Editor’s Note: This article was written before the cruise made last winter during fleet concentration.
ON OCTOBER 15, 1924, there settled into the hands of a huge ground crew at the Naval Air Station, Lakehurst New Jersey, for her first time on American soil, a graceful silvery giantess of the air. The uneventful, yet historic, voyage from her birthplace at Friedrichshafen, Germany, across half of Europe and the broad Atlantic to her adopted land, a distance of some 5,060 miles, had been creditably accomplished in eighty-one hours. It is doubtful if, for some time, any one even suspected the important part this ship was destined to play, and the influence she was to exert not only on American lighter-than-air-craft policies, but on those of the world as well. Little did any one dream that this vessel some six years later would have exceeded all expectations and be the holder of the record for the longest useful life of any airship ever built and still be possessed of a further useful existence of several years if employed within the recognized limitations imposed by her age, size, and other fundamental characteristics. Yet such are the facts.
Designated originally by her Navy classification as the ZR-3 and still remembered and revered in Germany as the LZ-126, she was soon christened Los Angeles, no doubt to establish unmistakably her peaceful disposition. But strangely enough, her origin dates back to war-time considerations. Just as the other instruments of war remaining at the end of the world conflict, German airships then in existence were apportioned amongst the allied powers. Two undelivered airships so allotted to the United States were destroyed in their German sheds by their crews. Sometime later, after instigation by certain farseeing Americans, a council of allied ambassadors decided that the replacement should consist of one modern rigid airship capable of crossing the Atlantic, but not greater than 70,000 cubic meters in volume, and restricted to “non-military” employment. The design and construction of the ZR-3 therefore not only saved the only remaining German hangar which also made possible later the construction of that world famous LZ-127, the Graf Zeppelin, but wisely prevented the disintegration throughout the lean airship years following the war, of the Zeppelin Company’s nucleus of airship designers, constructors, and operators. Although to all intents and purposes structurally finished in the fall of 1923, the difficulties incident to the growth of the wartime Maybach engine into units of the horsepower more suited to a ship of her size, delayed the ZR-3’s delivery until the following year.
Since by joint agreement with the Army, the development of large airships in the United States devolves upon the Navy, it was but a logical step that the ZR-3 should be commissioned as a vessel of the U. S. Navy. On November 25, 1924, after parting a landing rope in an economical attempt to land at the hands of an inexperienced ground crew without valving helium, the ship landed at the Naval Air Station, Anacostia, D.C. With befitting ceremonies that included the use of a bottle of water from the River Jordan and the release of doves of peace from within the ship, Mrs. Calvin Coolidge, the wife of the President of the United States, christened the ship Los Angeles. An autographed photograph of the sponsor has ever since been carried aloft on the scores of flights. With charming appropriateness, Mrs. Coolidge inscribed it “To the good ship Los Angeles from her sponsor mother. ‘Go forth under the open sky and may the winds of heaven deal gently with thee.’ ”
Through skies as often obscured as open, the Los Angeles for years has traveled varied paths; but the winds of heaven, though often dealing gently, have on many occasions severely tested the heart and nerve of the crew as well as the timber of the ship itself. But by the medium of these apparently necessary “growing pains” and the normal trials and tribulations of a youthful art, we have become possessed of experience invaluable to airship construction and operation and have greatly enriched the fund of the world’s airship knowledge.
A few days after the arrival of the ZR-3, our own American-built Shenandoah returned from a splendid 9,000-mile cruise to the Pacific states extending over some nineteen days, and was berthed alongside in the Lakehurst hangar. Already, in accordance with our policy of helium inflation for American airships, the hydrogen had been bled from her adopted sister, the ZR-3. But as that eminent philosopher Will Rogers so aptly put it, although we now had two airships, we possessed only one “set” of helium. Transfusion of the Shenandoah’s helium to the ZR-3 was soon prescribed and effected. And to complete her American garb, water recovery units were installed, whereby the condensed water of combustion from the motors compensates for weight of fuel consumed and thereby eliminates almost entirely the necessity for any voluntary reduction of buoyancy by releasing helium. A Navy crew and some American instruments and equipment took their places on board. And then began an adventuresome career.
