The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5,1909. AEROPLANES VERSUS AIRSHIPS.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2624, 5 October 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5,1909. AEROPLANES VERSUS AIRSHIPS.

It is not surprising that the bulk of the aeronautic news which is being cabled from the Old World nowadays hag to do with the performances of aeroplanes rather than of airships, for tho great difference in cost is certain to make the smaller machine more popular. The aeroplane is a very cheap machine to build —cheaper than a motor-car—and is not, as far as can be gathered, very costly to work. On the other hand, a dirigible with its huge gas-bag costs thousands where an aeroplane costs hundreds, and involves heavy daily or weekly expenditure because of the constant cost of refilling with gas. A German engineer has published an estimate of the cost of building and maintaining a dirigible similar to the “Zeppelin.” He puts tho prime cost at £30,000. The gas-bag would have to bo half reinflated one© a week, and this would cost about £335 a month, or £2,010 per year, reckoning the service as extending over six months. The cost for petrol and oil, on the assumption of a day’s work of twelve hours for twenty days a month, and for six months in the year, would he £2,160, so that we have an expenditure of over £4,000 on fuel and gas alone before anything is reckoned for the cost of the staff or for repairs and sinking fund. Allowing for these items, and assuming an effective life of two years, the German estimate of the total annual cost of a Zeppelin amounts to no less than £24,670. Assuming such a dirigible to carry on the average twenty passengers, the cost per passenger for a twelve-hours’ voyage works out to about £lO. Such a figure, of course, puts air-travelling absolutely out of the question except as a pastime for the wealthy, and that it will probably remain for many years to come. From a military point of view the position is somewhat different, for the question of cost is not allowed to operate largely where efficiency is the test. Yet, although more has been done by airships than by aeroplanes, the aeroplane is rapidly justifying the theoretic arguments in its favor. The objections to the airship are that .a great gas-bag floating in the sky is a

tremendous mark for artillery-fire. It must move more slowly than an aeroplane, and it certainly cannot be relied upon to the same extent to make progress against a headwind. Moreover, its power of sustaining itself in the air is constantly suffering diminution, by the escape of gas, and when the to as is exhausted the dirigible is useless until it has been refilled. After all, it is barely eighteen months since Europe recognised that flight was possible. Little importance, therefore, need be attached to the fact that at present aeroplanes cannot fly very high, that they cannot carry many men, and that their balance might he destroyed if they took to dropping explosives. These are difficulties which will certainly be surmounted and we are inclined to think that tho next year or two will demonstrate more and more that mastery of the air will belong to the heavier-than-air machine rather than to the gigantic airships that at present hold all trie long distance records.