Spy basket

]

The "Peilgondel" developed by Juray served as a heavy plumbbob for an airship's radio antenna. The wind would move and bend a freely hanging antenna, hindering its function. Added weight reduces this movement. Juray then further developed the "Peilgondel" into manned spy gondola.

Use

Spy baskets were used on, among others, Schütte-Lanz and Zeppelin airships.The Aerodrome Forum] As of 1997, it was not always certain which airships used them: the blueprints for LZ 62 (L 30) and LZ 72 (L 31) included the spy basket operating plant but the German Navy was no longer installing them at that time; however a fish-shaped spy basket can be seen on photographs of the German Army LZ 83 (tactical number LZ 113).Horn, Andreas. Horn 1997] The Imperial War Museum exhibits a Zeppelin observation car that was found near Colchester after the Zeppelin air-raid of 1916-09-02 and that it believes fell from the LZ 90. After the war the Americans experimented with spy baskets on the USS Akron and USS Macon. [DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY -- NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER [http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/ac-usn22/z-types/zrs5-o.htm USS Macon (ZRS-5)] ]

Zeppelin spy basket development and use

Captain Ernst A. Lehmann, the German airship captain, described in his book "The Zeppelins" how Baron Gemmingen and himself developed the device. To test the prototype he blindfolded the helmsman of the airship and allowed himself to be lowered by a winch from the bombroom in a modified cask, equipped with a telephone. Hanging some 500 feet below the airship using a compass he could tell the helmsman which bearing to take and effectively drive the airship.Lehmann, The Zeppelins] He later recounted how, while returning from the aborted raid on London in March 1916Syon 2007 page 104] in the Z 12, Baron Gemmingen insisted on being the first to use it on their secondary target, Calais. The basket was equipped with a wicker chair, chart table, electric lamp, compass, telephone, and lightning conductor. With the Zeppelin sometimes within, sometimes above the clouds and unable to see the ground, Gemmingen in the hanging basket would relay orders on navigation and when and which bombs to drop. The Calais defenders could hear the engines but their searchlights and artillery fire did not reach the airship.

LZ26's basket was lowered from the airship on a specially constucted tether a 1000 metres long; other airships may have used one approximately 750 metres long. The tether was high grade steel with a brass core insulated with rubber to act as the telephone cable.

Despite Gemmingen reporting a feeling of loneliness while being lowered and losing sight of the airship, crewmen would nevertheless volunteer for this duty because it was the one place they could smoke.

See also

*Zeppelin
*Schütte-Lanz

Notes and References

*The Aerodrome Forum. 2000. [http://www.theaerodrome.com/forum/2000/7987-data-wanted-zeppelin-spahkorb-spybasket-sub-cloud-car.html Data wanted for Zeppelin "SpahKorb", spybasket/sub-cloud car] , last accessed 2008-07-03
*cite book| title=Zeppelin!: Germany and the Airship, 1900–1939| author=Guillaume de Syon| id=ISBN ISBN:0801867347| date=2007| publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press| isbn=0801867347
*Horn, Andreas. 1997. [http://www.zeppelin-museum.dk/D/german/historie/l-30/l-30.html L-30] , Zeppelin-Gruppe Tondern (German) last accessed 2008-07-03
*Varese2002. [http://www.forumeerstewereldoorlog.nl/viewtopic.php?t=1490&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=810 Forum Eerste Wereldoorlog] , photographs of spy baskets in action, museum exhibits and correspondences (Dutch and English) last accessed 2008-07-03
*Editors of German wikipedia. [http://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sp%C3%A4hkorb&oldid=46671754]
*Lehmann, Ernst A.; Mingos, Howard. [http://www.hydrogencommerce.com/zepplins/zeppelin3.htm Zeppelin3] . The Zeppelins. Chapter III REASONS FOR THE LONDON RAIDS

External link

* German Wikipedia. [http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bild:JuraySpaehGondel.jpgphotograph of the manned Juray fish-shaped spy gondola]