Vintage Dirigible and Zeppelin Photos

[stjr]

A really neat story on President Roosevelt and the USS Macon below from: http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/USPics/moffett/60th.html

....Almost immediately after arriving in Mountain View, the Macon was sent on maneuvers in the Pacific, but it was an inauspicious debut. During a mock battle, the ship was "shot down" twice in the first eight hours. In 1934, Lt. Commander Herbert Wiley, one of three survivors of the Akron crash, took command of the Macon. Determined to prove the Macon's value, he quickly developed and improved the ship's long-range detection and scouting system.

To put the system to test, the Macon left Moffett Field in July 1934 in an attempt to locate the cruiser Houston that was carrying President Roosevelt through the Panama Canal en route to Honolulu. Using only newspaper accounts of the president's departure time as a guide, the Macon raced 3,500 miles to a spot in the vast Pacific Ocean where Wiley had detennined they could find the Houston. They did. Aboard the cruiser, crewmen were shocked to see two scouting airplanes, the Sparrowhawks, come out of nowhere and circle the ship. Minutes later the Macon dramatically descended from the clouded sky and dispatched a plane that dropped bundles of the previous day's newspapers from San Francisco onto the Houston. The Fleet's admirals were not amused. Said Admiral Stanley, chief of naval operations, "We considered it a publicity stunt and that he (Wiley) had no business doing it." The president, however, was tickled. The stunt showed that the Macon was capable of the kind of scouting for which it was intended.

Unlike other dirigibles of the time, the Macon was so massive that it also carried its own protection - five Sparrowhawk fighter planes which were stored in the aircraft's belly. The airplanes were released via a trapeze and a harness which lowered the planes through a T-shaped hole in the Macon's underside. Retrieving the planes, however, was a much more difficult process. Like a performing air stunt, the pilots had to equal their speed to that of the ship and "catch" the trapeze with a hook at the top of the plane. The harness would then be attached to the fuselage, and the aircraft would be raised. Despite the difficulty of the maneuver, the pilots, known as the "Men on the Flying Trapeze" had a flawless record on both the Akron and Macon. The ship also came equipped with another scouting oddity known as a "spy" car. A cable would lower the telephone boothlike compartment from the airship to a point below cloud cover up to 1,000 feet. A crewman inside the spy car would then telephone back to the main control room relaying navigational information. The car acted as a sort of reverse telescope. The Macon and the Akron were built to be the chief scouts of the Pacific Fleet, providing long-range reconnaissance. In addition to providing protection for the "aircraft of the sky," the Sparrowhawks and the "spy" car were the ships' main eyes.

The Macon scouted for the Pacific Fleet eight times in all. But when the airship left Moffett Field on Feb. 11, 1935, to go on maneuvers off the coast of Southern California, repairs had not been completed to two tail fins that had been damaged several months earlier. Because of the need for the ship and the pressure to prove its value, Navy officials had decided to do the repair work piecemeal. Largely because of that decision, this would be the ship's 54th and final flight. The next day, as the ship was returning from its successful mission, it encountered storm winds off Point Sur, south of Monterey. Suddenly, a crosswind struck the ship with such force that the upper fins of the previously damaged tail were completely severed, sending shards of metal into the rear gas cells. In the control car, the steering wheel went slack and the navigators felt the tail drop. Wiley ordered the dumping of ballast and fuel. Crewmen hurried about the ship discharging anything they could to lighten the tail. Off-duty personnel were ordered to the nose to help bring that end down. But the ship was doomed.

After rising to nearly 5,000 feet, the Macon began to fall. Moments later the ship settled gently into the water, and the crew, clad in life jackets and prepared with life rafts - features that had not been available to many of those aboard the Akron - jumped into the water safely. Ships were quickly on the scene to pull the men out. A radioman was killed when he jumped from the failing ship, and another man was lost when he apparently tried to retrieve his belongings. But in all, 81 of the 83 aboard the Macon survived the crash, including "Lucky" Wiley. A commission set up to determine the cause of the ship's demise concluded that the blame belonged not to the crew, but to the Navy's refusal to repair the Macon's tail damage before it was sent on its ill-fated mission. The disastrous record of airships put the pressure on President Roosevelt to abandon the costly lighter-than-air program. The president responded by setting up a second commission, this one headed by Stanford Professor William F. Durand, to look into the future of airships. The panel found that dirigibles had been used for purposes for which they were not intended and that they had not been given a fair opportunity to prove their value to the military. The commission concluded that these lighter-than-air craft should be given another chance. They were not. The Macon was the nation's last rigid airship.

