The first American-built rigid airship, USS Shenandoah

today is September 4th 2018 and it is no suspicious day because 95 years ago on this date the United States made a great leap forward in aviation history with the maiden voyage of the zr1 America's first American built rigid airship the zr1 was a marvel of modern technology and absolutely unique among airships in the world at the time and it represents that brief and spectacular era when behemoths of the sky floated majestically around the world it is history that deserves to be remembered on the chilly night October 19th 1917 11 German Zeppelin's took off from their bases planning what was one of the largest bombing raids of the era the raid was expected to be 25 hours long demonstrating the significant endurance advantage that airships had over aircraft at the time the Zeppelin's were meant to attack London part of a mission to attack the British homeland in the hopes of forcing British aircraft to be redeployed away from attacking German bases and to terrify the British population the German Zeppelin raids over London were particularly terrifying as the nearly silent airships were nearly invisible and night and night flying was particularly dangerous for aircraft at the time although they were attacked by British anti-aircraft guns they managed to drop all their bombs 36 people were killed in the raid and 55 were injured a single 300-pound bomb from Zeppelin l45 fell at Glenview Road hither Green London destroying three houses and damaging many others five women and nine children were killed including seven siblings of the Kingston family between the ages of 3 and 18 it was the last bomb dropped on London by a Zeppelin but that night the Allies would get their revenge while returning to the base the airships ran into strong headwinds in heavy fog and in the confusion eight of the eleven wandered over allied territory in France two were destroyed by Allied entered aircraft and two were attacked by French aircraft both were forced now one of those the Zeppelin L 49 was forced to land realizing as the tracer bullets from the French spades flew by that they could not escape and that a hit from one of those rounds would cause their hydrogen-filled airship to explode the crew hung out a white flag and the French pilots directed to land near Birbal Rabanne in northeastern France before the French pilots could land the German commander destroyed the crafts wireless he tried to set the airship on fire but was stopped by a local man 21 German crew were taken prisoner but more than that the L 49 was landed undamaged it was the first German airship to be captured intact the L 49 was studied and reverse-engineered the US intended to use the design of the L 49 is the basis for the first American belt rigid airship but to show the danger of traveling in those airships at the time the u.s. design was influenced by the crashes of two other airships the British should use the information garnered from the study the L 49 to help design their own class of airship the r38 initially for airships of the class were to be built but three of the orders were cancelled as the arm assist ended the war the r38 was also cancelled while under construction due to budget constraints but the united states expressed interest and the airship was purchased and completed at the time it was the largest airship in the world the plan was to do some 50 hours of flight testing to test the airship and train this u.s. crew on August 27th 1921 while being tested in northeast England the structure of the airship collapsed amidships witnesses said both ends drooped followed by a fire and then an explosion twenty-eight Britons and sixteen Americans died in the crash the L 49 was of a special design the U class called a height climber the design had been made to maximise the ability to climb making the Zeppelin safer from anti-aircraft fire but that required reducing the weight by weakening the structure the inquest over the crash with the r38 found that the structure was not able to manage the stresses of manoeuvring and had not incorporated new features of airship design that allowed a stronger structure the u.s. took these lessons to heart unlike the L 49 and the our 38 the Roma was a semi-rigid airship rather than having a full internal structure such airships are built around a rigid keel the Rumba was designed and built in Italy and purchased by the United States in 1921 it was at the time the largest semi rigid airship in the world but disaster struck in February of 1922 the airships box steering system failed during a test flight and the ship swung around where it hit high voltage wires filled with flammable hydrogen gas the Roma burst into flames 34 of the airships crew were killed and so when the first American built rigid airship was laid down on June 24th 1922 based very much on the German L 49 it incorporated a number of structural improvements which was supposed to help it avoid the fate of the British our 38 and to avoid the fate of the Roma the Americans decided that they would use the rare expensive but non flammable gas helium as the lifting gas rather than hydrogen the construction of the airship originally called the zr1 was quite a feat of Engineering it was to be 680 feet long more than a hundred feet longer than the battleship USS Texas it was to be assembled in the newly constructed hangar 1 at Naval Air Station Lakehurst in New Jersey hangar 1 at 966 feet long was at the time the world's record holder as the single largest room in the world the structure was made out of durum n' type of aged hardened aluminum alloy and manufactured of the US Naval aircraft Factory at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard the parts were then transported by truck and rail to Lakehurst for assembly the first ring for the structure arrived April 22nd 1922 and was more than 78 feet across rings were connected together with longitudinal girders tension wires added strength and stability inside there was room for 20 gas cells which would hold the look and gas the gas cells were made of rubberized Totten lined with gold beater skin which was taken from the outer membranes of the intestines of cattle and was one of the most gas impervious materials known at the time well helium has the advantage of not being explosive the use of helium offered some unique challenges for example as an airship expense fuel for its engines it becomes lighter causing the airship to rise to maintain neutral buoyancy a hydrogen airship would simply release some hydrogen gases hydrogen is cheap and easy to produce but helium was expensive in rare too expensive to merely vent into the atmosphere in fact filling up the airship consumed a significant portion of the entire world's helium reserves the zr1 instead had a system that condensed and collected water vapor from the engines which counterbalance the weight lost as the ship burned fuel the frame was then covered with high-grade cotton fabric laced tightly into place over the entire hole and given several coats of dope which shrunk the material tight against the framework the final cut was mixed with aluminium powder to provide a smooth weather resistant skin which also reflected the sun's heat away from the lifting gas the airship was launched on August 20th 1923 which means that still inside the hangar it was removed from its shorings and floating free on September 4th 95 years ago today some 15,000 people watched as 420 sailors and