Rigid Airship Research Articles

A Dinosaur Can Teach Us How to Do Better Science: "Anscombe's quartet" and the "datasaurus dozen" demonstrate the importance of visualizing data.

A Dinosaur Can Teach Us How to Do Better Science: "Anscombe's quartet" and the "datasaurus dozen" demonstrate the importance of visualizing data.

Study on unsaturated shapes of helium ballonet of rigid airship during ascent process

Airship has a good application prospect in tourism, material transportation, emergency rescue, communication relay, early warning, environmental protection and other fields. Airships can be classified into non-rigid types, semi-rigid types and rigid types. The rigid airship relies on the external skeleton to maintain its overall stiffness and shape, and the internal helium ballonet provides buoyancy. The helium ballonet is always in unsaturated state during ascent process, which will affect the center of gravity and buoyancy and the stress in wrinkle area, so it is great significance to study the unsaturated shape of the helium ballonet during ascent process. In this paper, the principal stress-principal strain principal is used to judge the stress state of the membrane. The modified constitutive matrix method and the pressure gradient method are used to obtain the shape of the helium ballonet under different saturation by the dynamic explicit FEM (Finite Element Method). When the pressure gradient method is used to apply the pressure difference internal and external of the ballonet, the change of unsaturated shape of the ballonet can be interpreted as the change of zero pressure level of the ballonet. The modified constitutive matrix method can effectively avoid the problem of non-convergence in the process of programming. The simulation results are in good agreement with the experimental results, which shows that the analysis method is reasonable and correct.

Study on Unsaturated Morphology of Helium Bag in Rigid Airship

Study on Unsaturated Morphology of Helium Bag in Rigid Airship

The Goodyear Airdock

Completed in 1929, the 1,175 ft long Goodyear Airdock, in Akron, Ohio, served as a hangar for massive rigid airships and was for years the largest building in the world without interior supports.

The mutual influence of aircraft aerodynamics and ship hydrodynamics in theory and experiment

As early as 1784, sharp-eyed engineers and scientists noted striking similarities between the dynamics of seagoing vessels and aerial vehicles. By the early twentieth century, naval engineers and scientists were developing and designing airplanes and dirigibles using empirical principles derived from naval architecture. Several key researchers in aerodynamics began their career as naval architects (David A. Taylor, William F. Durand and Jerome C. Hunsaker) and carried out their experiments in ship testing facilities. By the 1930s, however, the transfer of knowledge was irrevocably reversed as empiricism gave way to more fundamental, physics-based research. The rapid evolution of complex aircraft systems and flight envelopes led to new theoretical developments in aerodynamics and maneuvering, which quickly found their way into naval ship design. The theoretical and experimental results for airfoils, rigid airships and fixed-wing aircraft developed by Ludwig Prandtl, Theodore von Karman, Max M. Munk and Hilda M. Lyon were employed in the hydrodynamic development of surface ships and submarines. This paper examines how the ideas, concepts and data from one discipline influenced the other and explores the processes by which that knowledge was transferred between disciplines.

The first aeromagnetic survey in the Arctic: results of the <i>Graf Zeppelin</i> airship flight of 1931

Abstract. In July of 1931, on the eve of International Polar Year II, an Arctic flight of the Graf Zeppelin rigid airship was organized. This flight was a realization of the idea of F. Nansen, who advocated the use of airships for the scientific exploration of the Arctic territories, which were poorly studied and hardly accessible at that time. The route of the airship flight was Berlin – Leningrad – Arkhangelsk – Franz Josef Land – Severnaya Zemlya – the Taimyr Peninsula – Novaya Zemlya – Arkhangelsk – Berlin. One of scientific goals of the expedition was to measure the H and D geomagnetic field components. Actually, the first aeromagnetic survey was carried out in the Arctic during the flight. After the expedition, only preliminary results of the geomagnetic measurements, in which an anomalous behavior of magnetic declination in the high-latitude part of the route was noted, were published. Our paper is concerned with the first aeromagnetic measurements in the Arctic and their analysis based on archival and modern data on the magnetic field in the Barents and Kara sea regions. It is shown that the magnetic field along the flight route had a complicated structure, which was not reflected in the magnetic charts of those times. The flight was very important for future development of aero- and ground-based magnetic surveys in the Arctic, showing new methods in such surveys.

