July i, 1909.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



359 



AERIAL NAVIGATION IN GERMANY. 



FROM THE "CUMMI-ZEITUNG/ BERLIN. 



ALTHOUGH the press has been flooded with notes on Zep- 

 pehn's dirigible balloons, very few accurate technical 

 details have as yet been published, with the exception of some 

 articles in the Gummi-Zeituiig and other trade papers. A lec- 

 ture delivered last March by Admiral Prince Henry of Prussia 

 before the Verein fur jMotorluftschiffahrt (Aerial Motor Navi- 

 gation Society) of Kiel may, therefore, prove to be of interest. 

 We have selected from the lecture the following particulars 

 concerning the airship "Zeppelin i": 



The floating balloon shed at Manzell is built on pontoons, and 

 so anchored that it can 'be readily turned until its open end 

 faces in a direction opposite to that from wliich the wind blows. 

 A channel in which the cars find a support runs in the direction 

 of the longitudinal a.xis of the shed, while batteries of hydrogen 

 tanks, used for inflating the "ballonets,"* are installed in both 

 sides. The airship can be hoisted to the roof of the slied for 

 making repairs. 



The balloon proper is composed of 17 separate balloons, all 

 of which are in turn enclosed in one common covering. A 

 4-cylinder engine, operating two propellers, is installed in each 

 of the two cars. H a person in one of the cars desires to 

 exchange places with a person in the other car, both must pro- 

 ceed simultaneously toward the center of the connecting bridge, 

 so as to preserve the equilibrium, since the airship is exceedingly 

 sensitive to such changes in the distribution of the load. The 

 operating qualities and efficiency of the airship are not only im- 

 paired by its inability to overcome the force of the wind when 

 it exceeds 11 meters per second.t but likewise because the pro- 

 pellers revolve at considerable heights in a medium of lesser 

 density which reduces their propulsive power, and that at such 

 heights both the ignition and combustion in the engine are apt 

 to become defective, in consequence of an insufficient supply of 

 oxygen. 



During the trip made by Prince Henry, which was of 6 

 hours' duration, the distance covered was 210 kilometers [^130^ 

 miles], and the airship rose to a medium height of about 260 

 meters above the level of the Lake of Constance. The consump- 

 tion of benzine amounted to 210 kilograms, while 36 kilograms 

 of lubricating material were used and 40 kilograms of ballast 

 thrown out. The "Zeppelin i" recently made a two-hours trip 

 without ballast, the same being replaced with a crew of 24 

 persons. 



The Zeppelin-Luftschiffbau-Gesellschaft (Zeppelin Airship Con- 

 struction Co.), as well as various committees, are planning a 

 series of regular airship lines between Frankfort and Diissel- 

 dorf, and between Friedrichshafen and the cities of Lucerne, 

 Cologne, Munich, and so on. Other plans for the establishment 

 of "airship ports" in Cologne, Lerchlingen and Mctz are pre- 

 sumably based on these proposed lines, but there is sufficient 

 reason to doubt whether such enterprises could be made profit- 

 able for a long time to come. At present the British are the 

 only ones who see the atmosphere crowded with Zeppelin air- 

 ships, as proved by the excitement into which timid English 

 minds were recently thrown, when mysterious airships were 

 seen to float over England in the night and induced the British 

 war department to engage in shooting practice with shrav..el 

 using captive balloons as a target. It soon leaked out, however, 

 that these horrifying dirigible balloons were merely 25-foot 

 models of airships made by the English manufacturing firm of 

 Spencer (at the price of io.f. 6d each), in which an alcohol lamp 

 produced rarified air. 



