Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 92.djvu/392

 UPPER. VERTICAL STEADYING FIN

RIGHT HOR.I2LO/MTAL STEADYING FIN TWO OP THE 8 HOODS

COVERING GAS OUTLETS

��. UPPER- BALANCED RUDDER

��CIR<!ULAR. RUDDER. iSE.R.VINe AS ADDITlON/i.l HOR.IZ.ONTAL STEADYING FIN

RIGHT BALANCED ELEVATOR

��Circular.

RUDDER SERVING As ADDITIONAL VEf^TlCAL STEADYING FIN

���LOWER.

BALANCED.

RUDDER.

��LOWER VERTICAL STEADYING FIN

���Details of Zeppelin L-49: Length 650 feet, beam 78 feet, displacement 58 tons, possesses 18 gas bags up to 157,500 cubic feet displacement each, has five motors of 240 H.P. each, speed 57 knots, ascensional limit 4.5 miles, armament 18 120-lb. bombs, machine guns and equipment

��STERN. PROPELLER

ENGINE ROOM VENTILATORS

REAR HAND RAIL

��REAR'ENGIrNE ROOM FOR ^ TWO MOTORS

��REAR SIDE PRO- PELLERS \ PORTHOLES

^REAR LANDING BUFFER^

('AIRT

^!N PLATED

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��sides and at the rear car only by the mountings and shafts of two propellers — a strictly necessary evil because two of the propellers must run when the cars rest on the ground and because the others behind the cars cannot revolve.

In the old Zeppelins there was a tri- angular keel under the hull. The L-49 has that keel too; but it has been in- verted like a glove so that now it protrudes into the interior with the apex of the triangle uppermost. It stiffens the en- velope — its function from the very be- ginning; but two-thirds of its air friction is eliminated by this ingenious tucking away of its larger sides. Why were not the cars and engines moved into the envelope as well? There was no neces- sity for that. Modern sci- ence teaches that a stream- lined bulk af- fords no more wind resist- ance than slender ir- regular ap- pendages. The cars were given the

���Wreckage of a Zeppelin. A labyrinth of aluminum frames, engines, and elaborate control mechanism

��shapes of torpedoes. Hence they offered no serious impediment to speed and dis- pensed with the weight of special appa- ratus for insulation and ventilation that would be needed for engine rooms inside the gas-inflated hull.

Small as the cars are, the space allotted for the crew is not "as restricted as in a submarine," as the French put it. There is an abundance of room in a wide passage- way within the immense hull. But there is not as much comfort as may be sup- posed. These ample cabins serve merely as a shelter from the icy gale that beats against the outside of the ship. They are about as comfortable as the clouds of heaven are for the angels pictured in

children's books. Being pitched about at sea is noth- ing compared with a refrac- tory Zeppelin airship.

A Zeppelin is at once the flimsiest and the staunch- est of artificial structures. When the old Zeppelin was

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