Sky Ships. William Althoff
for connection to the airship’s own lines. Access to the airship was by gangway let down from the ship’s nose to the main platform. Surrounding the tower on the ground were equally spaced snatch block anchorages; lines from the auxiliary winches led through these and received the ship’s two yaw lines let down from her bow.
The mast at Lakehurst. Completed in 1922, the 165-foot tower was the first mooring mast in America. Unwieldy on the ground, a rigid airship was impracticable without investments in masts and ground-handling equipment. Operationally, independence from sheds was crucial for maximum flight hours and thus experience. A further necessity were officers proficient in meteorology. C. E. Rosendahl Collection, HOAC/University of Texas
Interior of the machinery house beneath the high mast. The winch for the mooring cable is at center. Here also were electric pumps for fuel and for water ballast, a workbench and office, entrance to the elevator, and quarters for the mast watch. Rear Adm. C. M. Bolster, USN (Ret.)
The virtue of a mast was the operational flexibility it afforded in terms of independence from hangars. A returning airship could postpone docking, for example, if conditions on the field were unfavorable for the maneuver. Shenandoah used the mast for the first time on 16 November 1923, after several failed attempts to moor. The entire crew was learning by trial and error. Two moors were made in December and another two in January, when extended mooring-out trials began. These tests were intended to simulate conditions that the ship and crew would experience during the proposed, and much-discussed, flight to the Arctic via the West Coast.
The polar expedition was symptomatic of BuAer’s posture relative to the large airship. Admiral Moffett had predicted an Arctic flight in a press conference following the ship’s maiden flight. Indeed, earlier that year the New York Times had reported that this new, untried machine would be sent over the principal cities of America and around the world, as well as visit both poles!12 These projections begged reality. The substitution of helium had greatly reduced the airship’s cruising range. Further, the ship’s complement were learning as they flew; the Navy had but one large LTA base and, by 1924, was still groping relative to the use of mooring masts. Planning for a polar expedition would be halted by President Calvin Coolidge in mid-February. Nonetheless, hostage to the airship’s own propaganda and obsessed with public acceptance, Moffett and the Navy brass continued to expect far too much from their large airships and far too soon.
ZR-1 (left) berthed in Hangar No. 1, the nonrigid airship J-1 opposite. Clements/U.S. Naval Institute photo archive
J-1 is undocked as Shenandoah vanes to the mast; at left, a kite balloon sways on its cable. Helium-inflated J-1 logged its first trial on 16 May 1924. A blimp’s service life was from three to five years, determined by the rubberized fabric envelope. Its performance unsatisfactory and to conserve helium, J-1 was soon deflated and surveyed. Clements/R. G. Mayer collection courtesy Ian Ross
Helium Plant under construction. Authorized in March 1923, a satisfactory trial run was logged in April 1924 with operating capacity at 20,000 cubic feet per hour. The first such installation, Lakehurst’s, was the basic design of government-owned and -operated liquefaction-type plants built by the Bureau of Mines. Today, helium is indispensable to industry and for national defense. Rear Adm. C. M. Bolster, USN (Ret.)
Extended mast trials began in preparation for the Arctic hop, during which masts would be the only “bases” available to Shenandoah. Starting on the evening of 12 January, the ship carried out all operations from the mast. To test the ship in bad weather, Commander McCrary intended to keep her at the masthead for a week with a skeleton crew aboard, ready to take to the air if conditions demanded.
On the fourteenth, aerology issued an advisory of gale force winds for the sixteenth and seventeenth. Inasmuch as winds of sixty miles per hour were wanted for the test, it was decided to leave the ship masted. The sky clouded over as predicted on the sixteenth; the wind freshened and, by 1500, the airship was rolling slightly but continuously. At 1600, the watch changed amid driving rain and gusts up to sixty-three miles per hour. McCrary disembarked at 1700 for his quarters but was called back by Heinen, who had decided to unmoor and ride out the storm aloft. At 1844 a gust of seventy-eight miles per hour struck on the starboard bow, destroying the upper fin and rolling the hull severely. This twisting stress wrenched the nose structure free. The framework forward was destroyed, deflating the two forward gas cells.
High-pressure helium storage, NAS Lakehurst. These forged-steel cylinders held about 1 million cubic feet of the nonflammable gas. Before 1922 all Navy airships had been hydrogen inflated. The program stimulated interest in the inert—but expensive—lifting gas and was instrumental in developing helium as a national resource. In the meantime, cost bedeviled operations and helped frustrate commercial prospects. The kite balloon hangar is at left, Hangar No. 1 at right. Rear Adm. C. M. Bolster, USN (Ret.)
Drafting room, Hangar No. 1. The blueprint room with the engineering drawings for ZR-1 is at the rear; file cabinets with day-to-day paperwork are just out of view. Civilian employees were integral to station functions from the earliest years, including lending a hand for an undocking or docking in the big room, adjacent. M. J. Cranme
The aircraft began to fall. In the control car, the watch saw the masthead lights disappearing upward—and knew instantly that ZR-1 had broken free. Nearby, in the bachelor officers quarters, a bridge game was abruptly halted:
Shenandoah was gone—she was no longer riding at the mast. We all went dashing over to the mast through the wind and rain, and there was the nose structure of the ship still hanging on the mast along with some heavy mooring gear from the ship [mooring winches and cable] which had fallen to the ground. It was obvious that the gas cell in the bow had been torn and deflated as the ship broke away.13
ZR-1 secured to the high mast. Standing, left to right, Lt. Cdr. Zachary Lansdowne, CO, USS Shenandoah; Rear Adm. William A. Moffett, chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics; Lt. Cdr. M. R. Pierce; Lt. Cdr. J. M. Deem; and Col. C. G. Hal, U.S. Army. Deem and Pierce were graduates of LTA Class I (1923–24). Lansdowne would lose his life in Shenandoah, Moffett in Akron (ZRS-4). ZR-1 absorbed the energies of all personnel. Army Air Service officers were ordered to Lakehurst for “observation and instruction” on ZR-1, hence the Army presence. Mrs. F. J. Tobin
Thus began, according to Aviation magazine, “one of the most thrilling chapters in the history of air navigation.”14 Instinctively, hands had reached for the ballast toggles, and forty-two hundred pounds of water were dropped. Men were ordered aft. Shenandoah drove sternfirst across the field, nose down. The ship barely cleared the trees bordering the field, and the wild ride, her twentieth sortie, was on. The mechanics on watch in the power cars were signaled via telegraph; instantly, the engines barked to life in response. Fortunately, the ship’s telegraph and control cables were intact. Slowly the bridge gained the upper hand. Forward, riggers struggled frantically to seal the open end, to prevent the in-rush of air from destroying cell after cell like a row of dominoes. Weights had to be shifted, including fuel, to restore the crippled craft to an even