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National Geographic : 1925 Jan
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SEEING AMERICA FROM THE "SHENANDOAH" Photograph by Junius B. Wood IN THE "BRIDGE," OR NAVIGATING GONDOLA Lieutenant Commander Lewis Hancock, Jr., the executive and navigating officer, is plotting the course; Lieutenant John B. Lawrence holds the steering wheel; and Chief Petty Officer F. J. Tobin grasps the wheel which controls the "elevators," or horizontal rudders. The radio "shack," in reality a separate gondola, is so close to the forward navigating gondola that, from the outside, it appears to be the tail end of the latter (see text, page 32). is comparatively simple. Making a land ing and casting off are the difficult parts of airship navigation. It is somewhat like clocking a ship, only for the more deli cate airship there can be no crunching of fenders or rubbing of piers by steel hulls. TIIE CRITICAL OPERATION OF CASTING OFF No one who is not needed is on the "bridge," the forward navigating gondola, during those critical operations. The others are at their designated "landing stations" or being shifted back and forth along the keel, human plummets, to keep the long tube balanced. Water is dropped in spurts of hundreds of pounds when the ship is heavy. In an emergency, even a gasoline tank may go. Men are shifted again to keep the balance. The ship must rise when it casts off, only for a few seconds, until the propellers have caught hold, but enough to clear the mast, which would cut its thin sides like a knife. Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, chief of the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics, was in the rear of the little cabin as I squeezed down the ladder. I was the only passen ger until the mountains had been crossed and San Diego reached. Casting off from a mast is much the same, wherever the location. The day in San Diego, October 22, had all the pic turesque features and its story illustrates the intricacies and skill involved in the operation of one of these giant ships of the air. Lieutenant Commander Lansdowne sat in one of the forward windows of the gondola. Lansdowne is one of the type who foresees difficulties and does not get excited, but deftly and quietly avoids them. Lieutenant Commander Lewis ITan cock, Jr., executive officer and navigator, was close by; Lieutenant John B. Law rence held the steering wheel; Lieutenant A. R. Houghton was officer of the deck,
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