Maiden

Powdery snowflakes whispered down through the dusk. The wind drowsed. Out of a cavernous shed on a field in Belleville, Ill., a great grey shape slid out of lurking and moved off through the gathering night, purring a basso profundo that swelled to a dull roar as a white eye and a red in the creature's belly were seen to rise from the earth, twinkle slowly higher and disappear.

An hour later the shape returned to the field, gliding softly down through the twinkling myriads of snow. The creature's masters left their perches beneath her helium-filled belly. They reported that their charge, the RS-1, sole semirigid* dirigible in the U. S. and largest in the world, had conducted herself most gracefully on her frost-christened maiden flight. Aloft there had been an elevenmile wind, through which she had glided at 40 m. p. h. in steady circles over her abode.

Among U. S. dirigibles the RS-1 is second in size only to the Los Angeles./- She is 282 ft. long with capacity for 719,000 cu. ft. of gas. Four 300-h. p. Liberty motors propel her. She belongs to the U. S. Army; was built in Akron, Ohio, by the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.

* Nonrigid airships (balloons) are constructed with no metal framework in the gasbag save a ring at the bottom to which fabric, valves and passenger basket are attached. The semirigid dirigible ("blimp") employs a keel or spine of structural metal usually aluminum, to stiffen the under side of the envelope, support cabins, motors, crew. The rigid (Zeppelin) type of ship has a complete skeleton of struts and girders, with hoops articulated laterally inside its spine and ribs to form separate gas chambers when covered with fabric inside as well as out.

/- The Los Angeles, length 654 ft., has a capacity of 2,500,000 cu. ft. The Shenandoah, wrecked last summer, was 680 ft. long; capacity 2,150,000 cu. ft.