The heyday of the airship era falls on the 1920s and 1930s. And, perhaps, the most unusual representatives of the giants are aircraft carriers.
But first, briefly about the essence of the "flying mastodons". Jean Baptiste Marie Charles Meunier is recognized as the inventor of the airship. The Meunier airship was supposed to have the shape of an ellipsoid. The controllability was planned to be carried out with the help of three screws, driven into rotation by muscular efforts of 80 people. By changing the volume of gas in the airship by acting on the ballonet, it was possible to change the flight altitude of the balloon, and therefore the project provided for two shells - an outer main and an inner one.
The first in the world to fly was the French airship "La France", equipped with an electric motor. It happened in Chal-Mudon on August 9, 1884. The second balloonist was the German doctor Welfer, who installed a gasoline engine on an apparatus of his own design. But in June 1897, Welfer's airship exploded in mid-air, leading a sad and long list of disasters. And nevertheless, gas ships invariably attracted the attention of inventors and designers.
At that time, the speed of airships reached 135 km / h and differed little from the speed of aircraft. The flight altitude reached 7600 m, and the maximum duration was up to 100 hours. The payload mass was about 60 tons, which included the mass of the crew, water and food supplies, ballast, and weapons.
With the increase in the experience of operating aircrafts, the reliability and safety of their flights, including in difficult weather conditions, have significantly increased.
By the end of the war, airships flew in any weather and performed combat missions in the clouds day and night, since they began to use a special device - light gondolas launched from the side. There were one or two crew members, and the airship was above the clouds. Communication with the gondola was maintained by telephone. It is almost impossible to detect a tiny gondola against the background of clouds, while two observers located in the cockpit could successfully conduct reconnaissance, adjust the fire of naval artillery and conduct bombing at targets themselves.
By the beginning of the First World War, Russia had built 9 airships, the best of which was the Albatross with a volume of 9600 cubic meters. m, 77 m long. By the end of the war, purchased another 14 air ships. Then there was no time for balloons. It was only in 1920 that small airships began to be built in Russia again. In the USSR, the first airship was manufactured in 1923. Later, a special organization "Dirigiblestroy" was created, which built and put into operation more than ten balloons of soft and semi-rigid systems. The indisputable achievement of domestic airship builders was the world record for flight duration - 130 hours and 27 minutes. airship V-6, with a volume of 18,500 cubic meters. m. Later, in 1938, the B-6 crashed on the Kola Peninsula, when in the fog it collided with a mountain that was not marked on the map.
Airship "Albatross".
Airship control, contrary to the existing simplistic opinion, on the ground and in the air is much more difficult than by plane. On the ground, the airship is moored with its bow to the mast, which is a rather complicated procedure. In flight, in addition to controlling aerodynamic rudders and several engines, it is also necessary to monitor the carrier gas and ballast. The airship takes off as a result of the release of ballast, and the descent is due to the partial release of the lifting gas and the action of the elevator. In addition, it is necessary to take into account the change in temperature and air pressure, especially with a change in altitude, as well as the state of the atmosphere - precipitation, icing, wind.
Before talking about American naval aircraft carrier airships, it should be noted that it was the Germans, with their special technical literacy and intuition, who became the progenitors of the post-war British and American large-volume rigid airships. The fact is that in 1916 the German Zeppelin LZ-3 was hit by anti-aircraft fire and landed in the British Isles. Its design was thoroughly studied, literally "bone by bone", and it became a prototype for all combat airships of our allies at that time.
Zeppelin LZ-3.
Later, according to the Treaty of Versailles, Germany was prohibited from building military airships for personal use, but they could legally produce them as reparations. So, in 1920, at the Zeppelin shipyard in Germany, a giant sea airship L-72 was built and handed over to France. It was one of the three newest airships 227 m long and with a shell diameter of 24 m. Its payload was 52 tons. The power plant consisted of six Maybach engines of 200 hp each. The French gave him the name "Dixmude". On it, the crew of Captain Duplessis successfully completed the tasks of the command of the Navy, and also set a number of records that can still amaze our imagination: the flight duration is 119 hours and the length of the route is 8000 km.
