The airship USS Shenandoah was the first American built rigid airship. Although built in the United States, Shenandoah was based on the design of the German L-49, a World War I high altitude bomber which had been forced down intact in France in October, 1917 and carefully studied.
The L-49 was one of the â??height climbersâ? designed by the Germans late in World War I, when improvements in Allied fighter aircraft and anti-aircraft artillery made it necessary for zeppelins to climb to great altitudes to avoid being shot down. For the zepeplins to rise to greater heights on a fixed volume of lifting gas, however, the weight and strength of their structures were dramatically reduced. This decrease in strength was accepted as a wartime necessity, since a structurally weaker zeppelin flying above the reach of enemy aircraft and artillery was safer than a stronger zeppelin that could be easily attacked. The copying of this design for an American airship, however, may later have had tragic consequences.
Construction of ZR-1 took place during 1922 and 1923; parts were fabricated at the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia, and the ship was assembled at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey. ZR-1 was 680.25 feet long, with a diameter of 79.7 feet, and could carry up to 2,115,174 cubic feet of lifting gas in 20 gas cells. As originally built the ship carried six Packard 6-cylinder engines â?? five mounted in individual power cars attached to the hull, and one mounted at the rear of the control gondola â?? but the sixth engine was removed in 1924.
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