
A US Navy K-Ship Cabin Tour
Welcome aboard the US Navy's K-Ship, a flag ship during World War II and a key resource in searching for submarines off the continental shelf. We would like to take you on a walking tour through the cabin and have you get a feeling of what it was like for those who served aboard this Blimp.
You are standing in about the center of the cabin facing forward. As you walk forward, you will begin to meet the crew, all of whom are wearing life vests.
The first crew member sitting on the left in the white shirt is the Mechanic, whose job is keeping the engines running and monitoring all fuel usage. Next in line on the left is the Electronics Technician. He operates the radar and the Magnetic Anomaly Detector or MAD (1).
Seated on the stool ahead of you is the Navigator, monitoring exact positions and preparing latitude/longitude numbers for the Radioman to send to home base every hour.
You now make your way to the 'deck' or cockpit, where you see a crew member looking out the front window. He is acting as the forward Lookout. Generally, the Lookout is also the Rigger, whose other jobs include patching holes, odd little jobs, but most importantly, cooking.
Not visible in the picture above, but just to the left of the Lookout is the Pilot. His major job is to control the elevator by moving a right angled wheel either forward or backward. The elevator makes the blimp go up and down.
On the right side of the Lookout is the Co-pilot, equally as important as the Pilot as the Co-pilot is in charge of controlling the rudder, making the Blimp go either right or left.
Above the forward Lookout is a pull-down ladder that allows access to a small deck above the cockpit area. Go ahead and pull down the ladder and climb up. You will see a few small electronic units mounted here, but room to stretch out and rest with plenty of visibility outside. Look closer and you will notice that the business end of this area houses a 50-caliber machine gun.
Climb back down and walk to the center of the cabin and look forward again. The crew member on the right is the Radioman or Continuous Wave (CW) Operator. This is the days before satellites, Single Side Band (SSB) radio, GPS and cell phones. During certain periods of the day and /or seasons, old AM radio technology could not be counted on when out of the line of sight. CW or code was the only way to get communications through when out of the line of sight (2).
You will notice in the lower right hand corner of the picture a curved black cover. Under here is the Lawrence Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). Even though the APU is covered, you might need to cover your ears as this is a real noise maker and runs continuously to supply electrical power for all the operating systems.
In the small cabinet just behind the MAD Operator is the most important place on the blimp - the galley. Some mighty fine meals can be put together at this small spot, generally by the Rigger.
The deck panels, sandwiched between aluminum, are very light balsa wood and designed to be easily lifted out to gain access to various items such as radar antenna, landing wheel, depth charges, etc. Located overhead, but not visible, are a number of metal fuel tanks with easy read-out quantity gauges.
Let's continue our tour. Turn 180 degrees and face the back of the cabin or aft. The first item on your left in the over-head is a high-speed air-blower, controlled by the pilot with toggles. This is used to selectively direct air into ballonets inside the gasbag, which is used to control trim and maintains the shape of the airship envelope with 1 1/2 inches of water pressure.
The next items on the left are off-duty seats with pull down bunks overhead, followed by the main entrance door to the cabin. At the rear center is a chair with another 50-caliber machine gun facing aft.
The area at the rear on your right (left rear of the cabin) is the no frills, no privacy latrine or potty place.
Between the latrine and the Mechanic, who you met when you first began your tour sits the Sonobouy, a storage and launching tube for the expendable buoys used when a submarine is detected and a trapping circle is initiated (3).
This concludes your brief tour, and we hope you have enjoyed this tour through the cabin of a US Navy K-Ship
(1) Magnetic Anomaly Detector (MAD) was used to detect German submarines off the US continental shelf. Once detected through a disturbance in the line of force, the crew would launch Sonobouys to mark the target and draw a trapping circle, drop 4 depth charges and leave the area. A ship or fixed wing aircraft would be sent out to the target area. MAD was developed at Columbia University in New York CIty and first built by Airborne Instruments Lab on Long Island, N.Y.
(2) Line of Sight is actual visual sighting of an object. The distance that could be viewed was dependent on the altitude of the blimp from the surface. For instance, if the blimp was at 1000 feet elevation, the line of sight would be approximately 40 to 50 miles. As you increase elevations, you would increase the visual distance.