After the end of the First World War, about 300 airships remained in service. First of all, with their help, the competition for the conquest of the world's oceans by air began. The first flight across the Atlantic Ocean was made in July 1919 on the R-34 airship from Great Britain to the United States. In 1924, the next transatlantic flight was made on the German airship LZ 126. In 1926, the joint Norwegian-Italian-American expedition led by R. Amundsen on the airship "Norway" designed by U. Nobile performed the first transarctic flight of about. Svalbard - North Pole - Alaska. By 1929, the development of airship technology had reached a very high level. In September of that year, the airship "Graf Zeppelin" began regular transatlantic flights. And in 1929, the LZ 127 made a round-the-world flight with three landings. In 20 days, he flew over 34,000 km at an average speed of 115 km / h.
The Americans, given their geographic location, did not abandon the military use of airships. They saw the as yet untapped military potential of these huge air ships in the conduct of reconnaissance at sea, in coastal protection, escorting ships, in the search and destruction of submarines and in the implementation of long-distance military transport.
Initially, the Americans began to build airships like the German LZ and even purchased German airships for their Navy. The period from 1919 to 1923 was the time when rigid airships entered the US Navy. During these years, the fleet received the first three rigid airships, and a US Navy aeronautical base was established at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Congress allocated funds for the construction of the ZR-1 and ZR-2 airships.
The first flight of the ZR-1 under the name "Shenandoah" took place in 1923, only after the construction of the boathouse at Lakehurst. A second airship, numbered R-38, was built in Great Britain, but never got to see America. On August 24, 1922, the airship crashed on a test flight, killing 44 US Navy personnel. The third airship ZR-3, purchased in Germany, was named "Los Angeles". Both airships were training aircraft and flying laboratories.
ZR-1 Shenandoah.
For the development and construction of new airships for the Navy in 1923, the Goodyear-Zeppelin corporation was created jointly with the Germans. The Bureau of Aeronautics immediately began preliminary research to create a reconnaissance airship. So, for the first time, the unclear contours of the ZRS-4 and ZRS-5 (S - reconnaissance) devices appeared on the corporation's papers. In one, the customer was categorical: the airship should carry on board aircraft that will protect the airship and expand its reconnaissance capabilities.
All this led to the creation of an airship with a volume of at least 20,000 cubic meters. m. The project provided that such an aircraft carrier would be able to carry from three to six aircraft. The second innovation is the replacement of the hydrogen carrier gas with non-combustible helium. The latter significantly expanded the combat capabilities of the airship.
When military specialists discussed the future class of aircraft carriers, radical opinions were also expressed. Considering the great vulnerability of aircraft carriers and the exclusive dependence of carrier-based aircraft on hydrometeorological conditions, it was proposed to replace naval aircraft carriers with air ones based on the ZRS-5 airships built in the United States. The aircraft carrier with an average displacement of 19,000 tons had a maximum speed of 27 knots and could take on board 31 aircraft. To place them on aircraft carriers required 5-7 airships.
In the United States, work was carried out to create two airship-aircraft carriers for the Navy. By April 1924, preliminary work was completed. The development was named "Project-60". But a tragic incident unexpectedly stood in the way of the implementation of the plan.
On the night of September 2–3, 1925, the Shenandoah airship was torn apart by a hurricane over Ohio. The crash claimed the lives of 14 crew members. Another disaster led to a crisis in aeronautics, and the ZRS-4 and ZRS-5 programs were postponed for a year.
It took four and a half years before the Shenandoah disaster settled in public opinion, and it became possible to implement Project 60.
The designers of the corporation did not waste time during the period of raging public passions, but continued to work hard on the project and managed to equip the Akron and Macon airships with onboard aircraft. In the lower part of the airship hull, a T-shaped hatch-entrance to the hangar for four aircraft was cut out. At the beginning of the hatch, a so-called trapezoid was hung, to which the planes should cling when "landing" under the airship. A monorail system was installed on the ceiling of the hangar for the suspension and release of aircraft from the airship.