Modeling and analysis of floating performances of stratospheric semi-rigid airships

In recent years, the study of semi-rigid airship has revived with the development of airships. Semi-rigid airships have some characteristics of rigid airships and non-rigid airships. Due to the flexibility of the envelope of the non-rigid airship, the variation of the temperature of the inner gas will lead to its structure deformation and affect its flight altitude. This paper develops the structural mechanics model, thermodynamic model and dynamic model of the semi-rigid airship, based on which nonlinear finite element analysis is employed for geometrically nonlinear deformation of the airship upper film in consideration of thermodynamics and structural mechanics coupling. Based on the thermal-structural interaction, the thermal characteristics and flight performances of the airship during floating flight are investigated. The 3-D solar radiation and temperature distribution of the airship skin and the temperature variation of the inner gas are presented to investigate the thermal performance of the airship, flight velocity, acceleration and flight altitude are simulated to investigate the flight performance, and the variations of the volume and pressure difference of the inner gas are calculated to provide a basis for structure design. The results of the simulation can be referenced for the design of the semi-rigid airship, and can be used for the further study on the attitude control of the airship during its floating flight.

Modeling and Contro ol Analysis of URRG Monohull Blimp

This paper describes the design of a non rigid airship with the issue of scaling down the size. Nevertheless, the stabil lity and controllability of the airship are significant mainly due to drag and d buoyancy forces. These problems can be solved by introduci ing a proper structure design and reliable control algorithm. In this paper, wwe proposed an airship design called as “Blimp”. We have des scribed the analysis of motion characteristics without ballonet and the mode el was characterized based on URRG platform setup. Using th he computational fluid dynamic approach (CFD), the aerodynamic coeffic cients were produced by FLUENTTM package based on geom metry meshing using GAMBIT™. The blimp model has been proven to be e controllable through implementation of an optimal controller for solving the lateral model navigation issues. Simulation within a range oof data reveals that the design achieved the desired motion beha avior, thus verified its efficiency and viability.

Earth – Mars Similarity Criteria for Martian Vehicles

In order to select the most efficient kind of a martian exploring vehicle, the similarity criteria are deduced from the equilibrium movement in the terrestrial and martian conditions. Different invariants have been obtained for the existing (entry capsules, parachutes and rovers) and potential martian exploring vehicles (lighter-than-air vehicle, airplane, helicopter and Mars Jumper). These similarity criteria, as non dimensional numbers, allow to quickly compare if such a kind of vehicles can operate in the martian environment, the movement performances, the necessary geometrical dimensions and the power consumption. Following this way of study it was concluded what vehicle is most suitable for the near soil Mars exploration. “Mars Rover” has less power consumption on Mars, but due to the rugged terrain the performances are weak. A vacuumed rigid airship is possible to fly with high performances and endurance on Mars, versus the impossibility of such a machine on the Earth. Due to very low density and the low Reynolds numbers in the Mars atmosphere, the power consumption for the martian airplane or helicopter, is substantial higher. The most efficient vehicle for the Mars exploration it seems to be a machine using the in-situ non-chemical propellants: the 95% CO2 atmosphere and the weak solar radiation. A small compressor, electrically driven by photovoltaics, compresses the gas in a storage tank, in time. If the gas is expanded through a nozzle, sufficient lift and control forces are obtained for a VTOL flight of kilometers over the martian soil, in comparison with tens of meters of the actual Mars rovers.

Comparison of noise levels measured on elevated acoustic sensor arrays mounted on various aerostats.

The army has fielded acoustic systems for the detection of mortar, rocket, and small arms and it has been demonstrated that elevating the acoustic array by mounting the array on an aerostat can improve signal‐to‐noise levels. The elevated array receives a cleaner, higher amplitude signal while the noise level also increases. The performance of aerostat mounted acoustic sensor arrays for source detection and localization is limited by these increased noise levels caused by higher wind speeds and airship components. These shortcomings can be mitigated somewhat by using microphone windscreens, array location, and signal processing. Data from experiments on a large tethered rigid airship, a smaller tethered non‐rigid aerostat, and a medium rigid motorized airship are compared for noise environment and effects on acoustic detection and source localization.

