live in the immediate vicinity of where they were built, even
knew of their existence, and such ignorance prevailed concerning
airships of every description that the man in the street hailed a
small non-rigid as "the British Zeppelin" or admired the
appearance of R 23 as "the Silver Queen." The authorities no
doubt knew their own business in fostering this ignorance,
although for many reasons it was unfortunate that public interest
was not stimulated to a greater degree. In the summer months of
1918, however, they relented to a certain extent, and R 23 and
one of her sister ships were permitted to make several flights
over London to the intense delight of thousands of its
inhabitants, and a certain amount of descriptive matter appeared
in the Press.

From that time onwards these large airships have completely
captured the popular imagination, and many absurd rumours and
exaggerations have been circulated regarding their capabilities.
It has been gravely stated that these airships could accomplish
the circuit of the globe and perform other feats of the
imagination. It must be confessed that their merits do not
warrant these extravagant assertions. The fact remains, however,
that R 23 and her sister ship R 26 have each carried out patrols
of upwards of 40 hours duration and that, similarly to No. 9,
they have proved of the greatest value for training airship crews
and providing experience and data for the building programme of
the future. At the present time highly interesting experiments
are being carried out with them to determine the most efficient
system of mooring in the open, which will be discussed at some
length in the chapter dealing with the airship of the future.