JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 343
The airship "America", under the command of Captain Murray Simon and Walter Wellman (the arctic explorer, set out to cross the Atlantic Ocean on 15 October 1910. The dirigible was 228 feet long with a diameter of 58 feet, had a crew of eight, and was filled with hydrogen gas. The airship's four-tons worth of petroleum (to run the four engines on either side of the ship) was carried in the base of the car compartment of the dirigible, with another ton or so of fuel carried in the "equilibraor", which served to keep the height of the dirigible "equalized" at about 200'. They set off from New Jersey and flew in a very wide arc for about 1300 miles until engine trouble forced them down near Bermuda. Although never coming close to crossing the ocean the "America" did set a record for the longest flight of any sort of flying machine.
What drew me to this image though was something far less important: the small inset picture at bottom left, which shows the "sleeping shelves" for the crew. The accommodations, shall we say, are barely so; they looked very narrow, very metal-y, very cold and pretty dangerous, with basically no room for a roll-over. Then again, no one was there for comfort, but these racks look defiantly un-comfortable.
This was the last flight for Wellman, and the crossing of the Atlantic by air would have to wait for the ethically-challenged Lindbergh sixteen years later.
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