rvice in which four airships known as the
Sachsan, Hansa, Victoria Louise, and Schwaben were used. During the four
years of its work, the company carried over 17,000 passengers, and over
100,000 miles were flown without incurring one fatality and with only
minor and unavoidable accidents to the vessels composing the service.
Although a number of English notabilities made voyages in these
airships, the success of this only experiment in commercial aerostation
seems to have been forgotten since the war. There was beyond doubt a
military aim in this apparently peaceful use of Zeppelin airships; it is
past question now that all Germany's mechanical development in respect
of land sea, and air transport in the years immediately preceding the
war, was accomplished with the ulterior aim of military conquest, but,
at the same time, the running of this service afforded proof of the
possibility of establishing a dirigible service for peaceful ends, and
afforded proof too, of the value of the dirigible as a vessel of purely
commercial utility.

In considering the possibility of a commercial dirigible service, it
is necessary always to bear in mind the disadvantages of first cost and
upkeep as compared with the aeroplane. The building of a modern rigid
is an exceedingly costly undertaking, and the provision of an efficient
supply of hydrogen gas to keep its compartments filled is a very large
item in upkeep of which the heavier-than-air machine goes free. Yet
the future of commercial aeronautics so far would seem to lie with the
dirigible where very long voyages are in question. No matter how the
aeroplane may be improved, the possibility of engine failure always
remains as a danger for work over water. In seaplane or flying boat
form, the danger is still present in a rough sea, though in the American
Transatlantic flight, N.C.3, taxi-ing 300 miles to the Azores after
having fallen to the water, proved that this danger is not so acute as
is generally assumed. Yet the multiple-engined rigid, as R.34 showed on
her return voyage, may have part of her power plant put out of action
altogether and still complete her voyage very successfully, which, in
the case of mail carrying and services run strictly to time, gives her
an enormous advantage over the heavier-than-air machine.

'For commercial purposes,' General Sykes has remarked, 'the airship is
eminently adapted for long distance journeys involving non-stop flights.
It has this inhere