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In the case of the ship L-II., built in 1912, the corridor became filled with gas that had oozed out of the ballonets.
An upward or downward inclination is, as we have seen, effected by the ballonets, but in cases of emergency these compensators cannot be deflated or inflated sufficiently rapidly, and a large movable weight is employed for altering the balance of the vessel. In this country the authorities have hitherto favoured the non-rigid air-ship for military and naval use.
The object of providing the vessel with these small balloons, or ballonets, all separate from one another, was to prevent the gas collecting all at one end of the ship as the vessel travelled through the air. Outside the ballonets there was a ring-shaped, double bottom, containing non-inflammable gas, and the whole was enclosed in rubber-coated fabric.
As it has only two ballonets, a single shot, properly placed, could do it great damage. The Zeppelin, with its eighteen great gasbags, can suffer almost any amount of attack and still remain in the air. "Would you like to see the trenches?" said one of the officers, smiling. "Trenches? Seven miles behind the line?" "Trenches certainly.
If these ballonets empty owing to the pressure of the gas within the envelope, a rope system disposed within the balloon and connecting the ballonets and the gas-valve at the top is stretched taut, thereby opening the gas-valve. In this manner the gas-pressure becomes reduced until the ballonets are enabled to exercise their intended function. This is a safety precaution of inestimable value.
Subsequently, the two ballonets fitted inside the envelope were made to serve for trimming by the extent of their inflation, and this method of securing inclination proved the best until exterior rudders, and greater engine power, supplanted it, as in the Zeppelin and, in fact, all rigid types.
In the S.S. type of airship, two ballonets are provided, the supply of air being taken from the propeller draught by a slanting aluminium tube to the underside of the envelope, where it meets a longitudinal fabric hose which connects the two ballonet air inlets. In this hose the non-return air valves, known as 'crab-pots, are fitted, on either side of the junction with the air-scoop.
The balloon frame was divided into seventeen compartments, each of which held a ballonet filled with hydrogen gas. The purpose of this was similar to the practice of dividing a ship's hulls into compartments. If one or more of the ballonets, for any reason, were injured the remainder would keep the ship afloat.
That effort, which would have been entirely successful in the case of a non-rigid balloon, was obviously futile in that of a Zeppelin. Not the gas in the ballonets, but the great rigid frame covered with water-proofed cloth constituted the huge bulk that made her the plaything of the winds. In a trice she was snatched from the hands of her crew and hurled against the trees in a neighbouring grove.
The outstanding feature of the "Drachen-Balloon" is incorporated in the airship. This is the automatic operation of the safety valve on the gas-bag directly by the air ballonets.
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