A special hook was installed on the plane, with which it clung to the trapezoid, and then moved to the airship hangar. The designers spent three years to finalize the landing system to a working condition.
The first person who managed to land on the trapeze was Lieutenant Clloyd Finter. But this was not easy, when approaching the trapezoid, due to the wake stream from the airship body and the working engines, it was difficult to hook onto the bracket with a hook. A very precise movement of the steering wheel and the throttle sector was required for a seizure to occur under turbulence. Only from the third approach, the finter, having overcome the wake stream from below, was able to catch on the trapezoid bracket.
When the pickup and takeoff from the airship were mastered, the pilots of the aircraft carrier began experiments to expand the combat capabilities of their aircraft carrier. At the presidential review of the fleet, pilot Nicholson took off from the deck of the aircraft carrier Saratoga and, gaining the height of the Los Angeles airship, landed on the trapeze of the airship and disappeared into its hatch. Then the airship planes were used to deliver the mooring officer to the ground when the airship landed at the new base. In the future, a special glider was used to deliver the officer to the ground, which was attached to the bottom of the airship hull.
In November 1931, the first of the two newest US airships was finally ready for testing. Akron's crew and maintenance personnel rushed to their posts in the hangar to prepare it for its maiden flight as a naval vessel. Finally, the engines are warmed up, the control system has been checked, more than 350 kg of food is loaded, the balancing springs that hold the airship in the center of the hangar are weakened, and the bow of the airship is fixed in the ring of the movable mooring mast. Everything was ready, and a small diesel locomotive began to move the quay mast forward, and with it the apparatus itself.
The airship was freed from the cables, the tail boom was removed and the mooring mast was towed further to the mooring circle. Akron was now ready to take off. And if you consider what a huge structure the hangar itself had, where a monster with a length of 240 m could be stored, then one can imagine how difficult the operation of such air ships was. For takeoff, the airship was disconnected from the mast, the propellers of the engines were turned down to create vertical thrust, and the ship took off.
Acron's entry into the US Navy was particularly ceremonial. Until the end of 1931, this gigantic apparatus was being tested, and in January it already participated in the fleet's exercises on reconnaissance of ships in the ocean. During this flight, Akron got into difficult weather conditions with snow and icing, about 8 tons of ice formed on the hull in the aft part, but no difficulties in controlling the ship were felt, it passed the first unfavorable tests in the sky.
Akron is the seventh rigid airship built in the world since 1919 and the third in the United States. The new airship was the prototype of a detachment of ten rigid airships intended for combat in the US Navy.
Concerns have increased: for the mooring of airships, it is necessary to build mooring masts with a supply of fuel, water for ballast, and electricity. Before docking, the airship must be accurately balanced horizontally, and then, under the control of the crew, stay at the mast until a large ground crew, taking hold of the guiderops (cables released from the ship), brings its bow to the top of the mast. Previously, high mooring masts were used, but in 1926, the Los Angeles airship moored to the "long" mast was picked up by a gust of wind and stood vertically at the top of the mast. With great difficulty they managed to save him. The damage was minor, but this incident revealed a lack of high mooring masts.
There were difficulties in choosing places for the construction of an aeronautical base. In addition to the construction of huge sheds (hangars), a mooring mast and mooring circles on the ground, significant reserves of water were required for ballast and a device for storing lifting gas.
There is no doubt that airships with such high data and at that time were the best tool for conducting reconnaissance in large oceanic expanses, especially in the Pacific Ocean, where the United States looked with suspicion at the military preparations of Japan.
Rigid airships had three important advantages over ships and airplanes: they moved at a speed three times the speed of sea vessels, had several times the carrying capacity compared to the planes of that time, and no less than ten times greater range. And in the late 1920s, a fourth factor appeared - the ability of airships to carry aircraft on board.
