We will be posting some of the most interesting questions sent to us by visitors to this website. Be sure to check back often to see what new questions/answers have been posted.

From: Fred Bordoff   

I just read the mail from Norman Blagbrough re: the engines on the ZP1 airship. I too was a crew member 1960-1962 aboard ZPG-2 #141561. If memory serves me the engines on that ship were Pratt & Whitney R1300 seven cylinder radial inboards. The biggest problem we had with those engines was oil consumption, about 20 gallons for an 8 hour flight. Please let me know if I am right.

Your memory serves you well, sir. They were the R-1300's, adapted (as was most of the hardware, electronics, instruments and avionics)from Heavier Than Air (HTA) use. Considering the length and low-speed nature of some of the flights, everything performed fairly well as a package. The ZPG-2's/ZPG-2W's were second only to the K-ships in great "all around" performance and legendary reliability, but they did generate their share of comments for the proverbial "wish list."

The engines performed better than anybody had a right to expect, especially on endurance flights of up to 264 hours, but they leaked oil, they had to be "gunned" periodically to prevent carbon fouling and the internal/external engine/gearbox/propeller drive system was complicated and tempermental.

Still, they were among the best airships that ever flew, and the "561" was perhaps the best of them all.

From: Dick Gray AFCM (ret)   

I was stationed at NEL in 1956 & 1957. Was attached to HTA, & thought I remembered our Hanger being called Hanger 4? It was down behind Hanger 3, on East field. East field was not utilized then, we taxied to West Field for everything. I flew on the NAS R4-D, 50789. Pappy Burns was a pilot in those days. Used to take all the leftover box lunch items he could get to BOQ to eat later. He knew every building & smell on the East coast, and was dun to fly with.

I was an ADAN & AD3 back in those days. We flew out during the big fire in 1956, and hauled "gear" to NV. for "Operation Plumbob", and hauled it back as the blimps "expired"!!.

"Hangar Four" as it is known is an old (in fact the oldest) airship hangar in the Navy, originally built at NAS Hampton Roads in 1917 and moved to Lakehurst in 1931. It sits near the Main Gate as you drive in, off to the right.

The hangars you speak of are a pair of twin corrugated metal hangars next to Hangar #1, behind Hangars 2 &3 facing South toward the old HTA Runways. These were built in 1933, they originally faced the old Rigid Airship mooring circle area in front of Hangar #1; they were relocated and "turned" when Hangars 2 &3 were built early in World War II.

From: Jim Frawley

Two questions, When did the Navy Parachute school close at Lakehurst. Finally, I attended the Jump school in the 70's and were any records kept or completion certificated maintained so that I could get a copy of my training

The Parachute Rigger School became part of the Naval Air Technical Training Center (NATTC) and as the Aircrew Survival Equipmentman School it was absorbed into the functions of the NATTC Command at NAEC (Naval Air Engineering Station) Lakehurst after Naval Air Station (NAS) Lakehurt was disestablished on March 10, 1977.

There were jump classes held as late as 1981. All records are part of the operational history of the Naval Air Technical Training Center command.

From:

I remember seeing a picture when I was a child of an airship ( I think that it was the Shenandoah) attempting a docking at a mooring mast on the roof of the Empire State Building in New York City. The craft was photographed in a vertical position. The attempt was abandoned although the mooring mast is still an integral part of the building. Do you have a copy of that photo?

The USS LOS ANGELES (ZR-3) did a famous "head stand" on the Lakehurst mooring mast on August 25, 1927. This was captured in a series of photographs which were originally "classified" but which have been extensively published over the years, the first time around 1938.

The Empire State Building mooring mast was built and fully equipped, but it was mostly a "gimmick" and neither the Navy nor German Zeppelin operators ever seriously entertained the risky proposition of docking one of their precious rigid airships to the skyscraper.

A small commercial advertising blimp did make an exploratory approach to the top of the ESB in 1932, but it did not moor and at any rate the mooring fittings were not really compatible.

