Airships Up

The Shenandoah broke in two. The R-101 exploded. The R-100 was scrapped.

The Akron and Macon plopped into the sea. Of the large rigid airships built since the War only those of Germany have been successful--the Los Angeles, now in retirement at Lakehurst, the stalwart old Graf Zeppelin, still shuttling the South Atlantic after carrying some 13,000 passengers without harm, and the new Hindenburg, which runs as safely on the same route.

These familiar facts have left the U. S.

public with a profound apathy to further U. S. airship experimentation. Against this defeatism a small devoted band of lighter-than-air enthusiasts has railed with indefatigable zeal. Leader and inspiration of this lively minority is Commander Charles Emery Rosendahl, who survived the Shenandoah disaster and now heads the Naval Air Station at Lakehurst, is the nation's No. 1 airship man. Week after week for years articles and speeches by Commander Rosendahl have peppered the pages of newspapers and aviation magazines. Dozens of expert committees have made reports agreeing with him. But until Germany's Hindenburg made its spectacularly successful flights last summer, Commander Rosendahl's pleadings bounced off the U. S. public like a topped golf ball off a frozen green.

Last week, however, Commander Rosendahl had reason to believe that his lighter-than-air pleadings were on the point of taking effect. At Washington, for several weeks, he had been advising a subcommittee of three from the Business Advisory Council of the Department of Commerce, appointed last summer at the suggestion of Secretary of Commerce Daniel C. Roper.* Last week the sub-committee submitted a report to Assistant Secretary of Commerce John Monroe Johnson, suggesting: along with many a lesser recommendation, 1) that the U. S. build one large airship for Naval use, two for transatlantic passenger service; 2) that the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 be made applicable to airships; 3) that the Los Angeles be restored to flying status as a Navy training ship; 4) that a medium-sized dirigible be built or bought for the Navy as a training ship to replace the Los Angeles. The Merchant Marine Act created the potent new Maritime Commission, provides for two kinds of direct government subsidy--to shipbuilders of as much as 50% of construction costs; to ship operators sufficient to put them on an equal basis with foreign competitors (TIME, July 13). The Commission was directed by the Act to "investigate and determine" what provision should be made for aircraft. Last week, Assistant Secretary Johnson smiled upon the Business Advisory Council Report, promised to submit it to Congress after discussing it with the Maritime Commission. They appointed Pilot Robert E. Lees, a specialist in auto-giros, to advise them about it.

*The three: Chairman Samuel P. Wetherill, president of Philadelphia's Wetherill Engineering Co.; Col. Robert G. Elbert, Wartime Flyer Gill Robb Wilson, director of Aeronautics in New Jersey, president of the National Association of State Aviation Officials. Besides Commander Rosendahl, they were advised by Commander Garland Fulton, lighter-than-air expert, and by President Paul W. Litchfield of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., which presumably will build any future U. S. airships.

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