AIR SHIPS
My father used the term “air ships”. I found my first Father-In Law also called any contraption that flew through the air - by whatever means and for whatever purpose - was called a “ship” - and “air ship.”
When we were younger, the usage seemed to us to be a mis-use and it could prove to be embarrassing when they spoke of “airships” in the presence of younger people who realize they were talking about airplanes.
In time, I finally, came to understand why they spoke as they did.
The emergence of the motor-powered cart or wagon to become the automobile was something they could adapt to , but the world of flight was thrust upon them much more quickly when the Wright brothers did their thing down on the sands of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina and after such pioneers as Langley and his test-test pilot and engine designer Charles Manley had tried and failed, as had other individuals around the world. They made what they called “flying machines”. That, in fact was much more realistic term than our present habit of calling them calling them by numbers of usage - “747's or “bla-bla-blahs” depending on the purpose to which they are applied.
The turn-of-the-century generation in goth 1900's were,of course, aware of the balloons the Montgolfer boys had sent into the air over France. During our Civil War we made us more observant and air-minded enough to realize how important balloons could be to the military world. We put up enough such observation balloons to learn ,at last, two things ...we could actually see and trace the location and movements of enemy troops from afar, and we also realized for the every first time, that weather conditions traveled. Ben Franklin puzzled about a sever storm hitting Charleston, South Carolina; then Richmond, Philadelphia, and Boston. The balloon changed our weather observance ideas drastically. Up to that time,storms were thought of as being locally originated and finalized.
It was natural that those who accepted balloons in the air could come to appreciate the emergence of blimps, zeppelins and dirigibles during and after World War I.. They were as large as ships; they plied the heavens in impressive grandeur. Calling the dirigibles ships of the air ....”air ships”, was logically and apt. The term took root in common expression and endured even after the dirigible ceased to be an acceptable means of air transport with the fiery crash of the German trans-Atlantic craft Hindenburg"” at Lakehurst, NJ,. That disaster put a stop to the development of even grander versions of such ships.
The term now means any winged craft, as well. Our modern planes have now achieved such tremendous size and passenger capacities that they can, more logically, be equated with the concept of being “ships” of the sky.
So, my Dad and my Father-in-Law were right ... in a delayed sense. They were simply ahead of their time.
A.L.M. June 23, 2003 [c578ds]
