torpedo boat and a Dreadnought. The latter, so long as it
can keep the former at arm's, or rather gun's, distance is perfectly
safe. The torpedo boat can only aspire to harass its enemy by buzzing
around, hoping that a lucky opportunity will develop to enable it to
rush in and to launch its torpedo. It is the same with the aeroplane
when arrayed against a Zeppelin. It is the mosquito craft of the air.

How then can a heavier-than-air machine triumph over the unwieldy
lighter-than-air antagonist? Two solutions are available. If it can
get above the dirigible the adroplane may bring about the dirigible's
destruction by the successful launch of a bomb. The detonation of the
latter would fire the hydrogen within the gas-bag or bags, in which
event the airship would fall to earth a tangled wreck. Even if the
airship were inflated with a non-inflammable gas--the Germans claim
that their Zeppelins now are so inflated--the damage wrought by the bomb
would be so severe as to destroy the airship's buoyancy, and it would be
forced to the ground.

The alternative is very much more desperate. It involves ramming the
dirigible. This is undoubtedly possible owing to the speed and facile
control of the aeroplane, but whether the operation would be successful
remains to be proved. The aeroplane would be faced with such a
concentrated hostile fire as to menace its own existence--its forward
rush would be frustrated by the dirigible just as a naval vessel parries
the ramming tactics of an enemy by sinking the latter before she reaches
her target, while if it did crash into the hull of the dirigible,
tearing it to shreds, firing its gas, or destroying its equilibrium,
both protagonists would perish in the fatal dive to earth. For this
reason ramming in mid-air is not likely to be essayed except when the
situation is desperate.

What happens when two aeroplanes meet in dire combat in mid-air and one
is vanquished? Does the unfortunate vessel drop to earth like a stone,
or does it descend steadily and reach the ground uninjured? So far as
actual experience has proved, either one of the foregoing contingencies
may happen. In one such duel the German aeroplane was observed to start
suddenly upon a vol-plane to the ground. Its descending flight carried
it beyond the lines of the Allies into the territory of its friends.
Both came to the conclusion that the aviator had effected his escape.
But subsequent investigation revealed the fact that a