Lighter than air: an illustrated history of balloons and airships

This richly illustrated book chronicles lighter-than-air flight from Archimedes' discovery of the principle of buoyancy to the latest in sport balloons and plans for future airships. Far more than a timeline of events, Lighter Than Air focuses on the people-flamboyant and daring, heroes and scoundrels-who made history in the sky. Here are the eighteenth-century pioneers who first took to the skies, the peripatetic aeronauts who criss-crossed two continents a century later, the airmen who manned the great rigid airships, and the intrepid balloonists who flew their craft across oceans and continents in the years following World War II. The first half of the volume recounts the invention of the balloon, the golden age of the professional aerial showmen in Europe and America, the use of balloons for aerial reconnaissance, and the key role of balloons in scientific research. The second half presents the rich tale of the airship from eighteenth-century dreams to twentieth-century reality. These chapters describe the early development of the pressure airship, the emergence of the rigid airship and its golden age in the first half of the twentieth century, and the military and civil applications of these aerial behemoths. The author concludes by discussing modern blimps, sport balloons, and dreams of a future for airships. The highly accessible text is complemented with a wealth of prints and photos from the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., the Musee de l'Air et de l'Espace at Le Bourget, the Zepplin-Museum at Zepplinheim, and the Imperial War Museum in London. Written by award-winning aeronautical historian Tom D. Crouch, Lighter Than Air brings to life the color and excitement of buoyant flight.

Aufstieg und Niedergang der Luftschifffahrt: Eine wirtschaftshistorische Analyse (review)

Reviewed by: Aufstieg und Niedergang der Luftschifffahrt: Eine wirtschaftshistorische Analyse Guillaume de Syon (bio) Aufstieg und Niedergang der Luftschifffahrt: Eine wirtschaftshistorische Analyse. By Helmut Braun. Weiden, Germany: Eurotrans-Verlag, 2007. Pp. xvi+789. €49.90. In his lightly revised dissertation, Helmut Braun sets out to apply economic theory to explain the rise and demise of the rigid airship. In so doing, he argues that most previous histories have failed to account for the multitude of factors that led to the triumph of heavier-than-air aviation, and that a true multidisciplinary approach is needed. To prove his case, however, Braun ends up treading familiar territory and thus reaches conclusions very similar to other recent histories of the airship. Reinvestigating known events by casting them in a Schumpeterian perspective certainly is a welcome way of testing previous explanations for the twisted road the airship followed. To ensure that the reader understands his undertaking, Braun also offers detailed backgrounds to each phase of airship history he wishes to investigate. This widens the scope of his work considerably and assumes some prior knowledge of the subject. Braun’s work deserves praise for seeking to understand how and why the rigid airship was never a moneymaking operation (much to its supporters’ dismay). The actual numbers, however, are not as easy to determine as they might appear. Henry Cord Meyer, who studied the political aspects of the airship, admitted privately that this was his greatest frustration. Braun valiantly tries to fill the void by looking more closely at materials made available over the past decade or so in the Zeppelin Archives. Furthermore, Braun places the dirigible’s use in the wider context of aviation activities. It is gratifying to see not only a serious endeavor to link airship and airplane, but to see it done transnationally. In so doing, he echoes Schumpeter’s call for an examination of international change, but Braun’s model also prompts him to overlook some valuable material that would strengthen his case. The broadness of Braun’s investigation ultimately weakens his thesis. In [End Page 497] dismissing sociocultural factors early on, he ends up resurrecting them as political ones while missing the grounds for politicians’ reactions to the airship. For example, he calls Atlantic flight a “minor niche.” Although this may be true in the context of interwar business, it ignores combined factors of cultural fascination, economic potential, and geopolitical shifts happening at the time. All of these prompted governments and companies to sponsor—or at least acquiesce in the risks involved in—hopping the pond. Braun’s use of the existing literature also shows some gaps. The list of German works on the subject appears fairly complete, but published sources in other languages, though cited, often do not make it into the notes. For example, the nationalist dimensions of aviation so aptly explored for more than two decades by several historians pop up occasionally, but it is not always clear how they influenced subsidy priorities. A similar problem appears in the use of archival sources. Using the Zeppelin Archives’ materials, Braun certainly proves the role of subsidies in the prewar years and in the 1920s, yet he abandons this line of investigation for the 1930s, focusing instead on a kind of political economy of airships that retraces known events. Very few of the Bundesarchiv’s Finance Ministry materials were examined, and the Transportation Ministry material appears nowhere in Braun’s sources. Instead, he offers a highly detailed discussion of the failed helium negotiations of 1937–39 and of the actual metal costs of airship manufacture. Yet he refrains from examining the overall business of the Zeppelin Corporation, by then sole purveyor of rigids. To sum up, such over-contextualization offers up a lot of material, but it also creates an imbalance in the analysis Braun seeks to communicate. Braun concludes that the airship was a flop from the start because of technological, political, and economic factors. This position is not entirely new, but what is new is the attempted incorporation of business outcomes. On the other hand, Braun does not include sociocultural factors, though he does weigh personal character when discussing helium. Perhaps a better incorporation of SCOT, which...