[Ocklawaha]

Yeah, 4 weeks, though that might be a bit of a stretch on the police staked out overhead. In a worse case situation that lifting gas can keep them up there for a long, long, time. Police can stay on station at least as long as the stock of coffee and donuts holds out. One group of the new military zeppelins are unmanned and will hover on station or a year at a time.

Guess back in the great zeppelin era, there really weren't many sightings. My mother would recall how the radio kept everyone on schedule to see the Los Angeles, pass over Southwest Missouri. She said it was beyond belief that something so huge could be flying and, "It flew RIGHT OVER US!"

My dad was aiming for the lighter-then-air program in the USN, and they at least once thought he would get a spot on the USS Akron (which crashed at sea due to instrument failure). Instead the Navy put him on the Battleship USS Utah, first ship sunk in Pearl Harbour. Thankfully after several years on the Utah he had just been transferred to other duties.

OCKLAWAHA

[Ocklawaha]

We were scheduled for a flying time of 100 hours in the air. That meant we had to have plenty of everything we might need hundreds of miles out at sea. We loaded extra gasoline, oil, food, water, snacks, coffee, first aid stuff, toilet paper, blankets, tools, and electronic parts.

There you have it Stephen, 100 hours... and THAT was easy! Special thanks to "Packrat" former USN NAN-SHIP RADARMAN.

OCKLAWAHA

[samiam]

Airships are still being used by the U S Coast Guard


http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN6O43930320080624

[Lunican]

It seems like local TV news stations could use them as a much cheaper and safer alternative to the helicopter.

[Timkin]

Cool thread !!!  Where is a picture of the ill-fated Hindenburg?

[Ocklawaha]

THE PHOTOS YOU DIDN'T SEE!


HINDENBURG


HINDENBURG


HINDENBURG Reading room aboard the great ship


HINDENBURG at Lakehurst NJ


HINDENBURG at Lakehurst NJ




GRAF ZEPPELIN Sister ship to the Hindenburg, Dismantled for war effort WWII.


LOS ANGELES Dismantled after Hindenburg Disaster never had an accident

The last two Zeppelin's in the photos speak to the more modern times in which they flew, even then things were rapidly improving for all types of flight. One has to wonder what might have been had the Hindenburg landed at it's alternative field that horrible day.




Last two photos: The OTHER Graf Zeppelin, a Nazi Aircraft Carrier that never sailed and thankfully was pounded into razor blades at her moorings.

OCKLAWAHA

[stjr]

Cool thread !!!  Where is a picture of the ill-fated Hindenburg?

OK, we can't leave out the most famous Zeppelin picture of all, can we?

[Timkin]

Every time I saw footage of this event, it sent chills down my spine.. I cannot recall exactly what led to this disaster , but because of it, Airships were forever changed.  This was in Lakehurst, NJ right?

[Ocklawaha]

Every time I saw footage of this event, it sent chills down my spine.. I cannot recall exactly what led to this disaster , but because of it, Airships were forever changed.  This was in Lakehurst, NJ right?

Lakehurst NJ? I happen to have inside information on PORT PEYTON!




OCKLAWAHA

[Timkin]

LOL.. nice pic Ock..  I had no idea the Hindenburg actually blew up over the Courthouse ! lol

[Ocklawaha]

"...and this just in..."

According to the aerospace and defense company Northrop Grumman, the U.S. army has ordered the delivery of three Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicles (LEMV),that can carry up to 2,500 pounds payload while cruising along at 92 mph (148 kph) at the same time. Meant to be flying at 20,000 (6,096 meters) above the sea-level these super-large airships are literally longer than a football field. The army believes that the LEMVs will serve as surveillance stations and will assist in watching over battlefields in Afghanistan.

