Читать книгу Aviation in Peace and War - Sir Frederick Hugh Sykes - Страница 10

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The earliest conception of an airship is to be found in General Meusnier's design in 1784 for an egg-shaped balloon driven by three screw propellers, worked, of course, by hand. The chief interest in his design, though it never materialized, lies in the fact that it provided for a double envelope and was the precursor of the ballonet. The first man-carrying airship was built by Henri Giffard in 1852. It had a capacity of 87,000 cu. feet, a length of 144 feet, a 3 horse-power engine, and a speed of 6 miles an hour. A gas engine was first used twenty years later in an Austrian dirigible, giving a speed of 3 miles an hour. About the same time much useful work was accomplished by Dupuy de Lome, whose dirigible, with a propeller driven by man power, gave a speed of 5½ miles an hour. Twelve years later, in 1884, two French Army officers, Captain Kubs and Captain Renard, constructed the first successful power-driven lighter-than-air craft fitted with an 8½ horse-power electric motor, which may be regarded as the progenitor of all subsequent non-rigid airships. In 1901 Santos Dumont flew round the Eiffel Tower, travelling 6¾ miles in 1½ hours, and in 1903 the flight of the "Lebaudy," covering a distance of 40 miles at a speed of 20 miles an hour, led the French military authorities to take up the question of airships.

What the French initiated, the Germans, concentrating with characteristic thoroughness on the development of the rigid as opposed to the non-rigid airship, improved. In 1896 Wolfert's rigid airship attained a speed of 9 miles an hour and in 1900 the first Zeppelin was launched. Whatever we may think of the German methods of using their airships during the war, we cannot but admire the courage and determination of Count Zeppelin, who, in spite of many mishaps, succeeded in producing the finest airships in the world and inspiring the German people with a faith in the air which they have never lost. From 1905 onwards development was rapid. In 1907 Zeppelin voyaged in stages from Friedrichshaven to Frankfort, a distance of 200 miles in 7½ hours. Popular enthusiasm is illustrated by the fact that within a few months the same airship made four hundred trips, carrying 8,551 passengers and covering 29,430 miles. Other airships showed similar records. Between 1909 and 1913 eighteen of the Parseval type were built, and 1912 saw the construction of the first Schutte-Lanz, designed expressly for naval and military purposes. If France at this period led the world in aeroplane design, Germany was undeniably ahead in airship development.

In Great Britain, in 1905, we had one very small airship, designed and constructed by Willows.