WesWorld

Folks,

please note that these news are from May. I´m somewhat behind with my stories but real life takes its toll and I can´t spend as much time on this project as I would like to.

THE SOUTH AFRICAN TELEGRAPH
16th May 1921

Pretoria. Back from their safari, were our foreign guest proofed to be a high-skilled huntsman killing several lions, zebras and wilder beasts, the Raj and the King arrived in Pretoria again yesterday. It was announced that the Raj was very pleased with the safari and might return for another one. The day concluded with a banquet with the most important south African bankers.

Today on the 16th the Raj will visit South Africas latest helium factory north of Pretoria which is expected to start production within the second quarter of 1922. [NOTE 1] After that the Raj and the King will visit South Africas first national airship factory, the South African Airship Factory (SAAF), and participate on a flight of South Africas first airship, the SA1 City of Cape Town. [NOTE 2]



The picture above shows SA01 in her hangar during completion. A similar hangar will be build at the aerodrome near Indias capital Hyderabad which is currently under construction.

The airship will carry the Raj and the Royal Family from the airfield at the factory to the town of Kimberly for a spectacular trip to the local diamond mines. To cover the distance of 500km the City of Cape Town is expected to need ca. 6 hours at an average speed of 85km/h. This is not the airships maximum speed (~115km/h) but due to winds and expected weather it will not be able to travel much faster.



The picture above shows the SA01 during take off for her maiden flight three days ago. The airship has a length of 130,8m and a diameter of 18,7m resulting in a hull volume of 22.500m^3, powered by three 220HP Maybach engines.

After visiting the mines the party will board the airship again to head for Cape Town where the Rajs liner, escort vessels and the RSAN will await them to start the first joint south african indian naval exercises.


[NOTE 1]: This factory will be expanded during the next years and then used to fill SAEs airships with helium but until then hydrogen will be used. Historically the USA needed all the worlds helium in 1924 to fill just one zeppelin, the LZ126 Los Angeles which was three times as big as the SA01 (70.000m^3) and build for the USA in Germany as reparation.

[NOTE 2]: Historically airship production ended in Germany with the end of WW1. The largest producer of airships – Zeppelin – soon tried to find ways to continue building them and finally succeeded. Schütte-Lanz on the other hand, Germanys second large airship factory, never build any airship again. This will be somewhat different in WesWorld. Here one of SLs leading engineers, Wilhelm Maybaum, will be invited to the SAE to help build up a local factory and infrastructure and finally design SAs first airship using the knowledge gained in Germany during WW1. The technology used by SL was similar to that used by