Page:Aircraft in Warfare (1916).djvu/146

§ 69 to be considered inadmissible. In the case of the large airship, especially the rigid type, the range or radius of action is usually taken to be considerably greater, possibly some 1,000 miles as an extreme. If we admit this (crediting the dirigible with more reliability than it has yet exhibited), we are still faced with the fact that such a machine cannot operate with safety in the presence of, or within the zone patrolled by, the enemy's aeroplanes.

§ 70. Mother-ship or Floating Base. So far as the scouting aeroplane is concerned, the obvious solution to the difficulty is the provision of a floating aeroplane base, capable of accompanying, or acting in co-operation with, the fleet on the high seas, or of acting independently if required. Various schemes in this direction have been proposed; the future appears to lie between a "mother-ship" adapted to take on board the necessary complement of aeroplanes (or "seaplanes" as they are frequently termed when fitted with floats), and to fulfil the functions of storage, transport, and supply; and a more thorough-going scheme in which the floating base takes the form of a specialised vessel with a clear deck of sufficient area to permit of machines being launched or alighting without entering the water at all. In the former scheme the normal condition is that the machines are lowered into the water from which they are required to rise, and on which, in due course, they alight; in the latter the machines are not presumed to enter the water at all, any immersion is by way of being an accident, for which eventuality, however, the machines would be adapted by being furnished with floats in addition to the ordinary landing gear. To be effective a quite special design of vessel would be necessary, with a completely clear and flush upper deck. In order to obtain the requisite area it would probably be necessary to design something comparable in dimensions to one of the largest of our existing