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Hr dees not head back to wherever
be came from. He runs after that
typhoon! He wants it, he needs it.
By Betty Wallace
CAN you picture a dark night over
the Sea of Japan? A moon hid
den in clouds, and a silver dirigi
ble sailing above black waters?
Ahead of that beautiful ship a typhoon
is racing across the sea.
Do you see it? From what you know
of dirigibles, what do you suppose the
skipper of the dirigible would do now’
You are 100 per cent wrong He does
not head back to wherever he came
from. He runs after that typhoon! He
wants it. he needs it. He knows that
northerly winds prevailing along the
rear side of this disturbance will speed
his strip along its course. He’s not afraio
of a typhoon, for he has studied the
weather maps, and he knows what his
ship is capable of.
The dirigible that raced after a ty
phoon was the Graf Zeppelin. It hap
on the famous “Trip Around the
World” when Dr. Hugo Eckener piloted
the airship from Germany to Japan
Dr. Eckener said later, of this ex
ploit: “We had to run for hours through
thick fog and low clouds but we had the
satisfaction of a wonderful north wind
blowing at the rate of 50 and 60 miles
an hour. This wind brought us in
seven hours from the Okhotsk Sea to
the northern cape of Hokeido, the man
island of Japan. We had the airship
safely under control in this turbulent
atmosphere. She rode so smoothly that
the passengers slept undisturbed, with
out even realizing what was going an.'
The most experienced dirigible skip
per in the United States today is Com
mander Charles E. Rosendahl. of the
Navy. Thirteen years ago. in 1923.
Commander Rosendahl was a student
naval aviator (airshipj at Lakehurst.
N. J. He now commands that station
Commander Rosendahl says that evei
since he first rode the skies in an air
ship he has been a confirmed enthusiast
He has had over 4400 hours in the air
He was aboard the ill-fated U. S. S
Shenandoah when she broke up in the
skies over Ohio during a storm He
had the incredible good luck to be in
that part of the ship which continued
to float through the air.
A S skipper of the U. S. S. Los An
**■ gelcs. he commanded her durinß the
non-stop flight to Panama in 1928. Un
||./BB Did you know that only 157 rigid |
airships ever have been built?
That the first passenger has yet
to be IciHed in one of them? Here
are some cold, hard facts about
dirigibles that will surprise you
dei - his direction the dirigible landed on
the deck of the U. S. S. Saratoga a
plane carrier. This was the first time
a rigid airship ever landed on the deck
of a surface vessel.
He was the naval observer on th*
Graf Zeppelin’s first flight, and he was
also aboard her when she made the
round-the-world trip. In 1929 he was
put in command of the Naval Rigid
Airship Training and Experimental
Squadron. When the airship Akron
was commissioned, he was named com
mander.
In the face of the great hue and cry
that went up after the loss ol the Ak
ron and the Maeon. Commander Rosen
dahl maintained his faith. There were
no dirigibles in commission but he
moored the Los Angeles, completely
equipped, to a mast on the field at
Lakehurst and carried through a pro
gram of experimental work. In 1934
he won the Harmon National Trophv
for dirigibles.
Today he says it is his hope that the
interest aroused by the new Hinden
burg will help to wake up the Ameri
can public to the necessity for its own
dirigibles.
In appearance, Commander Rosen
dahl fulfills the tomewhat romantic pic
ture of the flying man. He stands very
straight in his naval air officer s khaki
His good looks are a little frosty.
When he speaks, you know that be is
used to giving orders. It is hard to con
ceive of this reserved, disciplined offi
cer’s arguing passionately for a cause
And yet his belief m the airship is so
profound that he has gone to bat against
sensational headlines, against public
apathy and ignorance, against every sori
of obstacle in the way of better under
standing of dirigibles.
Compared with the millions of auto
mobiles the world has built, compared
with the uncounted thousands of air
planes. with hundreds of submarines
and similar craft, the dirigible is a very
tiny baby. Commander Rosendahl
points out. Nor has the baby had all
the vitamins and cod liver oil. in the
form of good human minds working on
its problems, which the airplane and the
automobile and the others have enjoved
to aid their growth.
Spectacular headlines have screamed
forth the fates ol many ol the world’s
airships. Dramatic, mysterious and com
pelling as it sails through the sky the
Zeppelin has always been able to cap
ture the imagination of the spectatoi
What caused these crashes? Let s look
them over.
LMRST. an amazing statement Not oiu
passenger ever lost his life oi was
injured in an airship' Not one: Yet
commercial airships have carried more
than a quarter of a million passengers
This includes the passengers who have
traveled, during more than five years
of regularly scheduled trips across the
ocean, in the Graf Zeppelin from Eu
rope to Brazil and back, and the many
who have crossed more recently on »he
Hindenburg.
Normally, in steamships, the round
trip takes six to seven weeks. The du
gible has made it possible for busi
ness men to complete the same trip in
about 10 days.
The disasters which resulted in the
loss of life occurred entirely in military
and naval airships. In the United States
three airships have been lost.
The Shenandoah which was an at
tempt to copy a 1916-type Zeppelin,
was battered by air currents in a storm
over Ohio in 1925 and broke in the air
Fourteen men were lost.
The Akron, in 1933. lost altitude dur
ing a lightning storm off the Jerse'
coast, and flew into the sea. She hit the
water with such an impact that the
hulk was collapsed to one-third its orig
inal height as it sank to the ocean bot
tom. Seventy-three naval officers and
men went to their deaths with the
Akron.
The Macon, in 1935, failed structural
ly in the air off Point Sur. but most ol
her crew were saved by nearby naval
vessels. Only two men w«r« lost. The
weak spot in the girders which caused
this crash had previously been discov
ered and repairs were to have been
made but had been delayed several
months.
There was no fire or explosion as
these ships went down, because the
United States used helium as a lifting
gas instead of the hydrogen which
European dirigibles used
r l l o the casual observer, this seem*
1 like a depressing and conclusive lit
tle list. The shrill voices which have
demanded that dirigible construction be
stopped seem to have a pretty strong
case here.
But wait. Let us set aside the drama
of these disasters, and count the actual
facts.
Commandei Rosendahl is authority
for the statement that. ‘ln the entire
world in maioi airship accidents since
the World War there have been 'ost
282 lives' But ne points out that in
submarines alone since the World War,
in the navies ol the world there has
been a loss ot 771 lives in 69 accidents
involving 80 submarines
All of us know that the annual toll
ot lives snufled out by that common
carrier, the automobile, amounts to
many thousands every year So. wmle
282 lives are far too many to casually
wave away as unimportant, still lue
stress must be laid on the tact that the
dirigible still is in the infancy ol ita
development and that no one ol those
282 lives has been lightly thrown away.
The loss of life in dirigible accident*
seems to be the chief reason why pub
lic sentiment has swung away 'iom
further building and added knowledge.
Yet when an accident happens at sea—
remember the Morro Castle, the tar
away Titanic—no hue and cry goes up
to stop building steamships. When a
passenger airliner crashes and the peo
ple on board lose their lives, which na*
happened more times than is entirely
comfortable to remember, do we near
any demands that all airplane construc
tion shall stop at once? When sub
marines are rammed and sink to the
floor of the ocean, does any government
at once cease building submarines?
Despite the disasters, the successful
record of the passenger dirigibles, olus
the removal of danger from explosion
when helium is used, plus all the refine
ments of mobile mooring masts and
hook-on planes which the United State*
pioneered with the three lost ships,
seems to speak well for the future.