Marines walked the zr1 out of hangar 1 for the first time and using 4 for 6 300 horsepower 8 cylinder Packard gasoline engines lifted off the field with 29 people on board it was the world's first ever flight of a helium inflated rigid airship the zr1 remained aloft for 55 minutes the zr1 underwent a number of trials over the next month flying as far as st. Louis for the 1923 st. Louis air races the flight went without a hitch but the airship was yet to be tested for its value to the fleet the ship was christened in the ceremony on October 10th the Secretary of the Navy and when dembe's wife Marian did the honors christening the ship the USS Shenandoah named after the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia the word Shenandoah was derived from a Native American word for the river which some translate as beautiful daughter of the stars the ship was commissioned the same day under the command of navy commander Frank McCreary the Shenandoah made its first great challenge in January of 1924 the ship we've been working on mooring with the giant Lakehurst mooring mass the mooring mast was a technological marvel in itself at over 160 feet tall with an elevator communication systems electric lighting and piping for gasoline oil helium and water ballast once more the crew could exit the airship via a gangway from the nose a mooring Tower for certain advantages of a hanger and avoided the difficult process of docking moreover on long trips hangers would not always be available the Navy had talked about using the Shenandoah for Arctic research on such a trip docking facilities would be unavailable and mooring towers would have to be used for resupply but mooring was a difficult process and took quite a lot of practice and testing on January 14th The Weather Service issued a warning about gale force winds rather than dock the Shenandoah ahead of the storm the Navy decide to leave it moored to the mooring station to test the mooring that turned out to be a mistake a gust of nearly 80 miles per hour struck collapsing the top fin and rolling the ship over that twisted the nosecone attached the mooring tower off and the crippled Chenin door was off for an exciting ride the ford gas cells deflated and the airship pitched forward a crash might have destroyed the Shenandoah but the crew jettisoned ballast and order of the crew members asked to write the ship the ship careened across the field nose still down narrowly missing the treetops the engines were started and the crew slowly regain control shifting ballast and fuel until the Shenandoah was righted the damaged ship wrote ahead of the storm finishing 50 miles away in Newark following the storm the ship had to be nursed back difficult to control without a nose and with it's twisted Top pen but the Shenandoah had survived the worst January storm in the area in decades President Coolidge sent a telegram of congratulations after repairs the Shenandoah began testing for practical application with the Navy demonstrating that an airship could be valuable in the scuffing role a Navy oiler the USS Patoka was fitted with a mooring mast and specially modified as an airship tender in October the Shenandoah flew across the nation from Lakehurst to San Diego up to Washington and back testing newly built mooring towers it was the first rigid airship to cross North America in 1924 the ship was laid up for repairs and modifications helium was so scarce that some of Shenandoah's helium was needed to inflate the new airship USS Los Angeles during the process the ship's captain Zachary Lansdowne had 10 of the ships automatic gas valves removed the decision saved several hundred pounds in way to end it limited the release of expensive helium gas came at a price as an airship prices the gas inside the gas bags expanse and the pressure valves are there to release gas so that the gas bags don't expand to the point where they damage the airships structure by removing ten of the Shenandoah's 18 automatic gas valve releases captain Lansdowne had limited the ability of the Shenandoah to gain altitude quickly because if it rose too quickly the gas valves that were less could not keep up with the expansion of the gas in September the ship left for a promotional tour of the Midwest with a plan to visit state fairs in flyover Midwest cities the trip was a risk the thunderstorm season could be brutal in the Midwest commander Lansdowne argued that the trip should be canceled or at least postponed past mid-september when the season usually subsided but his superiors would only allow the trip to be postponed until September 3rd when the Shenandoah was expected to make a visit to the Ohio State Fair on September 3rd the airship was over Ohio when it hit a storm cell spectators described the ship is being tossed around like a bobber at one point nearly standing on end convective updrafts lifted it as fast as a thousand feet per minute more than the remaining valve releases could handle the Shenandoah broke into the aft section plummeting killing the engineers in the section the control car broke loose and dropped to the ground killing the men inside including commander Lance down seven men in the bow managed to get enough control to release gases and free balloon to soft landing in all 14 members of the Shenandoah's crew died in the accident after the accident many people blame the Army and the Navy for ignoring commander land sounds warnings about the weather airships were really only built to be flown in good weather and they are at particular risk over land where there can be violent updrafts aviator Billy Mitchell's criticism was so strong essentially arguing that public relations had overcome safety that he was court-martialed for his criticism and his career was ruined but other people blamed commander Lansdowne for the removal of the gas pressure valves in a sorry display spectators at the scene took away souvenirs heedless of the aviators deaths the farmer upon whose land the ship had crashed charged visitors by the carload to visit the site today various memorials marked the locations of the wreckage and memorialized the crash as a result of the inquiry the military decided strengthen the internal structure of its remaining airships and decided to start paying more official attention to weather forecasting but in the end the airships just turned out to be unsafe of America's poor rigid airships only one the USS Los Angeles made it all the way to retirement in 1933 the USS Akron was destroyed in a storm at sea and seventy three people died two years after that its sister ship the USS Makin was destroyed in another storm at sea and two people died and two years after that the Hindenburg exploded as it was trying to land at Naval Air Station Lakehurst the accidents put an end to the era of the common use of rigid airships I hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets of forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes please write those in the comment section I will be happy to personally respond be sure to follow the history guide on Facebook Instagram Twitter and check out our merchandise on teespring com and if you'd like more episodes on forgotten history all you need to do is 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 396,510

Keywords: History, the history guy, us history, aviation, military history, uss shenandoah, history guy

Id: H6IlLm-Jwi4

Length: 14min 38sec (878 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 04 2018