The R-34 slowly arose from the hands of the landing party and was completely swallowed up in the low-lying clouds at a height of 100 feet. When flying at night, possibly on account of the darkness, there is always a feeling of loneliness immediately after leaving the ground. The loneliness on this occasion was accentuated by the faint cheers of the landing party coming upward through the mist long after all signs of the earth had disappeared.
The airship rose rapidly 1,500 feet, at which height she emerged from the low-lying clouds and headed straight up the Firth of Forth toward Edinburgh.
A few minutes after 2 o’clock the lights of Rosyth showed up through a break in the clouds, thus proving brilliantly that the correct allowance had been made for the force and direction of the wind, which was twenty miles per hour from the east.
It should be borne in mind that when an airship gets out on a long-distance voyage carrying her maximum allowance of petrol, she can only rise to a limited height at the outset without throwing some of it overboard as ballast, and that as the airship proceeds on her voyage she can, if so desired, gradually increase her height as the petrol is consumed by the engine.
An airship of this type, when most of her petrol is consumed, can rise to a height of about 14,000 feet.
15.8 Tons of Petrol at Start
For this reason the next few hours were about the most anxious periods during the flight for Major Scott, the captain of the ship, who, owing to the large amount of petrol carried (4,900 gallons, weighing 15.8 tons), had to keep the ship as low as possible and at the same time pass over northern Scotland, where the hills rise to a height of over 3,000 feet.
Owing to the stormy nature of the morning the air at 1,500 feet—the height at which the airship was travelling—was most disturbed and bumpy, due to the wind being broken up by the mountains to the north, causing violent wind-currents and air-pockets.
The most disturbed conditions were met in the mouth of the Clyde, south of Loch Lomond, which, surrounded by high mountains, looked particularly beautiful in the gray dawn light.
The islands at the mouth of the Firth of Clyde were quietly passed. The north coast of Ireland appeared for a time, and shortly afterward faded away as we headed out into the Atlantic.