Another Projected Atlantic Flight.

New York Times 100 years ago today, May 4, 1913:
Dr. von Gans, Brucker's Financial Backer, Having a Dirigible Constructed.
TO BE READY IN AUGUST
Attempt May Be Made Then — A Project to Explore New Guinea by Airship.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    BERLIN, May 3.— Despite the failure of Mr. Brucker and his companions to make an attempt to cross the Atlantic in a balloon, the feat may yet be attempted this Summer if the plans of Dr. von Gans, the financial backer of Mr. Brucker, be worked out.
    Dr. von Gans believes that the ocean could be crossed in a spherical balloon, but he thinks that the aeronaut should not be satisfied with that. The future will see the aerial route added to the present marine routes for passenger crossings, he declares, and with this in view he has organized an undertaking to construct a dirigible and make the attempt.
    The airship is already under construction and will be ready in the middle of August. It will be unique in construction. The gas bag is stiffened with, ribs of rubberized linen which will be filled with compressed hydrogen gas. The airship, with nine motors, will weigh about ten tons find will have a lifting power of twenty tons. The motors will generate 1,000 horse power.
    The airship will be 325 feet long, about 50 feet in diameter, and will carry a gondola 250 feet long.
    Dr. von Gans says that his experiments and experience with Brucker's first balloon, the Suchard, convinced him that the balloon did not hold enough gas; therefore he dismantled it and started making a bigger ship. While Dr. von Gans was describing his plans another airship expedition, hardly less spectacular, was being discussed at the meeting of the German-English airship expedition organized to explore New Guinea by airship.
    Prof. Neuhass, a leading German authority on the island, explained fully the scientific, economic, and political importance attaching to the expedition's undertaking, and pointed out that New Guinea was the least known of all lands. He declared that the only present feasible method of exploration was by airship. The difficulties of this method were also serious as mountains nearly 10,000 feet high must be crossed.