Maitland, who presided, said he regarded the lecturer as the aerial Columbus, since he was the first airman to land on American soil from the air. When an airship, of which Squadron Leader Pritchard was a member of the crew, was about to land on American soil there was found to be no landing; officer. It was, therefore, necess to supply one from the ship. Squadron Leader Pritchard volunteered to act as landing officer, and he dropped from the ship about 1,000 feet by means of a parachute. The Chairman added that, watching his descent from the ship. he appeared to land upside down. (Laughter). The landing was a heavy one, for he left quite an impression on the soil. (Laughter). The Chairman also stated that the lecturer had recently been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his general airship work in Gallipoli and other battle areas.
Reviewing some of the salient achievements of British airships, the Lecturer said that they had collectively '"'patrolled" and "con-yoyed" over 2,000,000 miles during the war. In the 10 months of 1918 before the armistice the proportion of days on which airships carried out their flights was 97 per cent. Since then the pro blem of mooring rigid airships to a mast had been solved, and it was now as east for a rigid airship to fly to, fly away from, and lo to a mooring mast as it was for a The record of coastal airship No. 9 surface craft to moor to a buoy. emphasized the reliability of the individual airships Her life was two years and 75 days, her time in the air 2,500 hours, giving a flying average of three hours six minutes per day for the whole life of the ship.
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The lecturer discussed along broad lines the underlying requirements and problems and the difficulties facing future development, and then had something to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.