Blimps
by Jon Burch Photography
Title
Blimps
Artist
Jon Burch Photography
Medium
Photograph - Digital Capture/digital Painting
Description
In June 1940 the 76th Congress passed Public Law 635 for a 10,000 plane program which included a provision for 48 non-rigid airships. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor six months later the only airships in service were training airships.
That total included four K-type patrol airships built between 1938-41, three small L-type trainers built in the same time frame, a single G-type trainer built in 1936 and two old TC-type Army trainers built in 1933. Only six of the K and TC types were large enough for sea service, but the L ship would be used for coastal patrol. The only operational base was at Lakehurst, New Jersey.
The United States Navy proposed to the U.S. Congress the development of a lighter-than-air station program for anti-submarine patrolling of the coast and harbors. This program proposed, in addition to the expansion at Naval Air Station and Lakehurst, the construction of new stations. The original contract was for steel hangars, 960 feet long, 328 feet wide and 190 feet high, helium storage and service, barracks for 228 men, a power plant, landing mat, and a mobile mooring mast.
The Second Deficiency Appropriation Bill for 1941 passed in July 1941, changing the authorization to the construction of eight facilities to accommodate a total of 48 airships. But due to rationing of steel, the large hangars were built of wood. Standardized plans were drawn up by the Navy Department Bureau of Yards and Docks with Arsham Amirikian acting as principal engineer.
This resulting design was 1,075 feet long, 297 feet wide and 171 feet high. The structure used fifty-one timber trusses resting on concrete frames containing two-story workshop and office areas. At each end concrete and wood structures support 397 foot tall rolling doors. Seventeen of these wooden hangars were completed by the Navy Department Bureau of Yards and Docks in 1943. - Wikki
The graphic give relative sizes of US Naval blimps used during WWII in comparison to the German Hindenburg. The inserted image was made in one of the large blimp hangars at Tillamook,Oregon.
Uploaded
February 12th, 2015
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