Zeppelin S, T & U-class ‘Height Climbers’

Description

Rigid airships (or dirigibles) were produced and relatively successfully employed in the period from the early 1900s to the end of the 1930s.

During WWI the Zeppelin company, of Imperial Germany, built nearly one hundred military airships both for their army and naval corps. The airship type and construction was characterised by particular class (A to X). During The Great War they were used as a new type of attack weapon for bombing and also for reconnaissance and naval patrol work.

Following losses of a number airships during 1916 and to avoid aeroplane attacks, production of new airships with increased operating ceiling was instigated. The first Zeppelin Height Climbers, based on the R-class airships, were developed early in 1917. Four prototypes, two each of the S and T-class, were built in the spring of 1917, while another five production U-class airships followed between May and August.

All these airships consisted of structural metal framework covered with doped fabric containing cells filled with a hydrogen lifting gas. They were fitted with vertical tailfins and horizontal tailplanes with control surfaces. The crew members were carried in two suspended gondolas (cars) mounting Maybach engines and pusher propellers (different units and arrangements were utilised in particular class airships), while bombs were contained in internal bomb bays. Defensive gunners were stationed in the front upper part of the airship’s body, in an aft gun position behind the rudders, two in gondolas and in each of the cars either side of the hull.