hip was caught led to its wreckage, owing to the
absorbent quality of the goldbeaters' skin, whereupon Capper and Cody
set to work to reproduce the airship and its defects on a larger scale.
The first had been named 'Nulli Secundus' and the second was named
'Nulli Secundus II.' Punch very appropriately suggested that the first
vessel ought to have been named 'Nulli Primus,' while a possible third
should be christened 'Nulli Tertius.' 'Nulli Secundus II.' was fitted
with a 100 horse-power engine and had an envelope of 42 feet in
diameter, the goldbeaters' skin being covered in fabric and the car
being suspended by four bands which encircled the balloon envelope.
In October of 1907, 'Nulli Secundus II.' made a trial flight from
Farnborough to London and was anchored at the Crystal Palace. The wind
sprung up and took the vessel away from its mooring ropes, wrecking it
after the one flight.

Stagnation followed until early in 1909, when a small airship fitted
with two 12 horse-power motors and named the 'Baby' was turned out from
the balloon factory. This was almost egg-shaped, the blunt end being
forward, and three inflated fins being placed at the tail as control
members. A long car with rudder and elevator at its rear-end carried
the engines and crew; the 'Baby' made some fairly successful flights and
gave a good deal of useful data for the construction of later vessels.

Next to this was 'Army Airship 2A 'launched early in 1910 and larger,
longer, and narrower in design than the Baby. The engine was an 80
horse-power Green motor which drove two pairs of propellers; small
inflated control members were fitted at the stern end of the envelope,
which was 154 feet in length. The suspended car was 84 feet long,
carrying both engines and crew, and the Willows idea of swivelling
propellers for governing the direction was used in this vessel. In June
of that year a new, small-type dirigible, the 'Beta,' was produced,
driven by a 30 horse-power Green engine with which she flew over 3,000
miles. She was the most successful British dirigible constructed up to
that time, and her successor, the 'Gamma,' was built on similar lines.
The 'Gamma' was a larger vessel, however, produced in 1912, with flat,
controlling fins and rudder at the rear end of the envelope, and with
the conventional long car suspended at some distance beneath the gas
bag. By this time, the mooring mast, carrying a cap of which the concave
side fitted over the con