[THE DC]

That was a lot of exposition. Admittedly, perhaps too much. In my defense, Matt’s work is so accurate, yet so tiny, and yet even so much more detailed, it was hard to just cut off the description. Besides; he was interesting to talk to and generous with his time.

I will endeavor to be more concise in future entries. But before making that attempt, I’d like to finish up Matt’s exhibition.

This isn’t the first time Matt attended the IPMC. He shared that he’d missed a few, but tried to attend as often as possible. He mentioned missing the 2016 and the 1999 in Dayton (the former home of the IPMC, before Peter moved it to VA.). The trip to visit, in any of the locations, is not easy for Matt. He lives in Chicago, making any trip a flight for him. That the trip necessitated such an effort, he explained, that he’d developed a system of carefully transporting his exhibit builds. The tiered display structure, and all models, were prepared to fit into a suitcase; making safe arrival more likely (when I cover Jack’s table, we may discuss repair issues…).

He noted that all but two of the exhibited models that he presented were of the Wurlington Bros. Press. His favorite, he explained, was at the top of the tier and already described, a few chapters back in this Thread. A bit more detail will be shared. About it now.

Similar to Peter Ansoff’s favorite kit (described earlier in his chapter; section entry #20) in his exhibit, Matt selected his depiction of the Empire State Building, depicted as a dirigible-docking center. Unlike Peter’s enlargement of a Fiddler’’s Green kit, Matt used one of his own for the building. It was also quite a bit smaller!

The Empire State Building in Matt’s exhibition is only a few inches tall (see pic 1). Matt explained that it was a good model, but noted that though it did fit together well, but was complicated in building it. He shared that designing it was as difficult as the building effort he had to invest.

A wired had been advanced through the top of the spire to permit the mating of the airship model. Airships were the American term for what German’s generally called Zeppelins. The terminology of dirigibles gets a bit choppy, as technical terms and slang became hopelessly intertwined. Generally, there were three types of lighter than air vehicles, once one progresses past the simplicity of a balloon (which also involves an entire other-language of the technology class). The non-rigid refers to large gas-filled bags, with limited forming beyond the cloth-material holding in the gas, and the hoisting of a passenger/control car, made of a more dense material; like wood or metal. Semi-rigid vehicles had limited structural assemblies that supported gas cells, often separating the bags from each other. Full rigid ships were vessels with skeletons, often of metal, that formed the hull, which was covered with fabric, and that assembly contained separate-gas filled cells that held the lighter than air gas (typically hydrogen, though sometimes helium), and had control cars and internal passenger or cargo storage areas. The monsters of the sky also had gangways, secondary control or steering cars, and other structures built into the frame. All three types of airship had engines mounted to hard-points to maneuver the craft.

In the United States, the term Airship was often used to refer to a rigid, even though this wasn’t an exact match of description and sometimes the airship term is more generally used to reflect any of the three vehicles (non-rigids, semi-rigids, and rigids). The period of U. S. airship development was also a period of loose language in general and the overt celebration of slang (in fact; the 1920s and 30s was the period of U.S. culture was the most prolific period of slang-usage in the culture, resulting in much of the period’s slang still used today).

The airship represented here was the U.S.S. Akron; the first functional U.S. aircraft carrier…in the sky. The U.S. had previous airships; the R-38 (re-designated ZR-2 by the U.S. Navy, after purchased by the U.S.) had been the largest airship built at the time, at 695 ft. but suffered a crash due to design flaws. There was an unfortunate loss of life associated with the crash.

After that ship’s demise, the U.S.S. Los Angeles, the most successful airship in the fleet, but built in Germany and sent to the U.S. as part of war reparations payment (called the sister ship to the Graf Zeppelin). It became the backbone of the Airship fleet and was designated ZR-3. It served until 1933 but was decommissioned, then re-commissioned after the loss of one of her predecessors and remained operational for another seven years before being decommissioned again and scrapped. The ZR-3 was the only U.S. Airship to retire intact…twice! All U.S. built airships were lost during their time of service.