Methodology for Determination of Baseline Specifications of a Nonrigid Airship

This paper presents a methodology for arriving at the baseline specifications of a non -rigid airship of conventional configuration, given the performance and operational requirements. Specifi cally, the methodology calcula tes the envelope volume required to carry a use r- specified payload, and also arri ves at the mass breakdown, a nd per forman ce estimates . Alternatively, the payload that can be carried by an airship of specified envelope volume can also be estimated. Sensitivity of parameters such as pressure altitude, ambient temperature, cruising speed, Helium purity level, engine power, env elope length to diameter ratio etc. on the payload available or envelope volume requi red can also be determined . T he baseline specifications of two airships for transportation of goods and passengers under hot and hi gh conditions obtained using this method ology are presented . Results of sensitivity analysis for one airship are also discussed. 1 NOMENCLATURE

Earth–Mars similarity criteria for exploring martian vehicles

In order to select the most efficient kind of a martian exploring vehicle, the similarity criteria are deduced from the equilibrium movement in the terrestrial and martian conditions. Different invariants have been obtained for the existing (entry capsules, parachutes and rovers) and potential martian exploring vehicles (lighter-than-air vehicle, airplane, helicopter and Mars Jumper). These similarity criteria, as non-dimensional numbers, allow to quickly compare if such kind of vehicles can operate in the martian environment, the movement performances, the necessary geometrical dimensions and the power consumption. Following this way of study it was concluded what vehicle is most suitable for the near soil Mars exploration. “Mars Rover” has less power consumption on Mars, but due to the rugged terrain the performances are weak. A vacuumed rigid airship is possible to fly with high performances and endurance on Mars, versus the impossibility of such a machine on the Earth. Due to very low density and the low Reynolds numbers in the Mars atmosphere, the power consumption for the martian airplane or helicopter is substantially higher. The most efficient vehicle for the Mars exploration seems to be a machine using the in situ non-chemical propellants: the 95% CO 2 atmosphere and the weak solar radiation. A small compressor, electrically driven by photovoltaics, compresses the gas in a storage tank, in time. If the gas is expanded through a nozzle, sufficient lift and control forces are obtained for a VTOL flight of kilometers over the martian soil, in comparison with tens of meters of the actual Mars rovers.

