The navigation of an airship during these long voyages proposed
will present no difficulty whatever. The airship, as opposed to
the aeroplane, is reasonably steady in the air and the ordinary
naval instruments can be used. In addition, "directional"
wireless telegraphy will prove of immense assistance. The method
at present in use is to call up simultaneously two land stations
which, knowing their own distance apart, and reading the
direction of the call, plot a triangle on a chart which fixes the
position of the airship. This position is then transmitted by
wireless to the airship. In the future the airship itself will
carry its own directional apparatus, with which it will be able
to judge the direction of a call received from a single land
station and plot its own position on a chart.
We have so far confined our attention to the utilization of
airships for transport of passengers, mails and goods, but there
appear to be other fields of activity which can be exploited in
times of peace. The photographic work carried out by aeroplanes
during the war on the western front and in Syria and Mesopotamia
has shown the value of aerial photography for map making and
preliminary surveys of virgin country. Photography of broken
country and vast tracks of forest can be much more easily
undertaken from an airship than an aeroplane, on account of its
power to hover for prolonged periods over any given area and its
greater powers of endurance.
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