Metal-clad airship
Encyclopedia
Metal-clad airships are airships which utilize a very thin, airtight metal envelope, rather than the usual rubber-coated fabric envelope. The shell may be either internally braced as with the designs of David Schwarz
, or monocoque
as in the ZMC-2
. Only four ships of this type are known to have been built, and only two actually flew: Schwarz's aluminum ship of 1893 collapsed on inflation; Schwarz's second airship flew at Tempelhof, Berlin in 1897, landed but then collapsed; the ZMC-2 flew 1929 to 1941; while the Slate "City of Glendale", was built in 1929 but never flew.
wrote that since his teens (in the early 1870s) "the idea of the all-metal aerostat has never left my mind" and by 1891 he had produced detailed designs of a variable volume corrugated metal envelope airship that did not need ballonets. These were submitted to an Imperial department for aeronautics, which convened a conference to consider it. In 1891 they declined his request for a grant to produce a model, considering the idea "cannot have any considerable practical importance". In 1892 he published his designs as Aerostat Metallitscheski (the all-metal dirgible aerostat) which received favourable comments but nothing else. Coincidentally, by 1892 the Imperial war ministry had agreed to let Schwarz build his metal airship in St Petersburg, but at his expense.
David Schwarz (aviation inventor)
David Schwarz was a Hungarian aviation pioneer of Jewish descent.Schwarz created the first flyable rigid airship. It was also the first airship with an external hull made entirely of metal. He died before he could see it finally fly...
, or monocoque
Monocoque
Monocoque is a construction technique that supports structural load by using an object's external skin, as opposed to using an internal frame or truss that is then covered with a non-load-bearing skin or coachwork...
as in the ZMC-2
ZMC-2
The ZMC-2 was the only successfully-operated metal-skinned airship ever built. Constructed at Naval Air Station Grosse Ile by The Aircraft Development Corporation of Detroit, the ZMC-2 was operated by the U.S. Navy at Lakehurst, New Jersey from 1929 until its scrapping in 1941...
. Only four ships of this type are known to have been built, and only two actually flew: Schwarz's aluminum ship of 1893 collapsed on inflation; Schwarz's second airship flew at Tempelhof, Berlin in 1897, landed but then collapsed; the ZMC-2 flew 1929 to 1941; while the Slate "City of Glendale", was built in 1929 but never flew.
Concept
The concept of metal-clad dirigible airships had been explored in the 1880s and earlier: Russian rocket theorist Konstantin Eduardowitsch ZiolkowskiKonstantin Tsiolkovsky
Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky was an Imperial Russian and Soviet rocket scientist and pioneer of the astronautic theory. Along with his followers the German Hermann Oberth and the American Robert H. Goddard, he is considered to be one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics...
wrote that since his teens (in the early 1870s) "the idea of the all-metal aerostat has never left my mind" and by 1891 he had produced detailed designs of a variable volume corrugated metal envelope airship that did not need ballonets. These were submitted to an Imperial department for aeronautics, which convened a conference to consider it. In 1891 they declined his request for a grant to produce a model, considering the idea "cannot have any considerable practical importance". In 1892 he published his designs as Aerostat Metallitscheski (the all-metal dirgible aerostat) which received favourable comments but nothing else. Coincidentally, by 1892 the Imperial war ministry had agreed to let Schwarz build his metal airship in St Petersburg, but at his expense.