A The airship may well prove the
solution to some pressing transport issues today. One reason is that the airship
is more environmentally friendly than other airborne vehicles. It obtains most
of its lift from lighter-than-air gas, usually ultra-safe helium. The engines
therefore drive the vehicle through the air, rather than lifting it off the
ground, resulting in considerable fuel economy. B The
fascinating story of the airship began in the 13th century, when Roger Bacon,
the Franciscan friar with a predilection for experimenting with gunpowder, first
considered buoyant flight. He thought it could be achieved by filling a
thin-walled metal sphere with rarefied air or liquid fire.
C In 1670, Francesco Lana de Terzi, an Italian, calculated that four such
spheres would be needed to lift a boat. But it was a French Engineer Corps
officer, Jean-Baptiste-Marie Meusnier, who developed the first practical airship
concept, in 1784, by devising an elongated balloon driven by
airscrews. D It never got off the ground, but it did
inspire Britain's first aeronautical scientist, Sir George Cayley, who in 1816,
took the Frenchman's design one step further to create an egg-shaped balloon
with steam-powered propellers. But France won the race, achieving the first
steam-powered airship flight in 1852, when the three horsepower, hydrogen-filled
Aerial Steamer, designed by Henri Giffard, flew in Paris, zipping along at a
glorious 7 mph. E A motor driven by electricity was next,
and the pioneers were Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs, who built La France, a
60-metre-long airship fitted with a huge wooden propeller at the front, the
first that could be steered accurately, calm weather permitting. It was also
considerably faster than its steam-powered predecessor 32 years earlier-reaching
a magnificent 12 mph. F But all these pioneers soon made
way for the master, a German aristocrat and army cavalry officer named Ferdinand
von Zeppelin. He designed a large military airship, with internal gas bags in a
rigid, cigar-shaped, aluminium structure. It was turned down. Zeppelin resigned
and established the Zeppelin Airship Corporation in 1898 to build his first
airship. The LZ-1 was successfully launched from its floating hangar on Lake
Constance on 2 July, 1900, its petrol engine taking it on a 17-mile flight at an
average speed of 13 mph. The age of airship travel had begun.
G During the First World War, nearly 300 British airships protected allied
convoys from submarine attack, while the Zeppelin undertook several successful
bombing raids on Britain. But they made a large target themselves and were
filled with explosive hydrogen. Around 40 were destroyed.
H The airship reached its zenith in 1929 when the Graf Zeppelin
circumnavigated the globe, travelling 25,000 miles at an impressive 45 mph. But
the destruction by fire of the famous Hindenburg in 1937 brought to an end the
golden age of the airship and the prospect of further long-haul,
lighter-than-air aviation. I Unlike their predecessors,
modern airships, or "blimps", are non-rigid, maintaining their shape solely
through the pressure of inert, non-flammable helium in the main body of the
ship, without use of any internal skeleton. At the rear end of the airship, a
large vertical rudder is used to steer it left and right by means of pedals in
the cockpit, and the flat movable fin protruding from the side enables upward or
downward movement of the ship. At the lowest point of this part of the blimp, a
small tail-wheel protects it from contact with the ground when landing or
moored. J Directly under the body of the airship is the
gondola: the cabin containing the cockpit, engine compartment, and facilities
for crew, passengers, and cargo. Trailing from the front of the ship are the
mooring lines, which hang free in flight but are used to control it when taking
off or landing. These are attached to the spindle: the narrow pointed component
right at the front, which in turn is held by the rounded, flattened nose cone,
covering the extreme forward part of the ship. K The
gondola can be more spacious than any modern aircraft. The airships can also
stay airborne for long periods. While fixed-and rotary-wing aircraft measure
flight time in hours, an airship can stay aloft for days, hovering silently. At
sea, airships provide over-the-horizon observation coverage up to 130 nautical
miles against small radar targets, such as cruise missiles. Airships are also
employed in civil operations to catch drug smugglers, and to transmit television
images of sport and outdoor concerts as they happen. L
Airship holidays are many and varied. For a tranquil experience, you can cruise
the spectacular landscape of Swiss mountains and lakes. In Africa, you can catch
a glimpse of the wildlife on ecologically sound, danger-free "airship safaris".
And if you want to experience Las Vegas without losing your shirt in the
casinos, an American tour operator offers weekday trips with breathtaking views
of the world-famous Las Vegas Strip from a 165-foot-long, nine-seater
airship. M Finally, you could have caught the opening of the
last Olympic Games, with an airship travel company that offered aerial
surveillance of the action. You would have had a truly Olympian view of the
torch's final journey as it climbed those last few steps to ignite the
flame. Questions 14-17
Complete the table below. Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS
AND/OR A NUMBER from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 14-17 on your answer sheet.