Ocean Flight.

New York Times 100 years ago today, October 12, 1912:
Will Be Achieved by the Airship, Not by the Aeroplane.
To the Editor of The New York Times:
    Readers of to-day's Times are the only New Yorkers who are informed of the fact that the Zeppelin works has completed a naval airship, whose acceptance by the German Admiralty depends on the craft keeping in the air continuously for two days during her coming tests. The Zeppelin engineers have undoubtedly assured themselves of her capability in this respect. It should be noted that she is expected to make a speed of between fifty and fifty-five miles an hour.
    The Times was therefore first in announcing a new epoch in airship construction. The Times was also first to obtain the now significant prediction by Prof. Johann Schuette that within five, perhaps inside of three, years airships would be crossing the Atlantic. Prof. Schuette has designed, built, and operated one of Germany's successful airships, the Schuette-Lanz. During November he will launch a greater war airship, which he guarantees will keep in the air for two days.
    The news in to-day's Times that the new Zeppelin has sleeping quarters and a kitchen, (built into the hull,) wireless, (range, 600 miles,) engines of 510 horsepower, searchlights, and machine guns, is the natural result of the present military demand for much larger ships. The new Zeppelin, for instance, carries nine tons of cargo weight, which is three tons more than any previous Zeppelin. It is well known that a ship quite less than twice her size will make seventy-five miles an hour and stay in the air continuously for six days. Prof. Schuette is right. The transatlantic airliner is easily in sight.
    It may now occur to thinking observers of the world's progress, How much promise has the aeroplane of sufficient endurance and carrying capacity to invite capital to invest in these machines on a commercial basis? Engineering ingenuity has about reached the limit of stronger machines. Much greater knowledge of the air itself alone will make these machines safe.
    But lack of carrying capacity beyond their physical limits forbids navigating in swift wind drift over the open sea, where the airship, commanding all the methods of navigating steamers, can calculate her course. Until we are wise enough to overthrow the physical laws that dictate the structural principles of the aeroplane, a useful machine of this type is a chimera.
    We do not navigate the ocean as a business with motor boats, neither will we navigate the air above the ocean with velocipedes. The history of transportation indicates that we will stick to buoyant ships.
            T. R. MacMECHEN,
            American Agent Transatlantic Flight Expedition.
            New York, Oct. 8. 1912.