ar. To land in a rigid ship is at best a ticklish business; indeed,
the rigid airship is in exactly the same case as a large sea-going
vessel; its chief dangers are from the land, which it cannot touch with
impunity. Its troubles have been greatly diminished, since the war, by
the development of the mooring-mast, which does away with the necessity
of housing the ship after every flight. The prevailing type of weather
in this country is unsettled, and the changes in the force and direction
of the wind are rapid and numerous. The landing and housing of an
airship demands hundreds of men for its performance, and is not safely
to be undertaken in a wind that blows more than eighteen miles an hour.
A staff of from eight to ten men is sufficient to anchor a large airship
to a mooring-mast, where it has been proved by experiment that she can
safely ride out a wind that blows fifty miles an hour. At Pulham, our
largest airship station, which was taken over from the Royal Air Force
by the Controller-General of Civil Aviation in December 1920, a number
of valuable experiments have since been carried out with an improvised
mooring-mast, and it has been shown that with a properly designed and
constructed mast, fitted with adequate receiving gear and hauling
apparatus, there will be no difficulty in landing the largest rigid
airships in a wind of from thirty-five to forty miles an hour. This
spells an immense advance. Sheds will still be necessary for overhauls
and repairs, as a dry dock is necessary for sea-going vessels. But an
airship on service may be moored to the mast, as a sea-going vessel is
moored to a quay, and can take on board or discharge cargo, passengers,
and fuel.

The trial trip of the first Zeppelin was short, because of accidents to
the steering-gear, but on the whole was not unsuccessful. The ship was
perfectly stable, and in its voyage of three and a half miles proved
that it could make headway against a wind of sixteen miles an hour. A
second ascent, lasting for an hour and twenty minutes, was made on the
17th of October 1900. These trials were of value in discovering the
faults of the ship; in the following year it was broken up, and Count
Zeppelin went to work again. In his second ship of 1905 the power of
each engine was increased to eighty-five horse-power, and other
improvements were made. This ship suffered many minor mishaps. At last,
in January 1906, it ascended over Lake Constance to a height of 1,800