The Imperial Committee, therefore, decided that the development of the rigid airship should be allotted to the Navy, and a design for Rigid Airship No. 1 was prepared by Messrs. Vickers in conjunction with certain naval officers in the early part of 1909. As will be seen later this ship was completed in 1911, but broke in two in September of that year and nothing more was done with her. In February, 1912, the construction of rigid airships was discontinued, and in March the Naval Airship section was disbanded. In September, 1912, the Naval Airship section was once more reconstituted and was stationed at Farnborough. The first requirements were airships, and owing to the fact that airship construction was so behindhand in this country, in comparison with the Continent, it was determined that purchases should be made abroad until sufficient experience had been gained by British firms to enable them to compete with any chance of success against foreign rivals. First a small non-rigid, built by Messrs. Willows, was bought by the Navy to be used for the training of airship pilots. In addition an Astra-Torres airship was ordered from France. This was a ship of 229,450 cubic feet capacity and was driven by twin Chenu engines of 210 horse-power each. She carried a crew of six, and was equipped with wireless and machine guns. The car could be moved fore and aft for trimming purposes, either by power or by hand. This was, however, not satisfactory, and was abandoned. In April 1918, Messrs. Vickers were asked to forward proposals for a rigid airship which afterwards became e known as No. 9. Full details of the vicissitudes connected with this ship will be given in the chapter devoted to Rigid Airships. In July, approval was granted for the construction of six non-rigid ships. Three of these were to be of the German design of Major von Parseval and three of the Forlanini type, which was a semi-rigid design manufactured in Italy. The order for the Parsevals was placed with Messrs. Vickers and for the Forlaninis with Messrs. Armstrong. The Parseval airship was delivered to this country and became known as No. 4; a second ship of the same type was also building when war broke out; needless to say this ship was never delivered. At a later date Messrs. Vickers, who had obtained the patent rights of the Parseval envelope, completed the other two ships of the order. The Forlanini ship was completing in Italy on the declaration of war and was taken over by the Italians; Messrs. Armstrong had not commenced work on the other two. These ships, although allocated numbers, never actually came into being. PARSEVAL AIRSHIP No. 4 This airship deserves special consideration for two reasons; firstly, on account of the active-service flying carried out by it during the first three years of the war, and, secondly, for its great value in training of the officers and men who later on became the captains and crews of rigid airships.