(3) Sonobouys contained FM transmitters with a microphone. When the MAD would detect a possible submarine, 5 differnet Sonobouys would be dropped within a mapped area called a trapping circle. Each Sonobouy would have a different frequency and the crew would be able to pin point by frequency which Sonobouy was closer to the submarine, thus getting a better position on the target.
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The Great Zeppelins
From 1920 onward, the world was interested in large rigid airships.
As a part of WWI reparations, the LZ-126 was built between 1923-24 at the Zeppelin factory in Friedrichshafen, Germany specifically for the US Navy. This ship was the world's largest aircraft at 2,470,00 cubic foot airship. Originally built as a commercial ship, she was crafted to carry 20 passengers plus crew.
In October 1924, the ship left Germany with a German crew and 3 American Observers and flew to Lakehurst Naval Air Station. This 5,000 transatlantic flight took 82.5 hours.
Commanding the ship was Dr. Hugho Eckener, head of the Zeppelin Company in Germany.
In October 1923, Zeppelin Company entered into an agreement with Goodyear Corporation, giving rights to Zeppelin's patents as well as key Zeppelin personnel, which brought Zeppelin's long experience with rigid airship design and construction to the US. In exchange, Zeppelin received 10% of Goodyear stock and the knowledge that rigid large airships would have a future.
Goodyear-Zeppelin USA, under the direction of Dr. Karl Arnstein, a key Zeppelin innovator and one of 13 Zeppelin personnel to come to the US, created a innovative design for the largest airship yet to be constructed.
This unique ship for it's time totaled 6,850,000 cubic feet: 785' long with a maximum diameter of 132' 11". Full of innovations, the ship, instead of having the standard Zeppelin main rings had sturdier deep frames reinforced by miles of radial wiring. Instead of one keel, this ship had 3. One keel was placed on the top of the ship with the remaining two at 45 degrees below the horizontal, which provided access to all parts of the ship and also tremendous strength.
Designed with the ability to launch, retrieve and service 5 aircraft for scouting purposes, this innovation set this airship apart from all others. The design also called for an internal hanger about a third of the way aft - 75' long and 60' wide. Through a "T" shaped opening in the floor of this hanger, a trapeze could be lowered by which the 5 airplanes could be launched and retrieved via 'sky hooks' attached to the top of each airplane. These planes would act as the airships 'eyes', extending the scouting area and allowing the more vulnerable airship to remain farther from any enemy aircraft carrier's fighter planes.
The crew's quarters were on either side of this hanger, and these quarters included a mess, galley, washroom, and sleeping quarters both for officers and enlisted men. The crew's quarters were heated by the cooling water from the engines, another first in design innovation.
A small control car was built into the fore hull and an emergency control car was positioned in the lower fin.
From the onset, this ship was designed to use non-flammable helium-a gas for inflation, which only the US had in sufficient quantity. With this in mind, the ships 8 560hp Maybach VL-2 engines were installed within the hull along the 2 lower keels. Each engine drove a propeller at the end of a 16' outrigger. As the engines were reversible and the outrigger could swivel the propeller through an 90 degree arc, landings were aided by having thrust delivered in any direction.
Other nations were also fascinated with large, rigid airships and tried their hands at building and flying these great ships. Unlike Germany and the US, most were not successful.
Germany's Graf Zeppelin's round the world trip was one of the highlights of the age of these great ships. Douglas Botting's fascinating book "Dr. Eckener's DREAM MACHINE", about the history of the Graf Zeppelin and this round the world adventure is a must read for airship enthusiasts.
One of the most tragic commercial disasters was that of the Hindenburg at Lakehurst NAS on May 6, 1937.
As the first 1937 transatlantic commercial flight by the Zeppelin Company from Germany to US, this was supposed to herald in 9 other transatlantic flights for the year.
The ship departed Frankfurt, Germany on May 3 with 36 passengers and a crew of 61.
As the ship reached the US slightly behind schedule, bad weather further delayed docking at Lakehurst Naval Air Station. The ship diverted for a tour of the New Jersey coast until weather conditions became more favorable for docking.
Turning back to Lakehurst in early evening, the ship was attempting to make a high mooring dock - flying moor by dropping landing ropes and mooring cables at high altitudes and being winched down to the mast. This method used fewer ground crew.
No one officially knows what really happened. The ship burst in to flames, crashing to the ground, killing 37 on the ship and 1 ground crewman.
This disaster effectively ended passenger carrying rigid airships.
Please view the Airship Photo Gallery page for more pictures of these great ships.