WIS llot iollS 'AtSA 'iiN>
battle with Zeppelns last September
before the British air service experts
discovered that the airship brought
down in flames represented the latest
type of enemy raiderS-the super-Zep-
pelin-as superior in size, engine pow
er, armament and bOmb-Carrying Ca
pacity over the first Zeppelins as the
latest big U-bOats are over the original
little submarines.
The deductions of the experts have
shown that Germanys super-Zeppe-
lin has engines aggregating LILO horse
power, as against $40 horse power in
the original Zeppelin. 1t is $50 feet
long and - feet in diameter-actually
larger in bulk than giant ocean liner
of the type Of the Lusitania, though
of infinitely less weight, of course.
The enormous envelope, although de-
strOyed in the fire that plunged the
Zeppelin down to wreck in Essex, has
been estimated from the aluminium and
steel and copper wire structural work
that remains to have been of a capac-
ity to store 100000 cubic feet of gas
three times as much as the capacity
of the earlier Zeppeins, then supposed
to be the last word in air monsters.
Larger Than Lusitania.
What inspired admiration and Won
der in the minds of all who visited
the wreck was the incredible delicacy
of the workmanship that created some
thing larger than the LuSitania to float
in the air, and which against the tens
of thousands of tons weight of the
Lusitania, with engines, guns, bombs
and all, the super-Zeppelin is figured
as weighing only 80 tons. The whole
aluminium and wire structure weighed
only, the experts report, nine tons.
An English reporter who visited the
wreck writes:
1.-THE eXternals of the airship, her
outer fabrics and gas bags, We're de-
strOyed, but all the essentials remain,
all the elaborate contrivances of at
tack, all the gear for operating the
engines, all the tackle for maneuver-
ing the ship.
''The skeleton of the monster is not
visible until you draw very close to it.
1t is a strange spidery affair of deli
cate trellis work in silvery metal, with
no sheen and no tinkle but sepulchral
rustic. The Orders are of almost in
conceivable lightness. What looks a
prOdigiously bulky portion of the
framework can be lifted with one
hand. Instead Of weighing a hun
dredweight it scales few pounds.
The whole structure seems like de-
vice from another world and another
age"
The Four Gondolas.
Swung under the huge gas envelope
were four gOndOla-Shaped cOmpart.
ments, hooded, with apertures for the
use of the navigators and gunners and
observers-one gondola at the Zeppe
Inns nose, two depending side by side
in the center, and the third and larg
est gondola-about thirty feet in length
aft. Her six engines distributed
among the gondOlas are figured to have
been able to send the monster along il
calm weather at So miles an hour
The gOndolas are made of stout alumni
mum, but the eEs.rts do not figure
that, boat-shape = they are, they
could float succe~' ly unless the avi
ators had time g. dismantle the fly
ing boats of their armament in a de