More Lift

As nearly every layman knows, hydrogen is 8% more buoyant than helium, but is in disfavor for use in dirigibles because: 1) it is explosive and 2) it seeps through the fabric about 50% faster than helium. Last week the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics made known that a mixture of 90% helium and 10% hydrogen may be developed for the Navy's new superdirigibles ZRS-4 and ZRS-5. Such a mixture, suggested by German scientists, would enable a ship of that size (6,500,000 cu. ft. inflation) to carry 25 additional persons./- More important, the go-to-io combination is safe.** Naturally, there would occur gradual loss of hydrogen from the bags; and this in turn would bring the entry of impurities (chiefly air) into the mixture.

There lies the main obstacle to the plan: the problem of re-purification of the combined gases. Experimenters now propose passing the polluted gas under pressure over copper oxide, which would act as a catalytic agent and cause the hydrogen and oxygen to form water.

/- Gross lift of the ZRS-4 with helium: 402,000 lb. With hydrogen: 442,000 lb. With 90-10 mixture: 406,600 lb.

** Above 90-to-10 the mixture is inflammable; at 85-to-15, explosive.

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