The doldrum period, which made progress difficult, came to an end with dramatic suddenness. In the year 1927 a youthful pilot flew an airplane, alone, across the Atlantic ocean, and in the following year a middle-aged scientist made a round trip from Europe to America by airship, with 24 people aboard. The imagination of America and the world took fire. Aeronautics started anew. Perhaps no events in years have appealed so fully to the public consciousness or had such dynamic effects. Almost from the day of Lindbergh’s flight and the Graf Zeppelin’s arrival at Lakehurst, aeronautical engineers found themselves with money to spend in research and machinery. Airports unrolled across the carpet of America, night lighting came in, pilots became business men, appropriations were rushed through Congress, state assemblies, and city councils, and aeronautics became Big Business almost over night. The period of inaction and of reaction was over. CHAPTER VI Airship Improvements Between Wars [Illustration: Docked airship] The wartime airship was a cigar-shaped gas bag with an airplane cockpit, open to the weather, slung below. The contrast between it and the sleek, fast, streamlined Navy airship of today is almost as striking as that between wartime planes and automobiles and modern ones. Many improvements have been made, even though the airship has not had the experience of building thousands of units, as the automobile and airplane have had, or ample funds for research and experiment. Less than 150 non-rigid airships have been built all told since 1914. The “B” type blimp, chiefly used in the World War, contained 80,000 cubic feet of hydrogen, though some British and French non-rigids were built in larger sizes, and the United States Navy “C” ships, toward the end of the war, had 200,000 cubic feet of lifting gas. These compare with the 416,000 cubic feet of helium in the new Navy “K” ships. Speed, under the pressure of war needs moved up from 47 miles in the “B” to close to 60 in the “C,” but is around 80 in today’s “K” ships. Wartime ships carried three to five men and a day’s fuel. Today’s carry eight or ten, enough pilots, radio men, navigators, riggers and mechanics for two full watches, though normally everyone is on duty during patrols. The “B” was good for perhaps 900 miles, the “K” for well over twice that distance. Wartime ships had to keep the control car well away from the bag to prevent sparks from igniting the hydrogen gas. A windshield was the pilot’s only protection from the elements. Modern ships, using non-inflammable helium, have closed cars, streamlined into the bag, ample room for navigation and radio, sleeping and eating quarters, even a photographic dark room, can be heated and noise-proofed.