April 4, 1 91 8 
Land & Water 
13 
On a Balloon Ship : By Lewis R. Freeman, r.n.v.r. 
I HAD crossed on the old "Xerxes" in tliose ancient 
days when, as the latest launched greyhound of the 
Cunardcr fleet, she held for a few precarious months 
the constantly shifting blue-ribbon for the swiftest 
transatlantic passage ; but in that angular "cubistic" 
lump of lead-grey looming over the bow of my spray- 
smothered launch to blot out the undulant skyline of the 
nearest Orknev, there was not one familiar feature. Her 
forward funnel had been "kippered" down the middle to 
somewhere about on the level of the lower deck, and carried 
up in two smaller stacks which rose abreast to port and 
starboard. This had been done (as I learned later) to make 
room for a platform leading forward from the waist over 
which seaplanes could be wheeled to the launching-stage, 
which ran out over the bow from beneath the bridge. The 
break in the forecastle had been closed in in connection 
with a sweeping alteration which had converted the whole 
forward end of the main deck into a roomy seaplane "reposi- 
tory" and repair shop. 
The changes aft were no less stattling. The old poop 
seemed to have been razed to clear the last two hundred 
feet of the main deck, and o\er the ten or fifteen-feet-high 
railing, whiqh surrounded this, the top of a pa'rtly inflated 
observation balloon showed like the back Of a half-sub- 
merged turtle. The whole effect was weird and "impossible" 
in the e.x:tremc, and I felt like exclaiming with the yokel 
who saw a giraffe for the first time : "Aw, there ain't no 
such animal." 
I had been asked aboard the X for an afternoon of 
seaplane and balloon practice. 1 had already seen a good 
deal of the former at various points in the Mediterranean 
and Adriatic, but the towed observation balloon — the "kite," 
as they called it — was an entirely new thing. I "put in" 
at once for an ascent in a kite, for I was anxious not only 
to get some sort of a first-hand idea of how it was being 
employed against submarines — of which I had already heard 
not a little — and also to compare the work with that of 
handling the ordinary observation balloons, of which I had 
seen so much in France, Italy, and the Balkans. The captain 
— whom I found just getting the sliip under weigh from the 
bridge — after some hesitation, promised to "see what he 
could do," if there was not too much wind, when he was 
ready for "balloon work." 
To one who has had experience only of hangars on land, 
perhaps the most impressive thing about an "aeroship" is 
the amount of gear and equipment which can be stowed 
and handled in restricted spaces. Wings and rudders which 
fold and re-fold upon each other until they fonn compact 
bundles that can be trundled about by a man or two, collap- 
sible fuselages and pontoons, wheels which detach at a touch 
of a lever, "kncx;k-down" transmissions — these things were 
everywhere the rule. One "baby" scout I saw almost com- 
pletely assembled on the launching-stage, and the "tail," 
which a couple of men wired to the main body in little more 
than a minute, I would have sworn I could have knocked off 
with a single well-placed kick. Yet, five minutes later, I 
saw that same machine "loop," "side-flop," "double-bank," 
and (quite at the will of its. young pilot, who is rated the 
most expert seaplane man in the British Naval Air Service) 
recover at the end of a live-hundred-feet rolling fall, all 
without apparently starting a strut or rivet. " CoUapsibility " 
and portability are evidently secured without sacrificing any 
essential strength. 
The science of working the seaplane from the deck of a 
ship is still in process of development. Even up to quite 
recently it was the practice tp put a machine overboard on 
a sling, and allow it to start from the water. The use of 
detachable wlicels — which fall off into the sea after they 
have served their purpose in giving the preliminary run — 
has made launching from the deck practicable and compara- 
tively safe, but the problem of landing even a wheeled 
machine on deck lias not yet been satisfactorily solved. 
On account of lack of room, most of the experiments in this 
direction have ended disastrously, even tragically. 
When a seaplane is about to be launched, after the usual 
preliminary "tuning" up on the launching-stage, the ship is 
swung dead into the teeth of the wind and put at full speed. 
This matter of wind direction is very important, for its 
variation by a fraction of a point from "head-on" may 
easily make a crooked run and a fluky laimching. As the 
latter would almost inevitably mean that both plane and 
pilot must be churned under the swiftlj' advancing fore-foot 
<>( the ship, no precautions calculated to avoid it are omitted. 