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From: Ben Sonstein

I saw a reference to your organization in a recent article in my local newspaper and hope you might answer some questions left long unresolved regarding a visit of the Graf Zeppelin to the Philadelphia area in 1935. The event figures into a short story I've written, and the information resulting from the answers could significantly deepen the writing. I understand these questions might be outside your purview. If so, perhaps you can suggest other possible resources from which to seek answers.

My understanding is that the Graf Zeppelin passed directly over the city of Philadelphia during one of its trans-oceanic trips during 1935, probably in Autumn. I checked copies of the Philadelphia Inquirer and Ledger (I think) but found no record of anything that qualified. My assumption is that the zeppelin was mooring at Lakehurst and either made a pass over Philly en route to or from Lakehurst or made a special trip from Lakehurst and passed over the city before returning to Jersey. Do you have any record of such an event?

Regarding that same trip, do you know when the German National Socialist government added swastikas to the tailfins of its airships? Did the Graf Zeppelin have swastikas displayed there, like the Hindenburg? Were there swastikas on the fins at the time the Graf Zeppelin overflew Philadelphia in 1935?

Concerning a different airship and a different event, I have been told the Hindenburg flew over Cape May, NJ during 1937. I was told during the summer of 1937; however that would be impossible. Do you have record of the Hindenburg flying over Cape May either during the summer of 1936 or before its destruction in May 1937? Would the Hindenburg have sported the Nazi flag then?

GRAF ZEPPELIN did not come to the United States after 1933 (when she came as part of a Friedrichshafen-Rio-Opa Locka-Akron-Friedrichshafen "Triangle Flight" bearing the new swastika on her tail fins...port side.)\

GRAF ZEPPELIN only came to the U.S. FIVE times in her 590 flights and 144 ocean crossings (first arrival, 1928, to and from Lakehurst in 1929, a 1930 "triangle flight" which included her last visit to Lakehurst and the 1933 flight which visited Akron and Chicago and headed directly Eastward without visiting Lakehurst at all.)

From 1932 onward, the ship held down the South American route which had held promise for the Zeppelin Co and its successor organization DZR (Deutsche Zeppelin Reederei) and the next U.S. visits by a German Zeppelin were all done by the HINDENBURG on her 10 round trips in 1936, as well as the October 9, 1936 "millionaire's flight" which took 75 financial, industrial and military leaders on a 10-hour demonstration flight over the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic States.

From: Norman Blagbrough  

As an aircrew member of ZW-1 then ZP-1 (1959-1961) I knew the engines were inboard. Recently a fellow volunteer at DVHAA asked "who made the engines on the blimps". OK, who made the engines used in the 2's and 3's we flew?

Engines on the "Nan" ships were 700 Hp. Wright aircraft engines mounted in sealed-off "nacelles" within the car driving the props thru gear boxes, interconnecting clutch transmissions and shafting.

The transmission system was reputed to be tempermental and expensive to maintain, but they were good ships nonetheless.

For the ZPG3W's, the Navy reverted to engines mounted completely outside the car.

From: Susan Malinowsky

I am looking for information about the construction of the Hindenberg - in particular the ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communications. Do you have an idea of where to find this? Also a question if you know. Which branch of service was sent in to guard the crash site?

The communications systems of the ship consisted of shortwave and longwave transmitters/receivers manufactured by Telefunken A.G. There were radio operators on duty throughout the flight with principle duties involving receiving of weather reports (very important, since they deliberately "chased" storms to find the best weather/wind conditions also transmitting ordinary business traffic to and from the ship, radiograms to and from the passengers and position reports between company headquarters and the Air Ministry in Germany and the landing field at Lakehurst (North American flights) or Rio de Janiero-Santa Cruz (South American flights.) The ship's call letters were " D-E-K-K-A."

During landing maneuvers, signals were exchanged with the ground crew using flag and blinker light signals.

At the time the HINDENBURG was lost, guarding of the wreckage was carried out mostly by Navy bluejeckets and Marines. Coast Guardsmen from Cape May were loaned to Lakehurst for a few days for initial security duties, there were also some FBI and New Jersey State Police personnel present at various times.