Technology, Policy, and a Passion for Shad: John McPhee, The Founding Fish

Technology, Policy, and a Passion for Shad:John McPhee, The Founding Fish Jeffrey K. Stine (bio) By nature and intent, the serious, literary nonfiction produced by John McPhee aims to reach a broad audience. His writings are unencumbered by the scholarly apparatus—footnotes, bibliographies, and the like—that characterizes academic historical publications. McPhee nevertheless offers important contributions to the history of technology. His careful research and reverence for accuracy are legendary. Every word counts in his essays; every line strives for clarity, insight, truthfulness. Moreover, because McPhee is writing for a general readership, he can freely add what professional historians fastidiously avoid: he can make himself part of the story; he can give personal testimony to the people and places he describes; he can dwell upon psychological elements and motives; and he can lace his accounts with humor. Faithful readers of the New Yorker will be familiar with McPhee's essays, as he has been a regular contributor there for nearly four decades. Beginning with his portrait of Princeton University's basketball star and academic talent, Bill Bradley (A Sense of Where You Are [1965]), McPhee has turned his New Yorker pieces into book after masterful book. His oeuvre covers a remarkable range of topics, many of which address fundamental aspects of the interplay of technology and culture. Encounters with the Archdruid (1972), for example, portrays one of the great defenders of wild lands, David Brower, as he clashes with three outspoken developers: the mining engineer Charles Park, who argues the case for mineral extraction wherever key deposits are found; resort builder Charles Fraser, who denounces the do-goodism of environmentalists; and Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Floyd Dominy, who champions the construction of big dams. The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed (1973) tells the remarkable story of the secret development of a hybrid flying machine that blends [End Page 830] elements of airplanes and rigid airships. McPhee explores aspects of nuclear power, from weapons to propulsion to electricity generation, in The Curve of Binding Energy: A Journey into the Awesome and Alarming World of Theodore B. Taylor (1974). The Survival of the Bark Canoe (1975) exemplifies how traditional technologies have been passed down through generations and how they have been shaped by their cultural and environmental settings. The reciprocal influences among culture, environment, and technology interact on a much larger canvas in Coming into the Country (1977), where McPhee leads his readers on a mesmerizing journey through "America's ultimate wilderness," Alaska. Giving Good Weight (1979) includes essays that examine the multitude of variables associated with developing a nuclear power plant capable of floating in the open ocean, as well as the controversy surrounding the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers's proposal to impound one of New England's most scenic rivers. The Control of Nature (1989) tackles the intersection of technology and the environment head on by unmasking three larger-than-life attempts to harness some of the stronger forces on planet earth: preventing North America's largest river, the Mississippi, from shifting to its preferred (and shorter) path to the sea; trying to redirect the great lava flows in Iceland; and containing the devastating "debris flows" that slough off the steep and unstable shoulders of Southern California's San Gabriel Mountains. In Looking for a Ship (1990), to cite one last example, McPhee uses a month-and-a-half voyage on the S.S. Stella Lykes through the Panama Canal and down South America's Pacific Coast as a vantage point for observing the technological and social dimensions of operating a freighter within the now-anemic United States Merchant Marine. McPhee's twenty-fifth book, The Founding Fish (New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2002, 368 pp., $24), covers one of the author's own consuming passions, shad fishing, together with humanity's interactions with this bony but delectable migratory fish. The book's title reflects the claim that an early-season shad run on the Schuylkill River in 1778 saved the starving army under George Washington's command at Valley Forge, and, in so doing, perhaps rescued the American Revolution itself. As in his other works, McPhee lards his subject with discussions of sport, culture, biology, myth, human...

101 横風を受ける飛行船まわりの流れ

The size of rigid airship model used for experiment is 1/300 scale one of the Graph Zeppelin and its overall length and maximum diameter of the section are 0.8m and 0.1m, respectively. The experiment is carried out changing yawing angle from 0 to ±90°and in Reynolds numbers 5.3×(10)^5 and 1.1×(10)^6. Effects of the yawing angle and Reynolds number on drag, side force and yawing moment are examined.

The external forces on an airship structure with special reference to the requirements of rigid airship design

A system of external forces on the structure of a rigid airship can be analysed into two or more of the component systems due toW. The Weights of the members of the structure and the weights of the masses carried by it;L. The Lift and pressure of the gas;A. The Aerodynamic forces consequent on the relative motion of the airship and the air;T. The Thrusts of the airscrews;R. The Reactions due to either the mooring arrangements, the hauling-in guys, the supports used in the shed, or handling on the ground.As these component systems, though restricted by their interdependence, are individually variable, a very large number of complete systems is represented by the possible combinations and variations that can occur. It becomes necessary, therefore, for the purposes of design, to attempt to limit the number of combinations to be considered, and to restrict the variations of the components, but in such a way that the structure designed to carry the resulting systems with adequate factors of safety, shall be able to carry any other possible system with an appropriate factor of safety.