Like the crews of all naval vessels, the personnel of the Los Angeles changes from time to time; she has had six different captains, and other officers and men of her crew have come and gone. A constant stream of student personnel, both officers and enlisted men, has gained airship knowledge largely from watches stood and duties performed in every billet of this ship. Her complement is eleven officers and fifty enlisted men divided into deck force and engineer force. On each flight, one of the three sections of the crew in rotation remains ashore, so that in flight there are actually two men for each station alternating in four hour watches. All officers except the captain, stand “watch and watch.” Airship duty is widely sought and popular with both officers and enlisted men.
A recital of only the outstanding incidents would quite exceed the volume of this article. Each of the many flights of the Los Angeles has had its differences. Each has taught its lessons. But not all the lessons learned were from flights. Even the apparently Simple employment' of helium in place of hydrogen had its problems. Airships, just as other vessels, have characteristic routine, upkeep measures that are vital to their proper performance under way on their flying missions. And then, too, the troubles from faulty material, insufficiently developed equipment, not overlooking a few mistakes, all contributed to tax dispositions and ingenuity before they were eventually conquered. There remain problems today; but the Los Angeles has already been the willing subject for the solution of many.
On January 24, 1925, the Los Angeles took on a scholarly demeanor and carried aloft a number of scientists, cameras, and equipment for a ring-side seat at the solar eclipse. Bitterly cold, even the ground crew will remember that occasion as they fought their way over the glazed icy surface of the field, tugging whole-heartedly but almost ineffectively as the cross wind threatened to dash the ship against the hangar structure. Timely use of the ship’s engine rushed her clear. But the pictures of the eclipse made it all worth while, at least to the scientists.
Having crossed the ocean at so tender an age, the Los Angeles seemed to long for the briny deep again and after numerous local flights of training and familiarization value, Bermuda was selected as the goal. The airship tender Patoka, equipped with a mooring mast, fuel, and helium supplies and other servicing necessities, was sent on ahead. Squall after squall, with intermittent heavy rain, marred the morning of the Los Angeles’ first arrival. At the end of several hours’ cruising in the vicinity, there was still no assurance of cessation of the rain soon. The heavy downpour made mooring somewhat hazardous and caused grave doubts as to the load that might be carried on departure from the mast. And so, to the delight of the insatiable stamp collectors, the Los Angeles dropped the mail and without mooring, pointed for Lakehurst. The excellent navigation was a most important factor, for the ship landed with but two hours’ fuel in her tanks. The next flight to Bermuda had its thrills also. After an hour’s battle in a boisterous forty-mile wind, the Los Angeles was safely moored to the Patoka; but time and again during the operation, gusts drove her below the mast and perilously near the water. Often the mooring wires literally lifted the ship to safety.
Ambition now pointed out Porto Rico as a worthy objective and early in May, 1925, the Los Angeles moored to the Patoka at Mayaguez. This visit had its lessons. The return flight to Lakehurst as a true Navy ship, was not without the usual coconuts and beads that sailors always bring home from the tropics.
Early in June, 1925, the Los Angeles moored to the Patoka off Annapolis, demonstrating for the first time the use of an automatic coupling for joining the airship’s wire to that of the Patoka. Heretofore, small boats had frantically pursued the end of the airship wire and struggled to make the connection in the boat. The grapnel method proved a success and has been employed ever since.
A few days later, bound for Minneapolis, fate put two engines out of commission and at Cleveland the ship turned limpingly about for home. And as if to add insult to injury, as the ship arrived at Lakehurst in the darkness, dense fog covered the field. With sunrise, it burned off into a hot calm June morning, the almost total absence of wind to check the speed of landing causing several failures of the ground crew to catch the lines as the buoyant ship slipped by them. Meanwhile, the heat of the sun’s rays, trapped inside the ship, began to warm up the helium faster than the surrounding air, causing a steady gain of “false” buoyancy. In those days, one never knew where the next carload of helium was to come from, nor when, and besides, the specter of old man economy shook a warning finger at any thought of deliberately valving helium! With this in mind, more attempts were made to land without valving. Then a few more tries after miserly use of the helium valves. Finally in desperation, with a hearty opening of the valves, the eighteenth attempt at landing was successful. The Shenandoah crew on the ground only grinned—we, too, had had such experiences if on a lesser scale. Happily those days are gone forever, for the farseeing policy of the Navy Department has corrected effectively the one-time helium shortage, and other developments, have improved operation.