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From: James T Lynch

Just recently I completed a 6000 km road trip from my hometown in São Paulo to the Amazon region of Brazil with a group of 11 other men in six off-road vehicles. One of the objectives of the trip was to visit an abandoned Air Force Base in the state of Amapa, just south of Brazil's border with French Guiana and 18 km west of the Atlantic Ocean (2.077356 degrees north Lat.; 50.857866 degrees west Long.). The Base was under the control of the Allied forces from 1943 to 1945. We understand that this base was used to help supply the North African theater with men and equipment. The base was decommissioned by the Brazilian military some time in the late 1950s.

We had heard that before the Allies left the base of they buried aircraft and other equipment. The question that arose in our minds was why they would go to the effort of burying airplanes. If the airplane was in flying condition, why didn't they fly the aircraft back to the United States? If on the other hand, the aircraft was not in flying order, and repairs were not feasible, why didn't they just leave the aircraft where it stood? Our objective was to find out if in fact the rumor that the aircraft had been buried was true, and if so, try to find out why this had happened.

We were able to locate what remained of the base by speaking to people in the nearby village. They not only told us where the Air Force Base was located but also confirmed that many years before airplanes jeeps and other equipment, which had been buried were dug up; the aluminum was sold off as scrap, and whatever else was still functional, was taken by the Village people. When we located the base we found large holes dug in the terrain around the airfield and piles of metal scrap dumped around the holes. Most of the material that we found had been parts of vehicles, but we did find pieces that were clearly identifiable as being aircraft components. What really surprised us was that we found a blimp docking tower still standing out in a field.

With the confirmation of the rumors about the buried equipment, and our surprising discovery of the existence of a blimp docking tower, we've decided to dig deeper into history to try to understand why the Allies would have gone to the immense effort of burying airplanes in the Amazon, rather than just letting them deteriorate where they stood. Also, we are curious to understand what the Allies used blimps for in the Amazon.

Can anyone shed light on these questions?

From 1943-1945, Navy blimps dispatched for operating in the Brazilian Sea Frontier had a large headquarters at Recife (in an area used formerly by the GRAF ZEPPELIN) used the former German Zeppelin hangar at Santa Cruz as their main operation/maintenance headquarters and had mooring mast/operational detachments a Amapa, and several other remote/coastal locations in Brazil for the purposes of Anti Submarine Warfare, Air-Sea Rescue, patrol, etc.

U.S. Navy airship presence got rather extensive in Brazil to the point that the Brazilian Air Force actually established a detachment of officers and men to take Lighter Than Air training, the idea being that the airships and equipment sent to Brazil would be "lendleased." However, with the coming of VE Day, these plans quickly ended.

Standard Navy patrol blimps of the period were the K-type ("K" ships) and all of them were flown from bases in the contenental U.S. to the Brazilian Theatre of Operations. By the end of the war, wear and tear in the harsh operating environment (particularly in terms of UV rays and their effect on the rubberized fabric envelopes of the ships) and other general operation incidents left a few of the ships wrecked, cannibalized for spare parts or in marginal condition. Some parts were left in Brazil, as the U.S. Navy airship inventory quickly shrank from a high-point of 144 operational airships in 1944 down to just 18 Fleet operational ships in commission by late 1945.

The Brazilian operation was a credible success for Navy LTA because so much was established using the barest minimum facilities, far from from and the regular "supply chain." (Helium, in particular, had to be shipped in by cylinders, a cumbersome and expensive process; hot temperature conditions sometimes required wetting the blimps down with fire hoses to keep the helium cool so it wouldn't expand and automatically valve off as they sat on their mooring masts on the field, very little other shelter being available as their was only one airship hangar available in the whole region and that was routinely used for maintenance/repair rather than operational support.)

From: Brad Overmoe   

I'm doing some research on the hindenburg and found your site. I have a cover that i'm try to determine if its genuine. it has a date stamp of June 23, 1936 from New York. And a receiving date stamp of June 27, 1936 in Landau(pfalz) if the spelling there is correct. Can you confirm if the Hindenburg did in fact fly on these dates from NY to Germany. any info or links to other sites would be appreciated.

The HINDENBURG's 23rd flight was a return flight (Eastbound) which departed Lakehurst on the morning of June 24 1936 and landed at Frankfurt on the afternoon of June 26. Dr. Hugo Eckener was in command, there was about 400 lbs of mail aboard for the trip.

