WW1 British Airships

[leyreynolds]

Can anyone recommend a reliable source for drawings of these please, especially the SSZ?

[europapete]

Hmmm......I don't know of any books, but you could try contacting the RAF Museum, the staff there are very helpfull. Regards, Pete in RI

[stevehed]

The only book I know of is Battlebags, British Airships of WW1 by Ces Mowthorpe. Excellent history of the airship with side plans and bow plans of many types. Not what I would call proper plans but might be helpful.

[Graham Boak]

Osprey do a work on British Airships, a neat introductory read but obviously superficial and not what you want.  However tucked inside my copy are two articles from Air Britain's Aviation World: British Naval Airships by Brian J Turnip.  The first, Summer 2018, has a detailed side-view with dimensions of the SS Zero.  No hint about the size of the rear planes, I'm afraid.  You can get a slightly better hint of their size from the photo in the Osprey.  There is also a neat profile in the Osprey.  The second article from Autumn 2018 has a photo of SSZ 65.

[leyreynolds]

Thanks for all the info'. I have the Osprey book and will search for the others.

 

Ley

[leyreynolds]

Reading a bit more about RN WW1 airships, it seems that they did not have many (any?) airship sheds. Did the RN use mooring masts of some kind?

[Black Knight]

They did use masts and there are the remains of a couple at an old now preserved landing ground in County Antrim, N.I. The small airships which operated from there patrolled the North Channel, part of the Irish Sea and the Atlantic betwixt N.I. and the Scottish Islands

afaik only the bases of the masts remain

[leyreynolds]

Thanks for that.

[AWFK10]

The July 1979 Airfix Magazine has an 8-page article by Adrian Constable on building an SS airship (the version with a BE2 fuselage as the car), with 1/72 scale drawings. There's a copy available here (I have no connection with the seller).

[alancmlaird]

On 11/12/2020 at 9:45 AM, AWFK10 said:

The July 1979 Airfix Magazine has an 8-page article by Adrian Constable on building an SS airship (the version with a BE2 fuselage as the car), with 1/72 scale drawings. There's a copy available here (I have no connection with the seller).

I've got this issue (It took me a while to find it!), I'm afraid the drawings appear not to be reliable. The SS airship has a length of 143ft, so unless my shaky arithmetic is worse than I thought, in 1/72 scale that converts to just under 2ft. The Airfix drawing has the length at about 16.5 inches, yet the BE2b/c fuselage seems to be correct. The article is useful for detail and technique but no use for building the airship envelope to scale using the drawings. It is apparent even from the photographs that the model's envelope is too small compared to the 'car'.

Hope this helps, and does not put you off building one!

[alancmlaird]

....I should add that the BE fuselage used was almost always the BE2b and early BE2c type with the exposed Renault engine and skid-type undercarriage, so Airfix's fine BE2c will require modification to this earlier standard - simple enough.

[leyreynolds]

Thanks for the details.

 

Ley