Two new dirigible balloons of German construction have just 

 been announced. Professor Schiitte, of Danzig, is building an 

 airship of the rigid type, in which the aluminum frame is to be 



replaced with a wooden frame in the shape of a coil which is 

 claimed to possess greater strength and to he exempt from dan- 

 gerous electric charges and di.s-charges. The capacity of this 

 balloon is to be 13,000 cubic meters and four benzine motors of 

 100 HI', each are to be installed in the two cars. 



The second type of construction is the invention of Ober- 

 hauratj Rettig, of Danzig, who intends to construct the body 

 of the balloon throughout of light wooden panels, connected by 

 air-tight joints. He has planned In charge this covering or shell 

 with hydrogen without any separate ballonets. Our rubber in- 

 dustry is not liable to suffer nnich damage from this competi- 

 tion, as it may be safely assumed in advance, as an undoubted 

 fact, that rubber covered or impregnated fabrics are far superior, 

 both as tight gas containers and in strength, to such an immense 

 fragile wooden casing as one of 11,000 cubic meters capacity. 



The price list of a new firm, the Aerooflfice, of Paris, furnishes 

 some information regarding the prices of airships and flying 

 machines. A small spherical balloon (600 cubic meters capacity) 

 costs from 1,000 marks [=$238], when made of cotton cloth, 

 to 5.0CO marks [=$1,190], when made of double rubber-covered 

 fabric. The prices of a balloon of large size (say, 4,000 cubic 

 meters) range between 6,000 and 17,000 marks. A Voisin flying 

 machine of the type used by Farman costs 25,000 marks, and an 

 Esmault-Pelterie aeroplane with 30 hp. engine is listed at 4i,coo 

 marks, the price of an Antoinette aeroplane being only 10.000 

 marks. Following the lead of the Allgemeine Elektrizitats- 

 Gesellschaft (General Electric Co.), in Berlin, the Benz Motor 

 Works in Mannheim have started to build flying machine engines. 



The first step toward the practical introduction in Germany 

 of airships heavier than air has just been taken by the Flug- 

 maschine Wright, G. m. b. H. (Wright Flying Machine Co,, 

 Limited), which was recently organized with a capital stock of 

 500,000 marks [^Slip.ooo], with the participation of the Allge- 

 meine Elektrizitats-Gesellschaft, the .A.ctiengesellschaft Friedr. 

 Krupp, Ludwig Loewe & Co., and various other corporations 

 and banking houses. This company has acquired the right to 

 work all the Wright patents and all future improvements on the 

 same during a contract term of 15 years in Germany and her 

 colonies, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Luxemburg and Turkey. 

 Further proof of the efficiency of the Wright bi-plane was re- 

 cently furnished by Tissandier, one of Wright's scholars, who 

 covered 57 kilometers [^45^ miles] in one hour, during a 

 flight he made at Pan. The flying machine invented by the 

 government architect Hofl'mann is now being assembled on the 

 Tempelhofer field at Berlin, and experiments will be made with 

 it in the near future. 



REFKRENCES. 



Aeronautics and the Rubber Industry. The India Rihber \S'oBLn, 

 October i, 1908 — page 7. 



Rubber in Balloon Construction. The India Rubber World. February 

 I, 1909 — page 182. 



A CEMENT for uniting leather, india-rubber, cloth, wood, and so 

 on, is formed of gutta-percha dissolved in a mixture of carbon 

 bisulphide and ether, preferably in the following proportions : 

 Carbon bisulphide, I pound ; ether, 4 ounces ; gutta-percha, 4 to 

 5 ounces. The cement may be used in repairing tire tubes and 

 covers, and for uniting parts of bolts and the like. This inven- 

 tion is covered by the British patent 28.188 (1907) granted to R. 

 Jensen. 



.•\ NEW patent lapping knife used in the East is the "Barrydo," 

 invented by G. S. Brown and made by Brown & Davison (Co- 

 lombo). Its blade has four culling edges and is easily reversible; 

 it cuts right and left hand, "pull or push," without adjustment; 

 it cannot choke, and requires no sharpening. 



•The sections of which the large balloon of the airship is composed. 

 t.\bout 25 miles per hour; a good or stormy breeze. 



JThe title of chief architects 

 Germany. 



or commissioners of public works in 



