AERONAUTICS: Zeppelining

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Mail. The Luftschiffbau Zeppelin and the Goodyear Zeppelin Corp., in which the German company has minority stock in terest, will cooperate in establishing oceanic airship lines. Operations are de pendent upon getting dollar support and mail contracts from at least Germany and the U. S. President Paul Weeks Litchfield of the Goodyear company, which is about to build two dirigibles greater than the Graf Zeppelin for the U. S. Navy, has asked President Hoover to use his offices toward getting the U. S. contracts. Mr. Hoover did not spurn the request, and Postmaster-General Walter Folger Brown is considering asking the Congress for permission. A German mail contract is virtually certain.

Money. As soon as the mail contracts are signed, U. S. money will be forthcoming. Then the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin will rush construction of four commercial dirigibles, the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corp. one, possibly two, others.

Lines. The Germans will first establish a line between Europe and the U. S., with two ships running each way across the Atlantic weekly. The U. S. base will be near Baltimore, Washington, or Richmond. Va., because the weather there is more even than at points farther north. The German dock will be, probably, in Central France, where too the weather is even. Berlin will be a stop. Fare will be $1,000 per passenger.

After the U. S.-Europe line becomes established, the Germans will run ships from their French and German ports to Brazil and Argentina, with a way station at Seville, where the Spaniards are planning a hangar.

Four years at least will be necessary for the development of this program.

Briefer is the period for Goodyear-Zeppelin's plans. It will run its ship, or ships, from the Pacific Coast to Hawaii, later to the Philippines.

Ersatzgas, Ersatzpfennige. Ersatz has become a brave word in Germany. As a substantive it means War Reparations. As part of compounded words it means substitute. Its substitute connotations the Germans have met with courage. They have done with Ersatz foods, clothing, fuels. It was on a quest for further Ersatzsachen that Dr. Eckener remained in the U. S. after his ship sailed. Those things were substitutes for hydrogen, substitutes for pfennigs.

From Manhattan a fortnight ago he dashed to the Cleveland Air Races and Show, shook hands with Col. Lindbergh (who did for airplaning what the older man has just done for zeppelining >. caught a Goodyear Army blimp for the 30-mile trip to Akron, inspected the finances and construction activities of the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corp. (of which he is a director). Then at the comfortable, unpretentious home of Goodyear's President Paul Weeks Litchfield, he went into a politely brisk conference with Mr. Litchfield, Jerome Clark Hunsaker (Goodyear-Zeppelin vice president), William Patterson MacCracken, Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Aeronautics (out going) and Karl Arnstein, onetime Luftschiffbau Zeppelin engineer, now loaned to the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corp. to direct construction.