The "family air yacht," a four-passenger dirigible newly built by Capt. Anton Heinen, bobbed at its stubby mooring mast at Toms River, N. J. one chilly afternoon last week. When the engine refused to start, two young mechanics applied a compressed-air booster* to "kick over" the sluggish pistons. Instantly the compressed-air tank and the engine burst, the explosion throwing the crew and their one passenger 40 ft. to the ground, wrecking the fore part of the gondola, scattering a shrapnel of splinters. Flames from the carburetor shot upward but burned out without igniting the hydrogen-filled bag.
Capt. Heinen, a Zeppelin pilot in...
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