Mail is generally the most VERIFIABLE souvenir you can have from the Zeppelin era. The HINDENBURG carried tens of thousands of pieces of mail in its 14 months of service and consequently, these are not terribly valuable or expensive, though some flights have mail that is worth more than others (the last flight, from which only a few pieces of mail survived, for instance, as well as the 1936 flights over the Olympic Stadium with special postmark.)

From: Charles Gillett   

Why was there an embargo by the US on helium at the time of the disaster? Just curious.

The Helium Control Act of 1927 had been created to safeguard scarce U.S. helium supplies for domestic use priority, particularly in the Navy's rigid airships.

The Germans would have liked to have had helium for the HINDENBURG and she was in fact designed to accomodate helium or hydrogen, but the exteme expense, reduced lifting capacity and logistics/transport difficulty (a standing reserve of at least 10% was necessary on each end of the operation for realistic supply needs) caused the Germans to stop short of formally requesting helium.

In other words, the desirability of helium was known, the Germans would have surely liked to use it, but they frowned at the expense, had little fear of using hydrogen themselves and remember that they had the commercial airship market to themselves at this point so unless an American or British operation started carrying passengers with "safe helium" there really was no urgency of competition.

Helium finally DID become an urgent priority for the Germans after the HINDENBURG burned; while negotiations were going on, Hitler annexed Czechoslovakia and it pretty much destroyed any chances of the Helium Control Act being amended on behalf on an increasingly-warlike Nazi Germany.

From: ??   

Did the Hindenburgh come to Hartford, Ct. in the 1930's.? I remember going out in the school yard with our class to view an airship. Was this the airship?

Hartford was usually along the way of the HINDENBURG's westbound trips, especially if she made landfall around Newfoundland/Maine and then came south along the Atlantic Seaboard (which she did on her last flight.) Navy dirigibles SHENANDOAH, LOS ANGELES, AKRON and MACON all appeared over the Hartford, CT area at one time or another between 1923 and 1933.

From: Dennis

My Grandmother bought a ticket for the final flight of the Hindenburg. At the last minute she was told she had been " bumped " off to make room for another more important passenger. That bit of class distinktion saved her life. It was so close to departure that she couldn't contact my Grandfather and father here in the United States. They were on there way to Lakehurst to pick her up when they were turned back by police. For two hours they thought she had died. Then they found out she wasn't on the passenger list. Her name was : Elizabeth Doerr Tippenreiter. Do you have any idea where I can look or who to contact to find out if a list of Ticket Buyers for that last flight, or a bumped passenger list, still exists? I have tryed everything I can think of except contact whatever company owned the Hindenburg. Do you possibly know who they were? Maybe they still have some typy of business. Anything would be helpful.

To our knowledge, nobody was "bumped" from the last flight of the HINDENBURG. The Zeppelin was capable of carrying 72 passengers and there were in fact only 36 passengers aboard on the last flight so there was plenty of room. (There were 61 crew aboard, including many who were in training for a new sister-ship to be launched in the fall.)

The return trip to Germany from Lakehurst would have been different, as a major event, the Coronation of King George VI was only a week away (May 12, 1937) in London. Consequently the HINDENBURG was booked solid for the return trip, set to depart Lakehurst around 1130pm. on May 6. This of course did not occur due to the accident which destroyed the airship and took the lives of 13 passengers, 22 crewmen and one civilian Lakehurst ground handler.

From: Jim Lambert  

Who was the prime contractor who built the Shenadoah,Akron and Macon?PS,this is a great site.

SHENANDOAH (ZR-1) was built by the Naval Aircraft Factory, Philadelphia with most of the duralumin metal framework coming from the Aluminum Co of America, gas valves and gas cells from the Goodyear aeronautical division and motors manufactured by Packard.

AKRON (ZRS4) and MACON (ZRS5) were built by the Goodyear-Zeppelin firm in Akron, Ohio. This was a new venture launched in 1924 using German engineers and patents from the original Luftschiffbau Zeppelin firm in Germany transplanted into a wholly-owned American subsidy of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co (many workers and engineers from the original Goodyear Aeronautical Department transferred to Goodyear-Zeppelin as well, the company later became known as Goodyear Aircraft Corp. and still later as Goodyear Aerospace Corp, Loral Air Defense Systems Corp and is currently known as Lockheed-Martin Defense Systems, Inc.)