There had been earlier symptoms but now there appeared the unmistakable sign of airship measles, intestinal disorder, and even broken bones. Gas cells began to resemble mosquito netting when it came to holding helium; structural members and 'wires here and there gave up the ghost. The engines in their prodigious growth in one generation from 240 to 400 horsepower found they had inherited a few 240-horsepower features. But worst of all, an unfortunate use of a corrosive antifreeze mixture that had dripped on the keel structure, had left its warning pockmarked signs of deterioration.
And so late in June, 1925, another transfusion, this time the Los Angeles draining her life’s blood helium into the Shenandoah whose crew were getting restless from inactivity.
It took heroic measures indeed to find remedies for some of the Los Angeles’ ailments, but the Bureau of Aeronautics met the situation. The fragile, brittle, porous, German gas cells had to be replaced. The manufacture of cells lined with goldbeater’s skins is long and tedious, so cells of plain rubberized fabric, though heavier, were used in some instances as “stop-gap” replacements. Skin-lined cells were ordered in the United States and abroad, and serious experimentation with substitute materials was pushed vigorously. Considerable sections of the keel structure in the wake of the corrosion were replaced and then there began a systematic cleaning and varnishing of the entire structure which originally had not been given any protective coating at all. Orderly testing of structural samples was begun by the Bureau of Standards. Engine experts of our own and from the manufacturer’s plant labored on the matters of proper lubricants and the strengthening of vital parts. The operation was successful and the patient lived. But the loss in the wreck of the Shenandoah, of what was then almost our entire captive helium supply, delayed the accumulation of sufficient helium for resumption of flying the Los Angeles and it was practically March, 1926, before reinflation of the ship could be begun.
After the installation of quantities of tubing, pressure pads, strain gauges, and the like, the ship resumed operations and made a series of flights gathering valuable aërodynamic check data for the National Advisory Committee for Aëronautics. Slow delivery of replacement gas cells made frequent helium purification necessary in order that the ship might have a reasonable minimum amount of lift. But on every flight, new or experimental devices, equipment, and ideas, were given practical tests; then back into the hangar for the improvements and modifications found necessary by the tests. Constant improvements in engines, water recovery apparatus, navigational methods, instruments, gas cells, and a miscellaneous assortment of airship features resulted from laboratory flight tests in the Los Angeles. Practically a whole summer was spent in the calibration of coastal radiocompass stations. As a result, it is possible for aircraft equipped with radio to get bearings on the inshore sectors, as well as to seaward, of any radiocompass station from Boston to below Hatteras and even along Florida.
On October 15, 1926, the Los Angeles paid a visit to the Ford airport at Dearborn, Michigan, there tying up to the elaborate mooring mast with which that port is provided. The route from Lakehurst paralleled that of the Shenandoah on her last flight which resulted in her loss in Ohio. Approaching Youngstown just after dark, we found it necessary to pass through a wind- shift line extending from Canada to Texas and of almost line squall proportions. Selecting a spot of less violent appearance in the line of clouds, we plunged through into better conditions but at the expense of a few minutes of rocking and rolling that even threw a few of the crew out of their bunks. The unstable conditions resulting from the cold air sweeping over the warmer surface of Lake Erie, made that portion of the flight one of the “bumpiest” an airship ever ventured through.
Scarcity of helium due to meager supply and poor gas cells continued to interrupt flying but nevertheless numerous local training flights were made. It is indeed a blessing in many ways that the Los Angeles was allowed to be employed on such a training and experimental program. It is the repeated docking and undocking, mooring and unmooring, taking off and landing that have taught our personnel the most difficult parts of airship operation. We have to learn to walk before we can run. For such reasons, the many shorter flights have been of probably greater value than fewer longer ones. But how often even extraneous matters have interrupted. For example, late in March, 1927, when ready to resume operations after an extended helium purification period, with almost no warning, a train backed into the hangar at Lakehurst and amidst the deafening reverbation of a brass band and the frantic good-bys of camp followers, carried away almost two hundred marines of the ground crew bound for more fascinating duty in China. The remaining skeleton ground crew gave the place the aspect of a correspondence school campus.
A search for the Nungesser-Coli expedition off Nantucket Shoals offered no clue to the disappearance of those gallant men. During another flight, we received the news of Lindbergh’s triumphant landing in Paris. The arrival of the Los Angeles over New York City at that very moment seemed just the necessary touch to sound off the whistles and matchless enthusiasm of the whole United States, led by New York City.