The main argument of the opponents of airships was their vulnerability. I recalled the incidents of the First World War, when the zeppelins easily knocked over London. But at that time, airships were filled with explosive hydrogen, and non-combustible helium gas was produced in America. Therefore, the new American airships ZRS-4 and ZRS-5 were not so easy to shoot down by fighters of the thirties. The lifting gas helium was not filled into the compartments under pressure and therefore could come out of the hole only in the upper part of the hull. In addition, helium was in separate ballonets and an attack by an entire squadron of fighters (armed with rifle-caliber machine guns) was required to cause serious damage to the airship. On board there were up to five fighters capable of repelling an air attack, In addition, several rifle installations were also located here. But it was smooth on paper. Shells from an anti-aircraft gun or missiles from a fighter could easily send a ship to the ground. And getting into a large and sedentary target was not difficult.
In addition, the aircraft on board were used to expand the field of view when conducting reconnaissance in the ocean, and not for air combat. With stable radio communication and a reliable radio drive on the airship, the view of the two aircraft expanded to 370 km along the front. For more efficient operation of aircraft in the air, it was necessary to provide for the position of a flight director on the airship, who, in combat conditions, would also perform the functions of an information center. In my dreams there was a project for refueling an airship in the air from a tanker aircraft, which could take off both from an airfield and from an aircraft carrier. In the future, they wanted to have a small transport aircraft on board for servicing the airship (changing the crew on a long flight, replenishing food supplies, ammunition).
Soon, Akron's ZRS-4s were armed with new Curtiss XF9C-1 aircraft. But trouble is difficult to predict. On April 4, 1933, a thunderstorm, playfully, dealt with the "lord of heaven" "Akron". Here helium was no better than hydrogen. A powerful cold front with thunderstorm activity and heavy rainfall attacked the "air whale" off the coast of New Jersey. The descending air flow threw it to the water, no efforts of the crew could keep the airship from descending, it continued to fall with its tail down at a speed of 4 m / s. To stop the descent, the ballast was dropped, the elevators were completely shifted to the ascent, as a result, the aft part dropped even lower, increasing the inclination of the airship to a dangerous value of 25 °, until the lower keel touched the water.
A huge blow shook Akron. Eight of its engines were working at full power, but they could not pull the tail section, filled with water, out of the ocean. With the sinking of the tail section, the Akron's movement slowed down, and the nose lifted up. Then the nose began to descend until the entire apparatus was in the water.
While Akron was making its last minute, the German ship Phoebus was slowly sailing through a strip of fog and a wall of rain. The Febus was already floating among the wreckage of the airship, the smell of gasoline was felt in the air. The destroyed ship was not visible on the surface. Only three of the 76 crew members on board were rescued that dark night. This is how the largest American airship crashed.
But Akron was the pride of the United States. An unusually expensive apparatus - more than $ 5, 3 million (full-fledged, at that time) was spent on its creation and another $ 2 million to provide infrastructure. After construction, the airship specially flew over large cities so that taxpayers could see that the money was well spent. After the death of Akron, America experienced a shock. This influenced the government's decision: to urgently complete the construction of the second giant, an exact copy of the deceased, which is already underway. Let the whole world see that we are still strong. The Macon became the new ship.
The deaths of the Shinandoa and Akron airships did not teach the US Navy command anything. In late 1934, Macon was caught in a tropical storm en route to the West Indies. This time there were no casualties, but the structure of the hull was badly damaged. They decided to carry out the repairs without placing the airship in the boathouse, and the crippled Macon continued to fly, receiving patches from time to time on the damaged places.
In the winter of 1934, the Macon took part in naval maneuvers off the west coast of the United States. The dawn on February 12 was as gloomy as the day before. Cruising at an altitude of 770 m, the Macon sank and fell into clouds with heavy turbulence and rain. Following the coast, the crew felt a sharp blow, and the airship banked sharply to the starboard side. Helmsman Clarke lost control of the wheel and the airship began to spin rapidly.