The Golden Age Remembered: U.S. Naval Aviation, 1919-1941

Never in the history of aviation was there a more exciting and colorful period of rapid development and public romance with aviators and their magnificent flying machines than the decades between the world wars. It was a time of air shows and races, record flights across the oceans and over the poles, phenomenal technological innovations, and daredevil pilots with whom the world fell in love. The U.S. Navy produced more than its share of these individuals and accomplishments, and thanks to former naval aviator and renowned historian E. T. Wooldridge there is now an accurate and lively account of this glamorous golden age.Not only does the book fill a void in the history of U.S. naval aviation, but it is the first to include the reminiscences of legendary pilots, engineers, and innovators who were leaders in the development of aircraft carriers, rigid airships, and long-range flying boats. Wooldridge's well-researched, flowing narrative is seasoned with the intimacy and immediacy of firsthand experience and friendship with many of the unforgettable speed seekers, death-defying test pilots, and indomitable aviation personalities. Rear Adm. Alfred M. Pride, Tommy Tomlinson, and Admirals Jimmy Thach and Thomas Moorer, to name but a few, relive in their own words the creation of naval aviation tactics and doctrine and the dramatic improvements in technology that helped secure victory in World War II. From the unforgettable voyage of the NC-4 across the Atlantic in May 1919 to the last bows of the memorable Curtiss Helldiver, as war approached, U.S. Navy aviators, explorers, and pioneers led the way, their names and deeds indelibly imprinted in the record books and on the American consciousness.

From Polaris to Trident: The Development of U.S. Fleet Ballistic Missile Technology by Graham Spinardi

430 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE that naval aviation, including not only the carriers but also the su­ perbly trained personnel and the procurement practices for securing the advanced weaponry that performed so impressively in the Pacific during World War II, succeeded as well as they did. But the author is candid about the negative aspects of Moffett’s career as well. The admiral cultivated wealthy and influential friends whom he used un­ abashedly in seeking presidential support for renewing his appoint­ ment as head of BuAer. And surely Moffett’s continued advocacy of rigid airships despite a succession of fatal accidents, which clearly demonstrated their dangerous vulnerability to adverse weather, sug­ gests some want of objectivity on his part in assessing the technical capabilities of dirigibles. While his enthusiasm for airships may have been misguided, it was sincere, for it was as a passenger in the ill-fated Akron, which crashed in a storm off the coast of New Jersey, that he lost his life. Moffet’s impressive achievements resulted in no small part from his “innate sense of what was possible and what was not possible in times of rapid technological change” (p. 275). As a leader he selected top-notch subordinates, and if he demanded their unswerving loyalty, he was no less loyal to them, encouraging their initiatives and advanc­ ing their careers to the best of his abilities. I. B. Holley, Jr. Dr. Holley is with the Department of History at Duke University. From Polaris to Trident: The Development of U.S. Fleet Ballistic Missile Technology. By Graham Spinardi. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Pp. ix + 253; notes, index. $54.95. Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. Navy’s submarine-launched ballistic missiles represented a technological counterpoint to the de­ velopment and deployment of intercontinental ballistic missiles by the U.S. Air Force. This book outlines the development of the naval systems, from the Polaris missile, initiated in 1956 and put to sea in 1960, to the Trident D5 missile deployed in 1990, which served as one of the final bargaining chips in the strategic competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. In that time, the Polaris, Poseidon, and Trident weapons systems went from a submarine’s complement of sixteen missiles, each carrying a single nuclear weapon, to twenty-four missiles, each with eight independently tar­ geted warheads. Graham Spinardi’s analytical goal is to use this account to demon­ strate that none of the often-cited factors—science, technology, or politics (bureaucratic or international)—alone determined the tech­ nological outcome. Rather, he argues that a sociological approach provides a framework to account for the interactions of these influ­ ences, so that “technological success can be explained by reference to TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 431 social factors rather than to ‘natural’ logic, and can be seen as requir­ ing networks of interests which need to be actively forged and main­ tained” (p. 18). This story’s foundation is the U.S. Navy’s careful effort to forge a distinct strategic mission, and a technology which reflected it, by cre­ ating a role complementary to the dominant position staked out by the Strategic Air Command and the air force’s missileers. Chief of Naval Operations Arleigh Burke determined that while the air force made claims to accuracy sufficient to deliver nuclear weapons to spe­ cific military or industrial targets within the Soviet Union, the navy would find its own strategic role and missile. In contrast to the flyers, the sailors defined their mission as deterrence; missile-carrying sub­ marines, weapons aimed at cities rather than narrowly defined strate­ gic targets, represented a hidden threat designed to forestall a nu­ clear strike by its ability to punish the aggressor’s populace after one took place. This position claimed the virtue of not threatening a first strike, and so made a virtue of the accuracy initially to be expected of submarine-launched missiles, which could hit a city but might miss a smaller target. While at first the navy was the junior partner in a joint army-navy development project, the fact that liquid fuels were unsuitable for use aboard ship justified the navy...

