The Army's use of airships can be said to be very successful. Taking advantage of the airship's large carrying capacity and ability to land at any time, it has successfully targeted airborne troops and air raids.
The Army is working so hard, and the Navy, another branch of the military, is certainly not far behind.
On the endless sea, an airship flies slowly in the cloudless sky.
However, this airship looks a bit strange, because it is different from the current mainstream rigid airships. It does not seem to have so many supporting trusses. In addition, it is also different from the previous soft airships. It is obvious that there are traces of several support frames.
Floating on the airship.
Semi-rigid airship, that's the word.
A new airship intended to combine the advantages of both rigid and soft airships.
As for why the Navy wants to combine the advantages of the two airships and develop such a semi-rigid airship, it is a long story.
After the rigid airship showed its military role, the Navy has always wanted to study other roles of airship.
Its ability to stay in the air for a long time and its speed far higher than that of warships have given the navy various ideas about airships.
Among them, using airships for reconnaissance missions is currently considered the best option by the Navy.
Italy itself has a superior location, coupled with its surrounding islands, which greatly assists airships in maritime reconnaissance.
However, although Italy is in a good location, the navy is very ambitious. They believe that the navy is an offensive arm and cannot only operate within the thousands of miles of sea area surrounding Italy. If it appears in other sea areas, it lacks the convenient detection method of airships.
It will be a lot of inconvenience.
This is not because the Navy does not pay attention to the reconnaissance mission of light warships, but it is providing itself with more options. Besides, if you want to search for enemies in the vast sea, the more means, the better.
It is not easy to get an airship on board a ship, because the incompressible nature of rigid airships makes it very expensive to use airships at sea.
Think about it, a small reconnaissance airship is at least sixty or seventy meters in length and more than ten meters in diameter. What's even more terrible is that the rigid airship cannot be disassembled, which means how big the ship must be that can carry such a rigid airship.
, not to mention the need to consider keeping up with the speed of the warship, as well as its loading, lifting, replenishment and other aspects.
Based on this calculation, the cost of putting a rigid airship on board is too high. It is so high that no one can afford to use it, not even the United Kingdom and the United States, which have deep pockets and are willing to spend the money.
Since the cost of putting a rigid airship on the ship is too high, what about using a shrinkable airship? Not to mention, this idea is really promising. However, the traditional soft airship does not meet the requirements of the navy (it is too slow and easy to be
weather disturbance).
At this time, someone proposed combining the characteristics of both rigid and soft airships and proposed the idea of a semi-rigid airship.
After hearing this idea, the Italian Navy was very supportive and allocated a special sum of money for the development of the project.
The current result is this strange-looking airship in the sky.
Now, this airship is undergoing intense testing to get approval from the Navy. For Professor Cockburn, the person in charge of the project, the pressure is not small at all.
"Record the wind value."
In the somewhat shaking airship cabin, Professor Coburn kept giving orders.
"12.3 meters per second, which is level 6 wind force."
A tester observes the values of the measuring instrument and reports to it.
When he heard the tester's report, Coburn frowned in the shaking cabin.
Because of the shaking frequency in the cabin, Coburn quickly calculated that the airship under his feet was at a wind level that was not suitable for flying, and the situation was not optimistic.
In fact, in his heart, Coburn had already had a rough understanding of the semi-rigid airship under his feet after several previous tests. The test data was not as good as expected, which made him a little anxious. However, these were all hidden by him.
In his heart, he was still the confident Professor Cockburn in front of others.
"We found a ship ahead, I don't know if it is our target."
The lookout observed a ship appearing in the distance and immediately reported it.
"Let's go over and see if it's the target we're looking for."
Under Cockburn's orders, the strange airship flew towards the discovered ship.
The Maxwell transport ship is a flat-deck ship in the Italian Navy transport fleet, with a total length of 119 meters and a displacement of 7,000 tons. It usually transports supplies to various naval bases, but this time the transport ship took on a mission.
Let it greet the landing of an airship on the sea.
"Where is the airship?"
On the transport ship, the crew members watched the movements of the sky with their eyes wide open. However, apart from the clear blue sky, there were only white clouds in the sky, and there was no airship waiting at all.
"Did the airship not find us?"
"It's very possible."
"What are you two talking about? Don't you know the navy's regulations?"
The two crew members who were scolded immediately turned into birds and animals and scattered.
"There is an airship, I wonder if it is the one we are waiting for."
A crew member with sharp eyes noticed a small black spot in the sky and reported loudly.
Captain Enrique immediately took out his telescope and observed the small black dot that appeared in the sky. When he found the obvious sign on the airship, he immediately ordered the first officer beside him. "This is the ship we are waiting for. Let everyone be ready.
"
Following the captain's words, all the crew members on the Maxwell began to get busy. Some people pulled the rope, others installed the hooks, and some people took out flags and prepared to send out semaphores. These are all necessary preparations for the airship to land.
Soon this strange airship came over the ship. Several cables were thrown from the sky and were immediately caught by the crew below and hung on the hooks.
The landing of an airship is actually not complicated. It mainly relies on the operation of the airship itself, and the ship only needs to park itself. Of course, landing at sea is more troublesome than landing on land, because the rocking of the ship needs to be considered, but the trouble is really only a little bit.
But it just takes longer.
After the semi-rigid airship is docked, the next step is the final test, which is to reduce the size of the airship and place it inside the ship.
However, since it is just an experiment now, the Maxwell transport ship does not have a cabin specially designed to house the airship, so the simulations are all conducted on Class A.
Under the supervision of the timekeeper, half an hour later, this weird airship was divided into several categories, including airbags, cabins, engines, etc., which were placed everywhere. And the exhausted crew members were finally
You can take a rest.
"The disassembly was completed in half an hour."
Professor Coburn, who was also holding a pocket watch to keep time, put away the watch and watched as the Navy testers began to measure the volume of the disassembled airship.
"A total of 612.5 cubic meters."
After some measurements, the volume of the airship after splitting was quickly calculated.
As for why it is so big, it is very simple that the helium in the air bag is not discharged at all. Helium production is very expensive, and no one dares to discharge it after using it once, so it has such a large volume. But that is enough.
Yes. If calculated as a rigid airship, it would require at least double the space for placement.
After the crew rested for a while, Professor Coburn, who was feeling a little anxious, said to the naval officer beside him, "Major Odolovan, can we start assembling it?"
"no problem."
So the crew members who had rested for a while stood up again in response to his orders, and under the guidance of several testers, they began to reassemble the disassembled airship. Unlike disassembly, assembly took longer, more than an hour.
Later, the airship appeared on the ship again.
Next, they will conduct a return test and return to the starting point.
The results of this experiment were also quickly sent back to the Navy Ministry. Regarding the various data from the experiment, General Renard of the Naval Equipment Department wrote down instructions after looking at them for a while.
Stop continuing research on semi-rigid airships and seal all data.
He will then inform Admiral Argyle of the results. All the data of the semi-rigid airship are not as expected, and continued research will not benefit the navy.
