Considering first their main qualities: the airship has great “lifting” powers, is more heavily armed, can climb at a faster rate, and has greater powers of endurance; whereas the aeroplane has greater speed, is more easily maneuvered, and is less unwieldy.
The tendency of the Zeppelin commanders is to increase rather than decrease altitude with every raid, which renders attack by aeroplane more difficult; but, on the other hand, aeroplanes are being built which can develop so remarkable a speed that they will soon be able to climb above Zeppelin altitude. When that occurs the Zeppelin menace will end for ever.
[CHAPTER XXVI]
THE AIR—THE WAR—AND THE FUTURE
Had either Orville or Wilbur Wright, when they first glided down the low sand-dunes of the Pacific shore on a frail, uncontrollable air machine, in the earlier part of this century, or Count Zeppelin, as he worked unceasingly on his giant airship, been blessed with the imagination and the gifts of a seer—what remarkable vision would have been theirs!
To see that frail glider increase and grow into a motor-propelled, double-winged aeroplane, darting through the air with the speed of a cyclone: that unwieldy airship, capable at the most of remaining for half-an-hour in the air at a time, develop into a craft, to which the crossing and re-crossing of the wide expanse of the North Sea was an everyday occurrence: to see the aeroplane climb up to 18,000 feet in the sky, to attain a speed of over 100 miles per hour, and remain in the air for hours on end....
The Zeppelin originally intended to be a peaceful carrier of the commerce of the world, converted into a ship of war, with machine-guns mounted fore and aft; and with a cargo on board deadly enough to wreck the half of a city....
The far-flung battle-line of Flanders, over which there creep, like great gray wasps, French, Belgian, German and British aeroplanes alike; the elongated shapes of raiding Zeppelins, darting hither and thither over a darkened London, among piercing searchlight rays and bursting shrapnel! Yet a few years, and the shapes and structures may undergo even more marvelous change; for every talent and accomplishment, every art and science of modern civilization will be devoted to the development of this new science of aeronautics.