The Los Angeles holds a most unique airship record—one for which I doubt that we shall ever see any voluntary contenders. She is the only airship in the world that has ever stood vertically on her nose and survived. Caught by a very sudden diametric reversal of wind direction as the sea breeze overcame the gradient wind, as she lay moored to the Lakehurst high mast, in spite of a 2,500- pound tail drag, the stern of the Los Angeles proceeded to rise from the horizontal to an angle actually determined later as between 85 and 90 degrees! Then, due to quick and intelligent action of her crew, she came to rest again on an even keel heading into the new opposing wind direction. Twenty-five men were on board and no one suffered even a scratch. The ship could have safely taken the air immediately after this strange performance had we dared, for a hasty removal to the hangar for inspection revealed only an inappreciable amount of superficial damage. While no one has expressed a desire to go through such an experience again, it did create additional confidence in the ship by revealing remarkable structural strength, for no airship was ever designed for such acrobatics. It served to point out a weakness of the so-called “high” mast that we have overcome in the American stub or low mast developed at Lakehurst, whereby the stern of the ship while moored, is restrained from acquiring any vertical motion whatsoever.
On the day after Christmas 1927, while many of the ship’s crew as well as the ground crew were absent on holiday leave, there arose the sudden call to search for the unfortunate Grayson plane Dawn. Working with feverish haste to expand the normal loading of the ship to full capacity, the hastily gathered crew found the hours slipping by into late afternoon. The volunteer ground crew, mostly New York visitors from near-by resorts, began to grow impatient at the delays and many dropped the ship’s handling lines and started home to finish the Yule turkey. To hold enough of them until we were ready to undock, it was necessary to resort to all sorts of devices for their amusement. Just before sundown, we took the air. With splendid searching weather, in company awhile with destroyers, we searched almost to Sable Island. But, as in many other similar ventures, there remained no remnant of the Grayson expedition within our vision.
The great flush-deck airplane carriers of our Navy, the Lexington and Saratoga, provide huge seagoing landing fields and to some of us it appeared entirely feasible to land a rigid airship on deck and service there. On January 27, 1928, the Los Angeles successfully landed on the deck of the Saratoga at sea. Although conditions were not at all ideal for a first trial, it was, for several reasons, a matter of then or never, one being the departure of the Saratoga for the Pacific coast that very day. There is no doubt but that this maneuver can be successfully utilized to important advantage by our naval airships.
Aircraft trying to fly nonstop from the United States to Panama had seemed afflicted with bad luck. None had made it. The journey between New York and Panama will some day be made regularly by commercial rigid airships. Steamers require from five to ten days. Trials quietly conducted at Lakehurst had shown that certain simple newly developed equipment, quickly erectable, could be depended on for much safer and more expeditious servicing of a rigid airship than could be obtained at the hands of a ground crew alone. Accordingly, a guyed 60-foot timber with a mooring cup at its top was quickly erected at France Field. A pneumatic wheeled device for the stern of the ship was the only other important item necessary. In late February, 1928, the Los Angeles, under conditions not particularly favorable, made the flight from New York Harbor to Panama in less than thirty-seven hours. This was the first nonstop flight from New York to the Canal Zone.
A local flight over the Canal Zone was one of the bumpiest ever experienced. The return flight included a stop at the Patoka anchored in Guacanayabo Bay, Cuba. Our arrival at Lakehurst and the intervening events until once more in the hangar were among the wildest moments of the Los Angeles’ entire career. During the attempt to moor to the Lakehurst high mast immediately before the passage of a windshift, we encountered very turbulent air. The current mooring equipment and method, while the best developed up to that point, were not adequate for such conditions, and with a shudder felt throughout the ship, the 9/16- inch main mooring cable parted. Casting off, a ground landing was made a little later. Approaching the hangar for docking, a sudden snow squall with a wind jumping from ten to thirty-five miles velocity in nothing flat and striking on the beam, dragged the ship towards the pine trees on the edge of the field in spite of a ground crew of several hundred men.
Safety lay in the air; but seven or eight men of the ground crew failed to let go and were carried aloft, hanging perilously from the hand rails. At 500 feet, in the blinding snow squall, we hove to for their rescue. Only the unfortunate wording of legal provisions which did not contemplate aircraft, prevents the issuance of life-saving awards for gallantry that night on the part of the rescuing members of the crew. But the events of that wild night with others pointed out forcibly certain known weaknesses in our equipment, and spurred us on to doubled efforts for solution.
