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Show TELLS DF FLIGHT 111 BriSKIP Captain Lance Rushbrooke Describes Trip in Great British Dirigible. Vessel Which Britons Hope Will Be First to Cross i Atlantic. I By' ROBERT WELLES RITCHIE, j U niversal Service Staff Correspondent. j LONDON, March 25. Through the courtesy of the air minis try, Universal Service was able today to secure an interview in-terview with Captain Lance Rushbrooke, royal air force, who recently flew as a passenger aboard the giant R-33, Britain's Brit-ain's greatest dirigible, when it made its three-hour trial trip from the Selby hangar in Yorkshire. It is whispered that this Is the aerial craft upon which England is pinning her hopes of winning the glory of being "first across tho Atlantic." Built by Armstrong, Whitworth & Co., for use of the British admiralty, the giantess of the air was designed originally for war. work. Her armament was to include machine guns and rapfa-firers and from her gondolas gon-dolas four bombs of 5 SO pounds ea ch and eight of 2?0 pounds were designed to he dropped upon the enemy. Were the R-33 to settle down on Broadway, Broad-way, the great sky flier would more than fill ihe street and stretch for three blocks. Her length is 670 feet and at her greatest diameter the. huge girth of the rigid gas bag is seventy -nine feet. Four gondolas one forward and one aft in line, and two abreast amidships, swing under the gus bag, and five engines, capable of developing 250 horse power, drive the huge craft as a maximum speed of seventy miles an hour. Tells His Experience.' "The amidships engine in the twin power cars were already running at low speed when I clambered into the control gondola, under the bow of the airship," Captain Rushbrooke began the story of his experience. "Then Major Thomas, the commander, signaled to the ground officer of-ficer that all wertf aboard and ready. "At the blast of a bugle all hands let go and the vessel rose slowly from the ground. Imperceptibly the men on the ground grew smaller and shorter. The sudden clang of a bell twice repeated re-peated aroused me from the first awed sensation of flight, and almost immediately imme-diately a muffled drone behind me announced an-nounced the starting of the engine in the compartment adjoining the control cabin in which I stood. "Looking out from one of the windows along the vast fish-form hull of the -hip, I saw a cascade of water ballast pour out. from an aperture in the keel, followed in a moment by another toward the stern. Airship Is Steady. "We were now well clear of the ground and rapidly climbing with uptilted bows. The airship was remarkably steady, however, how-ever, and but for the diminishing size of the objects on the ground passing slowly a thousand feet below, one was scarcely conscious of motion. "My surroundings now claimed attention. atten-tion. The helmsman and height coxswain cox-swain at the rudder and the elevator wheels were intent on their duties, and I ventured to approach the captain, who had been engaged at the chart table on the opposite side of the cabin. "As occasion permitted, he explained to mo the uses of each of the numerous clocks and control boar.ds, the bubble statoscope, which is sensitive to the slightest rise or fall; the aneroid height recorder, gas thermometer, gas valve controls, the controls for the water ballast bal-last discharge and trail rope release. The engine room telegraphs wore operated by turning an Indicator handle on a dial marked with the necessary commands, one communicating with each engine. In addition, the captain could talk either by telephone or voice-pipe to every station of the crew of the ship. No Sensation of Speed. "The air speed indicator, to my surprise, sur-prise, was. registering fifty-two knots sixty miles an hour. One has no sensation sensa-tion 'of speed in theso huge vessels. We were traveling at considerably more than the velocity of an express train without the slighest sense of speed and none of the clamorous shriek of engines and wires that is so noticeable when flying in an airplane. "Presently the captain invited .me to take a walk through the corridor in the hull of the ship to the rearward engine cars. "Viewed from the outside, the airship looks vast in Us proportions, but in the keel corridor, the end of which seems to disappear in the obscurity of tne dim light, the ship seems even more colossal. Above one's head are the huge gas bags, each fitting closely into its chamber and .separated from the adjacent bags by radial ra-dial wires across the circumferential frame of the hull. The keel corridor is like a tunnel with the sectional shape of an inverted V, the gas bags when full reaching down on either side. Bunks Are Appreciated. "Walking down the center gangway, one passes a long row of petrol taiiKs and water ballast bags on either hand. Some of these petrol tanks are suspended from quick-release hooks, so that on pulling a lever they can, if necessary, be jettisoned as hallast. "Further along down the corridor we came to the quarters for the crew whilst off duty. No doubt the bunks are appreciated appre-ciated on a long flight. My guide informed in-formed me the. ship could cruise for one hundred h,ours- if necessary. "The warmth of the rear power gondola was very welcome. It was little more than a duralimin shell surrounding the two big engines and gearing which drove the twenty-foot propeller at the after end. "We were now approaching the coast, nosing our way through cloud drifts, down to the airship station. Alternately one had glimpses of the sea on one hand, with tiny ships leaving long pencils of white wake on the water, and, on the other hand, the frost-bound country, the clumps of trees and buildings standing out as black blots on the general whiteness.'' |