Northrop Grumman has received the $517 million dollar contract and is estimated to deliver all three LEMVs before the end of 2011

SOURCE:
http://www.livbit.com/article/tag/airship/

Will Airships Get DoD Funding Priority?

From July 20th INSIDE THE NAVY (subscription only) we learn that the US Army wants an airship.

    On July 8, Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale sent all four congressional defense committees a $3.6 billion proposal to shift funds within the fiscal year 2009 budget from lower- to high-priority needs. Within that proposal is a move to direct $5 million for the new LEMV program, which will be run -- with cooperation from the Air Force and Navy -- by the Army Space and Missile Defense Command in Huntsville, AL.

    "Funds are required to support the initial acquisition planning and development for a Long Endurance Multi-INT Hybrid Airship," states the reprogramming. "This will provide operational forces with a persistent platform of up to two weeks on-station time, with an integrated multi-INT [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] sensor suite."

And a small sample of the requirements.

    A hybrid air vehicle combines the characteristics of a fixed-wing aircraft or a helicopter with a lighter-than-air technology, that uses buoyancy from gas less dense than oxygen to stay aloft.

    "Technical objectives for the LEMV include an unmanned aerial system capable of being controlled through an existing Department of Defense ground station, three-week flight endurance, 2,500 pound sensor payload, 20,000 feet operating altitude, multi-intelligence capable, 16 kilowatts of power for payload, capable of station keeping (the capability to loiter or maintain position over a required mission area in different types of weather), recoverable and reusable," states the Army's May FY-10 budget request.

    The Defense Department wants the LEMV to spend one week of its total endurance in transit and on station for two weeks, according to a Pentagon official.

A 2,500 pound sensor payload suggests a small airship, but once the services start getting involved in airships it is only a matter of time before they start looking for a larger, lift version. I don't think people fully understand how survivable airships (we are not talking about blimps here) can be.


SOURCE:
http://www.informationdissemination.net/2009/07/will-airships-get-dod-funding-priority.html

Yep you naysayers looks like a dead industry to me too! NOT!


OCKLAWAHA

[spuwho]

Last two photos: The OTHER Graf Zeppelin, a Nazi Aircraft Carrier that never sailed and thankfully was pounded into razor blades at her moorings.[/center]

OCKLAWAHA

The Kriegsmarine Carrier Graf Zeppelin was actually captured by the Russian Army tied up at port after an attempted scuttle. After it was repaired, the Russian Navy towed it back apparently full of German booty.

It was bombed in 1947 by the Russian Air Force off the coast of Poland as practice and did not sink until hit with 2 torpedoes.

An oil company located it in 2007 in 87 meters of sea while doing exploration. A diving crew visited it in 2009 to view the remains.

While the RAF did attempt to bomb it at Kiel and it was reported one bomb had actually hit it, this turned out to be untrue and it was moved thereafter and sat rusting until capture.

While it could have been placed in active service in time for the war effort, it became mired in internal Nazi politics, poor Kriegsmarine performance at sea and the inability to fund the effort properly doomed it.

It was technically notable for the use of its twin rail compressed air catapults which unfortunately never made it to service.

[Timkin]

What was the actual cause of the Hindenburg disaster, Ock?  Please don't tell me , boy-mayor shot it.. hes saving that bullet for me.. 

[spuwho]

What was the actual cause of the Hindenburg disaster, Ock?  Please don't tell me , boy-mayor shot it.. hes saving that bullet for me.. 

In lieu of Mr Ock.

The cause was never officially determined, however many have speculated that static electricity ignited hydrogen leaking from one of modules in the rear.

Since it occurred immediately after a thunderstorm had passed, some have believed lightning struck it, but no witnesses saw it.

Conspiracy nuts think there were some hidden motives behind it (see the movie "Hindenburg") but nothing has come out of Germany or the US supporting it.