Having inherited airship ground handling methods from abroad which utilized only man power, we soon saw how totally inadequate and archaic they were. The improvements in mooring methods, equipment, masts, and in the moving of airships into and out of their hangars have resulted largely from such experiences gained with the Los Angeles. With, unfortunately, but one ship and practically only one small outfit in the entire world working on such problems, great strides have nevertheless really been made and fully satisfactory solutions seem to be in sight. The improvements already in use would startle any one whose knowledge of handling methods had ceased entirely five years ago, were he suddenly confronted with today’s methods and equipment. We have evolved among other things the “stub” or low mast and a system of mechanically handling rigid airships in and out of their sheds and over the field in conditions utterly impracticable theretofore with any number of men. Convinced of the value of the low or stub mast, we then made this hundred-ton unit mobile and use it not only for mooring purposes but also as the principal unit for the movement of the ship over the ground. Other gear at the stern has been devised to eliminate much of the man power and the Los Angeles has actually been handled out of the hangar with but sixty men and the mechanical gear. Further improvements may be expected to cut even this number for even greater ships. I am confident also that a safe method of mooring to the stub mast under wide conditions will soon be in use, requiring few if any more men than the dozen or so now required at a high mast. Such developments cannot but attract the attention of capital which has heretofore merely shuddered and turned away at the thought of the wholesale man power hitherto necessary. Such developments likewise have great naval advantages.
A few years hence the week-end Philadelphia bound express airship two days out of Paris, speeding by New York will be met by a plane from Roosevelt Field. Attaching itself to the ship, the plane will take off the New York mail and a well-known business man in time for the proverbial ten o’clock Monday conference. Reports filtering back from fleet maneuvers will reveal the effective part played by the airship divisions, led by the ZRS-9, and their own broods of planes in locating and reporting the “enemy.” The inquiring reporter looking into his files for background will resurrect the old reports of the airplane hook-on developments carried on years before by that old horse, the Los Angeles.
Had the Los Angeles done nothing else but lend herself to the above developments, she has been well worth while. Throughout these years of trials and tribulations, schoolroom and laboratory uses, the Los Angeles has, besides over 1,200 hours of mooring masts, made some 240 flights at a total distance exceeding 125,000 miles. The average number of persons carried has been about fifty-five, so that over 13,000 persons (including crew) have been safely carried aloft by her. During the years 1925 to 1928 she was, with but brief exception, the only rigid airship in operation in the world. Her continued operation in spite of difficulties, thus gives her the undisputed honor of having spanned the gap between the outgrown and obsolete airships of the past and the great aerial giants coming into being in the immediate future.
And now comes a different slant in the career of this faithful craft. Very recently, the allied signatories to the construction pact of the Los Angeles have lifted partially the restriction imposed as to military employment. While no armament may be installed, the ship may nevertheless now be employed in maneuvers with our fleet. During the coming winter exercises, the ship will have an opportunity to participate in the role of a scout. With such an old craft, slow, of small performance, and not built for such duty, we should not expect too much on her initial purely naval venture. Conclusive results from a vessel known to lack the full splendid characteristics that are being incorporated in the next generation coming into being in but a few months, are not necessarily to be expected. But nevertheless, given an even chance, the Los Angeles will show forcibly the wisdom in providing such modern airship scouts as the ZRS-4 and ZRS-5 will be.
The coming years will see this two and one-half million cubic foot airship greatly surpassed in size, strength, speed, and performance. But with the care and employment a faithful veteran deserves, we can expect perhaps three years more service from the Los Angeles.
Public impatience is characteristic. There are those who at least indicate that they fail to see the benefits of such a period of research and experimentation as has been the Los Angeles’ lot. Apparently only those with engineering knowledge appreciate that Rome was not built in a day; that modern automobiles, railroads, steamers, did not spring into full usefulness overnight. The employment of the Los Angeles on training and experimental projects indisputably has yielded and will continue to yield greater benefits than anything else she could do. Such basic developments had to come or airships could not function efficiently. After several years’ association with airships, it is my opinion that the Los Angeles’ contributions to airship matters are already greater than those of any other airship yet built.