The Shenandoah, the first fully U.S. built airship (ZR-1), at 658 ft. long, designed along the lines of a captured German Zeppelin, the LZ-96. It was the first to use helium, instead of the more commonly used, and volatile, hydrogen gas (remember the Hindenburg?) and it was used to test the trapeze retrieval system of biplanes, as planned for the anticipated Akron Class airships (more of that later). Unfortunately, the ZR-1 was lost in a storm, only a few years after deployment; a victim of a thunderstorm in the skies of Ohio.

The Shenandoah had been used as a test bed for many facets of the planned Akron Class, realized in the launch of the Akron (ZRS-4) in 1931. This pinnacle of U.S. ambitions for airships, at 785 feet, was an operational aircraft carrier; holding four Sparrow Hawk biplanes (eventually housing 5 of them); trapeze caught reconnaissance planes. The small planes had a hook atop the upper wing, which was flown into place to latch onto a ring connector, attached to a crane that was emplaced the plane into the airship’s belly-hanger. After the craft had latched into the trapeze hanger, it would raise a craft inside, hanging it into a bay with sister craft. The Akron was the first to use the Shenandoah experiments; catching a biplane in the sky, then it furthered those efforts by dropping, catching, and storing those craft in her, as functional scout craft. This expanded the intelligence gathering and awareness of the craft, before the age of wide RADAR usage.

The ZRS-4 was also used to test a spy basket; a small craft (appearing as a aircraft body without an engine) lowered on a line, below cloud cover to permit observation from well below the hidden airship. The system was too unstable, for both the spy-passenger knuckling aboard, and for the larger airship herself, killing the program. The spy basket caused the larger ship to destabilize when the small craft was caught in wind currents.

The Akron had a short life; crashing with most hands in a storm off the coast in 1933. She had flown 73 missions during that short period of time, leaving only one more hope for the U.S. Airship program, her sister ship, the Macon, to prevail.

The Akron, for its short life, was a history maker, paving the way for her sister ship, the Macon (ZRS-5) of the same size, class, and operation, launched 1933 and lost in 1935. Unlike the Akron, the Macon’s loss had far less in a loss of life; only two people; all the survivors of the Akron crash, as they had been former officers of the Akron, years before.

The ship presented in Matt’s exhibit is the Akron, ZRS-4. The size of the model is about a matchbox-sized metal car, as seen in the comparison to Matt’s finger in the photo (see pic 2).

Matt explained that the model was a challenge to build, In addition to the complicated interaction of the pieces of the Empire State Building, that he had described, he added that the kit required a couple of months to design. He said that the actual build took and hour to an hour and a half. One of the most challenging parts of his most loved kit was the hand painting of the tiny emblem on the side of the Akron.

The model of the Akron is very small yet provides detail. It can be downloaded for free, if desired, off his website. The model consists of several pieces, for such a small kit. It includes interior formers, using six pieces to make. After the formers, five hull pieces are wrapped around the formers. Four pieces are added to form the rudder and elevator fins, and a tweezers-required control car.

Matt explained that the challenges in building the two kits, to form the story, was in how small they were. He said that, despite how small the kits are, the paper is thick, making scoring challenging, yet necessary in order to succeed in folding the paper into shape. He warned that the thickness of the paper encouraged undesired warping; impacting the desired effect. He noted that making the antenna/docking spire connection, with the thin, “L” shaped wire, was difficult, as the spire is almost too small to even cover the connecting wire from view.

Matt explained that he considers himself more of a designer than a builder. Yet, examining this favorite kit, and the others that I have described in this Thread, might provide evidence to argue otherwise. These kits, as small and delicate as they are, were very clean and smooth.

A designer only, indeed!



Picture 1: Akron & Empire State Blog…

Picture 2: Mooring airship build size…