One is the ordinary more or
less well-known system which characterizes the operation of all the
passenger lines now in service in the Empire. It is the system under
which all the disasters that appear in the newspapers occur. Airships
that are used in the general army flights and maneuvers are also run
under the same system as the passenger dirigibles--for a reason.
The other system is an absolute secret of the German General Staff.
It is not used in the general maneuvers, only in specific cases, and
these always secretly. It has been proved to be effective in
eliminating 75 per cent. of the accidents which have characterized all
of Germany's adventures in dirigibles and heavier-than-air machines.
These statistics are known only by the German General Staff office.
Let us go into this further. Critics of the German dirigible who
foolishly rate the French a?«roplane superior point out that the
Zeppelins have three serious defects--bulk and heaviness of structure,
inflammability of the gas that floats them, and inability to store
enough gas to stay in the air the desirable length of time without
coming down. The secret devices of the German War Office have
eliminated all these objectionable features. They have overcome the
condition of bulk and heaviness of structure by their government
chemists devising the formula of a material that is lighter than
aluminum, yet which possesses all of that metal's density and which
has also the flexibility of steel.
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