US Army Airships

Between 1908 and 1942 the U.S. Army had a program to operate airships. With few exceptions, they were blimps, the other three were semi-rigid airships. Immediately after World War I the Army tried to purchase a Zeppelin from Germany. During the 1920s, the Army operated more blimps than the U.S. Navy.

History

The Union Army operated balloons during the Civil War. A balloon was used by the US Army in Cuba. These were ad hoc and not part of an established branch of the Army. The use of observation balloons by many nations would continue until early World War II. Balloons must either be tethered, or go where they are blown by the wind. The answer, pursued by nations like France, Germany and Britain, was a powered airship, a streamlined shape, with an engine(s) and controls to allow it to be directed where ever the pilot wished.

In 1908 the Army experimented with its first powered aircraft, the SC-1, or Signal Corps number 1. It was a small semi-ridged airship with a top speed under 20 mph and an endurance of just over 2 hours. Following tests at Fort Myer, the SC-1 was sent to Fort Omaha, Nebraska, where the Signal Corps School was located. While the SC-1 was being tested at Fort Myer, the Signal Corps had built an airship hangar and a plant to produce hydrogen gas at Fort Omaha. Fort Omaha became, for a while, the first permanent military airfield in the United States. The SC-1 was scrapped in 1912, and the base at Fort Omaha closed in 1913.

The US Army operated observation balloons during WW I, but did not operate another airship until after the war ended.

Following the end of World War I, the U.S. Army acquired a variety of blimps from US, French and British sources. Plans were made for operating airships from both Fort Bliss, in Texas and Langley Field, Virginia. The first blimp operated by the Army was the A-4, which was operated primarily from Langley until transferred to the new Balloon and Airship School at Fort Scott, Illinois.

Army blimps participated in the "Mitchell" bombing test in 1921. They were used for training, costal patrol and experimentation in the early 1920s. The Army purchased three British "SST" type blimps from the British, which were operated out of Biggs Field, Fort Bliss, and Brooks Field, both in Texas for purposes of border patrol between 1920 and 1923.

During the 1920s the Army developed a series of small "pony blimps", or, more correctly, "Motorized Observation Balloons". These were hybrid types. The were intended to fly to where needed, and then be tethered as observation balloons.

The US Army acquired the Italian semi-rigid airship "Roma" in 1921. The "Roma" was the largest airship operated by the Army. It was based at Langley Field. With a cruising speed of 50 mph and a range of 7,000 miles, the Roma allowed the Army to consider transcontinental deployments, missions to Panama, the fast transport of cargo and passengers, discovering threatening fleets far out at sea. The Roma was destroyed by fire in an accident at Langley Field in early 1922. The Roma tragedy led Congress to decree that all US airship operations would in the future use helium instead of hydrogen as the lifting gas.

Amongst the most interesting U.S. Army Airship Service experiments was to pursue the ability to operate airplanes from airships. While both the Germans and British had experimented with releasing fighters from rigid airships, it was the US Army which first flew an airplane from the ground and 'hooked' on to a trapeze suspended from an airship. Many tests involving a Sperry Messenger airplane and TC class blimps were made in the mid-1920s. Eventually the technology was assumed by the US Navy on the 'flying aircraft carriers" Akron and Macon.

The army operated the RS-1, a semi-rigid airship during the late 1920 until the requirement for a new envelope grounded the ship. The Army Airship Service developed new designs, and operated a number of blimps, primarily from Scott Field and Langley Field though the early 1930s when competition for funding from the rapidly growing Air Corps started its decline. In 1932 the Army contracted for two blimps significantly more capable than any in service, these were the TC-13 and TC-14. When Army Airship operations were terminated in 1937 a number of Army blimps were conveyed to the USN. Only TC-13 and 14 were operated by the Navy.

The Army had failed during the post World War I era to establish a definite mission, much less a doctrine for accomplishing that mission, for its airships. By 1935 Congress was trying to eliminate funding for the Army Airships, and Chief of the Air Corps Major General Benjamin Foulois, who himself had been a pilot of the SC-1, was recommending the program be terminated. In mid-1937 the Army had finished operating 'airships'. The Motorized Observation Balloon continued in use for several more years. There were even new 'pony blimps' constructed. These were the five C-6, seven C-8 and four C-9 class airships. Two of the TE-3 class were re-designated C-7s. The last US Army airships were the two C-7s which were turned over to the USN in 1943.

Following World War II, the War Assets Administration put up for sale sixteen Motorized Observation Balloons of the C-6, 8 & 9 classes. One was briefly operated by the Douglas Leigh Sky Advertising Company between 1948 and 1950, the C-6-36-11 made its last flight on 14 June, 1950.

The US Army and the rigid airship

During WW I the Joint Airship Board assigned the US Navy the role of acquiring and developing rigid airships. This did not dissuade the Army from pursuing its own course. Colonel William Hensley flew as an observer on the return voyage of the R-34 from Long Island, New York to Britain in the summer of 1919. Hensley was then sent on a confidential mission to contact the Zeppelin Company with intent to purchase the remaining undelivered wartime Zeppelin, the LZ 114, which was to have entered German Navy service as the L-72. As the US was technically at war with Germany, this deal would involve trading with the enemy. Behind the scheme was almost certainly, General "Billy" Mitchell. Hensley visited the Zeppelin plant, inspected the LZ 114 and flew on a small passenger Zeppelin. The deal fell through when the Inter-Allied Commission of Control ordered the L-72 turned over to France. In November 1919, the US Army contracted with the Zeppelin corporation for construction of the LZ 125, which was to be larger than the R-38 which the USN had contracted to purchase from Britain as the ZR-2. After complaints by the Secretary of the Navy, the Secretary of War ordered the contract terminated in December 1919. The US Army continued to show interest in the acquisition and operation of rigid airships well into the 1930s.

References

* Hoehling, Mary. "Thaddeus Lowe: America's One-Man Air Corps", Kingston House, Chicago, 1958, LCC 58-7260.
* Shock James R.. "U.S. Army Airships 1908-1942", Atlantis Productions, Edgewater, Florida, 2002, ISBN 0-9639743-9-4
* Robinson, Douglas H., "The Zeppelin in Combat", G.T. Foulis & Co Ltd., London, 1962.
* Higham, Robin, "The British Rigid Airship, 1908-1931", G.T. Foulis & Co Ltd., London, 1961.
* Smith, Richard K., "The Airships Akron and Macon" US Naval Institute, Annapolis, Maryland, 1965, LCC 19962002.
* Shock James R.. "American Airship Bases & Facilities", Atlantis Productions, Edgewater, Florida, 1996, ISBN 0-9639743-3-5

External links

* [http://www.geocities.com/fort_tilden/blimp.html Article about the Fort Tilden blimp hangar]
* [http://www.forestryimages.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=1275079 Photo of the MB spraying for Gypsy moth in an early "crop dusting" experiment]
* [http://narademo.umiacs.umd.edu/cgi-bin/isadg/viewitem.pl?item=35441 Photograph of the Army Airship "Roma"]
* [http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1997/vp970216/02140069.htm Local press coverage of the "Roma" accident]