Empire State Building Mooring Mast

[Peter Ansoff]

As many people know, the spire on top of the Empire State Building was originally designed to be a mooring mast for airships. The required machinery was never installed, and appears that the whole idea was more-or-less a publicity stunt. However, the mast was actually designed to work like the existing high masts in the US, Canada and the UK, and the building itself was strengthened to withstand the stresses involved.

This is my interpretation of how it would have worked. The building is the Fiddlers Green model, enlarged to 1/700 scale to match Ralph Currell's Vickers Transoceanic Airship. I made some modifications to the landing deck, to show how it would have actually interfaced with the airship, and also added some color to the 86th floor observation deck which would have been the primary landing control area. I still need to add a few final details: the support wire needs to be made to look something like the mooring spindle and cup, and I'd like to add a representation of the revolving boarding ladder that would have mated with the ship's boarding ramp. (I assume that it would be similar to the one on the mast at Cardington, UK.) Also, I've thought about adding some rigging for the yaw booms, but I'm not sure that it would look good in this scale.

[Vermin_King]

Very well done. I am afraid rigging would be very difficult. Not sure what kind of filament you could find that wouldn't be too huge in scale diameter.

[Don Boose]

This is a great model, Peter! And it is a big draw at the International Paper Modelers' Convention in Sterling. *2013* International Paper Modelers' Convention in Sterling VA

And I hope that you will bring this model to the "Modeling Military History in Paper" event in Carlisle next month. 9 March Carlisle Army Heritage and Education Center Paper Modelers' Event

Don

[southwestforests]

How was method for getting between ship and structure?

[papermodelfan]

Very cool Peter. Here is a website full of stuff on the Empire State Building, including a lot on the dirigible mast that starts about 2/3s of the way down.
http://www.interestingamerica.com/20..._Grigonis.html
There are pictures of a rather terrifyingly small gangplank. Sounds like one of the Navy Dirigibles explored enough around lower Manhattan to find the air currents way too choppy and rough to even contemplate docking to a building. Still, it would be the classiest way I can imagine to arrive in New Yawk! Cheers,

[Kevin WS]

Very nice indeed!

Well done on the idea...

[dto]

In the opening scenes of the 2004 movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the "Hindenberg III" successfully docks at the Empire State Building. (I guess #2 wasn't so lucky...) ;-)

Beautiful work, Peter!

David T. Okamura

[Peter Ansoff]

Thanks, Dave (and all)!

The dirigible is supported by a length of brass rod that fits into a brass tube inside the ship. This makes it very easy to disassemble the airship for travel. It also means that once could easily fit out any number of airship models with similar tubes, and interchange them on the mast. Maybe I will make a "Hindenburg III" someday. An interesting problem will be that the interface between the 102nd floor and the boarding ramp will be different for each ship, because of the varying bow configurations.

Rob, thanks for the very interesting site reference! I believe that the historical records of the ESB mast design are at Columbia University -- someday maybe I'll get a look at those. Also, the Smithsonian has some data on the US Navy's high mooring mast operations, which would have been more-or-less the prototype for the ESB. Something to work on when I retire in a couple of years . . .

[mchale]

I enjoyed talking to you about this model peter i learned somthing about the empire state building i did not know i want to thank you

[paper hollywood]

That is very cool! I love the Currell airships and I'm going to have to do this sometime. I usually blow them up to 150%, but that could get kinda massive...