New Dirigible Prepared to Take Helium Gas Berlin, Jan. 7.
The L.Z.130, sister-ship of the airship Hindenburgh which was destroyed at Lakehurst, N.J, last May, has been reconstructed for the use of noninflammable helium gas and is now so far completed that it will probably be put into service this year. The new airship will have accommodation for 40 passengers and a crew of the same number, as with the Hindenburg.
The delivery of American helium gas has already begun in German ships. After successful trial flights the new dirigible will resume the trans-Atlantic service to the United States this summer, Trans-Ocean learns that contracts for the construction of a second large airship, the L.Z. 131, have already been placed. It will be 16 metres longer than the LZ. 130 and will be able to carry 100 passengers for the South Atlantic service.
No decision has been reached on the future of the airship Graf Zeppelin which, since the Hindenburg catastrophe, has been laid up in a hangar at the Rhine-Main airport near Frankfort—Trans-Ocean,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.