At 17.05 the sailors on watch inside the upper keel discovered a strong destruction and a breakthrough in the gas chambers, from where helium began to escape. As they approached the coast, observers from the ground noticed how the upper keel began to collapse in the air.
Having dropped all possible ballast, the airship soared up in less than 2 minutes. Macon, breaking through the clouds, continued to climb to 860 m, and beyond the height limit all the valves on the gas cylinders automatically opened, releasing the remaining gas into the atmosphere. However, despite this, the airship took off to 1480 m.
By that time, so much gas had been lost that the airship could only descend. A distress signal was sent. Commander Wylie decided to make an emergency landing on the water, because the coast was mountainous and also covered with fog. With the rapid rise of the airship upward, due to the loss of gas in the tail section, the balance was disturbed, and the airship flew with a raised nose.
The crew, having got over to the bow, could not balance the ship. By the time the tail touched the water, the crew members had time to put on life jackets and inflate the rafts. Of the 83 people on board, only two were missing.
The death of "Macon" came from a relatively minor design flaw. In a lateral gust of wind, the upper keel with part of the frame was torn off, debris damaged three gas cylinders in the aft part of the airship, the lift due to the loss of helium decreased by 20%, which led to trouble. The survivability of American airships did not allow them to survive even in peacetime. The idea of combat aircraft carriers turned out to be a utopia.
The era of large airships ended with the disaster of the German airship "Hindenburg" in 1937. It was the Titanic of the sky - the most expensive and most luxurious airship ever built by human hands. The main "killer" of the hydrogenated zeppelin was the fire. At the "Hindenburg" measures were taken that seemed to completely exclude the appearance of even a spark. There was a strict smoking ban on board the aircraft. Everyone who came on board, including passengers, was required to hand over matches, lighters and other things that could form a spark. And nevertheless, this 240-meter giant, the most perfect in the entire history of aviation, died precisely from the fire.
On May 6, 1937, thousands of New Yorkers witnessed a rare and magnificent sight - the arrival of the Hindenburg airship from Europe. This was the eleventh transatlantic voyage by the famous airship. The captain of the ship Pruss specially brought his mastodon close to the Empire States Building so that reporters and photographers could better see the German "flying miracle".
248 people of the mooring crew were already ready to take the mooring lines and bring the Hindenburg to the mooring mast, but the sky was covered with thunderclouds and, fearing a lightning strike, Captain Pruss decided to wait on the sidelines until the peals of the May thunderstorm died down. By 19 o'clock the lightning had gone beyond the Hudson, and the Hindenburg, buzzing with 1100-horsepower diesels, began to slowly pull up to the mast. And when the guide rope dropped from the airship fell on the wet sand, the body of the zeppelin, struck by a discharge of static electricity, glowed brightly from the inside. Its tail section, engulfed in raging flames, went down sharply. 62 passengers and crew members managed to get out of this hell, 36 people were burned to death.
A high accident rate has always been inherent in this class of aircraft. So, for example, in Germany, out of 137 airships built in 20 years at the beginning of the century, only 30 had a happy fate, 24 burned in the air and on the ground, the rest were lost for other reasons.
In World War II, airships were used for military purposes only by the USA and the USSR. Large losses of the fleet prompted the US Congress to adopt a program for the construction of semi-soft airships for escorting ships and protecting the coast. After the war, the US aeronautical fleet was significantly reduced. In the USSR, during the war years, only one airship was used. The B-12 balloon was manufactured in 1939 and entered service in 1942. This airship was used for training paratroopers and transporting goods. Until 1945, 1432 flights were made on it. On February 1, 1945, the second airship of this class, the Pobeda airship, was created in the Soviet Union. It was successfully used as a minesweeper in the Black Sea. Another device, the V-12bis "Patriot", was commissioned in 1947 and was intended to train crews, participate in parades and other propaganda events.
Currently, in the leading countries of the world, work is being carried out on airships, including unmanned high-altitude ones, capable of flying for a long time at altitudes of 18-21 km.