Dozens of subcontractors produced various parts and subassemblies for the AKRON and MACON. For example, German Zeppelin subsidiary Maybach Motors built the engines, Roebling made much of the wire and cable used in the ships, Tappan made the galley stove, the original propellers came from Hartzell Propeller Co, etc.

From: Tom Mitchell   

In October 1924 the USS Shenandoah made a cross country trip from Lakhurst to California. It came via way of Texas. Could you please tell me the route it took and stops if any. Thank You

SHENANDOAH left Lakehurst on October 7, 1924 and flew slightly over 9000 miles in 235 flight hours around the rim of the country and back.

Stops were made at Fort Worth and San Diego both outbound and return and the turnaround point was at Fort Lewis, Washington.

The outbound trip took the dirigible over Washington DC, down the eastern seaboard and across Mississippi, Alabama, etc, into Texas. In order to conserve helium, the ship was required to fly through the mountain passes across the Continental Divide rather than over them. There were no aviation beacons or aviation maps...the most reliable form of navigation was to follow the "Iron Compass" of known major railroad lines with aid from a dog-eared copy of a Railroad Atlas.

Originally, it had been hoped to use the previaling westerly winds to make the return flight non stop from San Diego to Lakehurst but the ship balked and stalled in the air near the California-Arizona border as they flew her 12-degrees nose up with full speed on the engines and 18,000 pounds of fuel on board. Four fuel tanks had to be dropped as emergency ballast and so the SHENANDOAH ended up having to once again stop at Fort Worth to take on fuel and helium.

The final leg up and across the central plains was easy, the ship proceeding via Wheeling, Youngstown and across Pennsylvania and on to Lakehurst.

The flight was quite a triumph (the only dark side was that despite helium conservation measures they valved or vented over 600,000 cubic feet of helium....nearly a quarter of the ship's total volume and representing several months' production capacity from the Bureau of Mines' single operating helium extraction plant at Fort Worth.

From: Wayne Granger   

My father left me a small section of what he told me is a section of the metal frame of the Hindenburg.It's "Z" shaped with the top and bottom section about 5" in length and the diagonal section 61/2 to 7". It apparantly was painted green. The top part of the "Z" has a cloth or canvas covering wrapped around it held in place with a piece of rope or string. There is no sign of any fire or heat damage on this part. Can you suggest how I can verify the authenticity of this remnant. I will gladly provide pictures and a more detailed description to anyone you can suggest. Thanks in advance for your help.

The original color of the protective varnish on the girders was a cobalt blue. Exposure to the fire (and age) caused the varnish to turn dark greenish black. The girders are built of duralumin, triangular in section with latticework. There are lightening holes in the latticework. The rivets often display a * shape on the rivet head, the result of a distinctive characteristic of the riveting tool.

From: Bill Weckel   

I'm researching the Los Angeles as part of the first step of building a scale model of her. I'm having a tough time finding basic specs on the web, and was wondering if you have any information as to her length, height, etc...  Any help you might provide would be greatly appreciated!

LOS ANGELES,(ZR-3) as completed, was built by the Luftschiffbau-Zeppelin works as LZ126. As completed,on her builder's trials in Germany, the airship measeured 658 feet long, 91 -feet-4 inches in diameter and she had a fully streamlined profile for a nominal gas volume of 2,470,000 cubic feet, a useful lift (with hydrogen) of 101,430lbs with five Maybach VLI engines of 400 hp. each giving an original top speed of 79mph.

These numbers were considerably different in her "American" period of service (1924-1932.)

(Note: for subsequent U.S. Navy service with HELIUM, water-recovery apparatus and upgraded Maybach engines and propellers, see below.)

For FULL SPECS on the LOS ANGELES see the book UP SHIP! US NAVY RIGID AIRSHIPS 1919-1935 by Douglas Robinson and Charles Keller (Naval Institute Press, 1982)