Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1928-10-14
AVIATION

seventeenth of it's natural volume
1t was adopted for the lighting Of
railway cars in the pre-electrit
days and for the lighting OF
harbor buoys because it could be
compressed into small containers
and because it was an inherently
good fuel and Illuminating gas.
PintSch, for whom the gas orig
inally was named, failed to carry
on the work of developing his in
vention, but Blau finally produced
hydrocarbon gas which could be
liquef1ed and thus stored in even
smaller space than the Pintsch
gas. He then continued his work
and succeeded in evolving a gas
containing as high as 1900 thermal
units to single cubic foot.
The hydrocarbon gases are a
by-product of petroleum oils and
the Blau gas is said to be a Supe-
riOr fuel for internal combustion
motors, ranking even higher than
gasoline in this respect. The first
Blau gas plant was put in opera
ton in 1908 in Augsburg and
others were built later in other
European cities, including one at
FriedrichShafen, where the Graf
Zeppelin was tested.
X X X
b While the aerial monsters of
the Zeppelin type monopolize the
center of the stage in the theater
of lighter-than-air operations, the
smaller types also are coming in
for their share of attention This
city during the past few days had
its first glimpse of the little Good
year blimp Puritan, which flew
over the city for several days. The
Puritan is only 1913 feet long and
81 feet in diameter, and is ex-
ceeded in size by most free
balloons. The Puritan is driven
by two 260-horSepower Ryan
Siemen motors and is claimed to
be fairly fast, reliable and easy to
control.
Plotted by Jack Boettner, vet
eran balloon and airShip pilot, the
Puritan is making a tour of the
Nation to demonstrate this type
of air transportation to the pub
lie. Boettner delights in putting
his little blimp through it's PAGES,
his speciality being landings on
such circumscribed spaces as the
roofs Of office buildings, schools
and stores, which are, of course,
inaccessible to the airplane. While
in this city he landed on the roof
of a local automobile company's
building.
WashingtonianS during the past
few days also have witnessed a
number of flights by an old Army
blimp of the TIC type, flown here
from Langley Field, Virginia, to
attract attention to the recent
military carnival and exposition
at Washington Barracks.
Advocates of the dirigible main
tain that large dirigibleS can COM
pete successfully with large air.
planes, though they do not profess
to believe that the small dirigible
ever will be able to compete with
planes of their own capacity. The
chief advantage of the dirigible
over the airplane, they contend,
is that an airShip can increase her
pay load greatly with a compare
lively small increase in weight,
while the airplane can increase its
pay load only by increasing the
weight of the plane itself to a
very great extent.
There is no probability, with
conditions as they are today, that
the lighter-than-air ship will ell
ter into competition with the air.
plane commercially over short
routes, but it now appears likely
that sincere efforts will be made
by the dirigible advocates to en-
ter into serious competition with
the airplane over the longer routes
where heavy loads of freight and
passengers are to be carried.