Besides a wind-pennant at one end of the bridge, assurance 
is made doubly sure by the turning on of a jet of steam in 
the mathematical centre of the extreme tip of the launching- 
stage. When the back-blown steam streams straight along 
the middle plank of the stage, the wind is "right/' 
The captain, from the bridge, lifts a small white flag as a 
signal to the wing-commander that all is ready. The latter 
nods to the pilot, who starts his engine at full speed, while 
two mechanicians, braced against cleats on the deck, hold 
back the tugging seaplane. If the "tone" of the engine is 
right, the wing-commander (standing in front of the plane, 
and a little to one side) brings down his red-and-yellow flag 
with a sharp jerk, falls on his face to avoid a collision, and 
the machine, freed from the grip of the men holding it, jumps 
away. The next two seconds tell the tale, for if a seaplane 
"gets off the deck" properly, the rest of its flight is not likely 
to'be "eventful." 
Practice Flights 
At practice, a seaplane sails over and drops its detachable 
wheels near a waiting drifter, whiq^ picks them up and 
returns them to the ship. The machine swoops low, and 
"kicks" loose the "spares" at a hundred feet or less above 
the surface of the water, and a pilot who let his wheels go 
from a considerably greater altitude drew a growl from the 
bridge, as a long fall is likely to injure them. Its flight over, 
a seaplane returns to the ship by alighting on the water 
several hundred yards astern, and floundering up alongside 
as best it can. With a high wind and a choppy sea, it is 
rough work. The machine is so "balanced" that its tractor 
propeller should revolve in the air and clear the water by 
several inches, even in a rough sea. It will occasionally 
strike into "green water," however, which is always likely 
to shatter the ends of the blades, if nothing else. The 
sheathing of the blades with metal affords considerable 
protection, though a certain risk is always present. The 
operation of picking a seaplane up and hoisting it aboard is 
a nice piece of seamanship at best, but in bad weather is a 
practicable impo.ssibility. With the wind much above thirty 
miles an hour, indeed, only a very real need is hkely to induce 
a "mother ship" to loose her birds from the home nest. 
With the sea too rough to make it possible for a seaplane to 
live in it, it is sometimes possible to carry on imperative 
reconnaisance by sending up an ordinary aeroplane (some of 
which are always carried) ; though the latter must, of course, 
make its landing on lerra firma when its work is over. 
The wind had been freshening considerably all afternoon, 
but with no more than thirty miles an hour showing on the 
indicator, there was no reason for not letting me have my 
"balloon ride." 
As the time approached for its ascent, the balloon was 
allowed to rise far enough from the deck to .permit its car to 
be pushed underneath the centre of it, in order that the 
latter might not be dragged in the "getaway." I could now 
see that the monster had rather the form of the "bag" of an 
airship than the "silkworm-with-stomach-cramps" shape of 
the regulation modern observation balloon. Its nose was 
less blunt than that of the "sausage," and the ropes were 
attached so that it would be pulled with that nose boring 
straight into the wind, instead of tilted upwards like that of 
its army prototype. The throe "stabilisers" at its stern 
were located, and appeared to function, similarly with those 
of the "sausage." 
The basket was mid- waist deep, and just big enough to 
hold comfortably two men sitting on the strips of canvas' 
which served as seats. Supplementing our jackets, two small 
life-preservers of the ordinary type were lashed to the inside 
of the basket. When 1 asked about parachutes, I was told 
that, while it was customary to carry them, on this occasion 
— as they were worse than useless to a man who had not 
practised with them — it was best notHo bother myself with 
one. "Stick to the ba,sket if anything happens," some one 
said; "it will float for a month, even if full of water." Some 
one else admonished not to blow up my jacket until we had 
stopped rising, lest it (from the expanding air, I suppose) 
should in turn blow me up. Then wc were off. The last 
thing I noticed on the deck was the ship's cat, which I had 
observed a few moments previously rubbing his arched back 
ecstatically against a saggjng "stabiliser," making a wild 
leap to catch one of the trailing guide-ropes. 
"He always does that," I heard my companion saying 
behin^ me. "Some day' perhaps he will catch it, and then 