The Politics of Aircraft: Building an American Military Industry by Jacob A. Vander Meulen, and: Airshipmen, Businessmen, and Politics, 1890–1940 by Henry Cord Meyer

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 443 The Politics of Aircraft: Building an American Military Industry. By Jacob A. Vander Meulen. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991. Pp. xii + 292; illustrations, tables, notes, appendixes, bibliog­ raphy, index. $35.00. Airshipmen, Businessmen, and Politics, 1890—1940. By Henry Cord Meyer. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. Pp. 273; illustrations, notes, bibliography, index. $45.00. Although these books by Jacob Vander Meulen and Henry Cord Meyer are different in their content and scope, both offer consider­ able insight into the broader historical significance of aeronautical technology. The Politics of Aircraft focuses on the American aircraft industry, stressing that the airplane was as much a political as a technological entity. The book stresses the dichotomy between the “corporatist” or “associationalist” movement in the aircraft industry and the govern­ ment’s insistence that the industry had to be treated as if it functioned within a 19th-century free-market economy. Vander Meulen’s argu­ ment is simplistic but convincing, and it results in a more concise and analytical treatment of the aircraft procurement and contracting tangle than I. B. Holley’s encyclopedic but still valuable 1964 Buying Aircraft: Materiel Procurementfor the Army Air Forces. The principal weapon used by the federal government in what amounted to prolonged ideological and economic warfare with the industry was nonrecognition of proprietary design rights. Congress refused to budge on its insistence that in all contracts with aircraft manufacturers the government retained the rights to the design, thus remaining in a position to distribute lucrative production orders to competitors. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, manufacturers in­ sisted that they functioned within a closed market, with the govern­ ment as their only customer, and that the monopolization of design rights by the government gave unfair advantages to certain compet­ itors who had not invested the time and money in the development of an aircraft design. While this policy worked to the advantage of some manufacturers (and presumably saved the taxpayer money), in the long run it impoverished the entire industry. Unfortunately for the industry representatives, there was little they could do to rectify the situation. The highly specialized nature of the product and the low volume of output dictated the industry’s organization—or lack thereof. Repeated efforts to form trade associ­ ations failed, largely because manufacturers tended to be independent-minded, highly individualistic, and, ironically, wedded to some of the same democratic ideals touted by their opponents on Capitol Hill. The manufacturers stayed in the business for irrational, noneconomic reasons, basking in the glamour and prestige of a high-technology industry while consistently losing money or making 444 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE only the slimmest of profits. The only effort to resolve this anomalous situation was the Air Corps Act of 1926, but most interpreted its confusing verbiage as mandating open advertising and bidding on all contracts and no compromise on the question of design rights. Vander Meulen’s foray into the political culture of the aircraft industry is successful. His research is impressive, particularly the time and effort spent in the collections of the National Archives and the largely untapped records of the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce. There are a handful of factual errors in the book, and Vander Meulen’s consistent misspelling of Charles Lawrance’s last name is annoying, but these shortcomings do not detract from a fine work. Meyer’s book, on the other hand, is more uneven. Although he starts from much the same premise, that the political history of the airship is as important as the technology, Airshipmen, Businessmen, and Politics lacks the clarity of argument and depth of analysis evident in Vander Meulen’s study. The major reason for this is that Meyer has combined ten essays on the rigid airship written over a number of years, giving the book a disjointed feel. Moreover, the field ranges widely, covering the origins of the industry in Germany, the competition between the Zeppelin company and the Schutte-Lanz firm, the transfer of rigid airship technology to France, Britain, and the United States, and the last, enigmatic flight of the German LZ-130 to carry out electronic surveillance along the east coast of England...