Scouting basket
The Spähgondel (also spy basket , scouts basket , espionage basket , angel basket ) was one of a Zeppelin hanging observation gondola that could be discharged through a cloud cover. From there, the scout could telephone the airship to its target for the bombing, or air reconnaissance could be carried out. It was used once or probably twice in the First World War (1914-1918) on the German side on military airships .
Lehmann scouting gondola - Germany
The war opponents' planes became faster, more reliable and more capable of climbing, the headlights more powerful and the anti-aircraft guns more effective. The aeronauts had to be prepared for attacks every time they crossed the border.
Ernst A. Lehmann and Baron Max von Gemmingen-Guttenberg (nephew of Ferdinand von Zeppelin ) had the idea of a spy gondola from which the airship could be directed while it was floating above the clouds, invisible to the enemy. As an engineer, Lehmann worked out the technical idea. Other developers had the same idea, including a civil engineer from Hagen in Cologne.
From the latter they obtained a hand winch with a 3.8 mm thick and 300 m long steel cable, which was installed in the bomb room of Z XII (LZ 26) . An old butter churn was fitted with a tail piece and attached to the rope with a couple of steel springs as a shock protection. An ordinary field telephone established the connection to the driver's gondola. Lehmann blindfolded the helmsman and lowered himself into the butter churn with a pocket compass. Communication worked well and Lehmann was able to direct the ship in every direction as desired.
A powerful winch was then commissioned, which should be powered by one of the ship's gasoline engines. A 900 m long high-quality steel cable was made into which a rubber-insulated copper wire was worked as a telephone line. The scouting basket was made of willow branches. It was designed by Max Oertz . At the stern it had a tail and rudder which were supposed to compensate for lateral vibrations if the airship got into disruptive air currents, which in practice ultimately turned out to be unnecessary. It contained a comfortable chair, map table, compass, telephone, electric light, and a lightning rod. The whole construction weighed about 1.5 tons.
The trial and installation probably took place between December 14, 1914 and January 19, 1915.
On March 17, 1915, Z XII was supposed to drop bombs on London. Due to the fog, the team could not find the Thames estuary. On the way back she took Calais as an alternative destination. The clouds were 1200 meters above land and sea, and the view below was clear: the ideal conditions to try out the scouting basket. There was a friendly dispute between Lehmann and Gemmingen about who should go into the scouting basket. Gemmingen relied on the fact that he was on board as a general staff officer and observer and that the skipper had to stay in the driver's gondola, which Lehmann agreed with. Before Calais, the engines were throttled in order to be heard as late as possible and the scouting basket was lowered 800 m. The roar of the engines could be heard on the ground and the artillery fired in that direction. But only once did an exploding grenade come so close to the airship that it was noticed from there. Under Gemmingen's instructions, Z XII circled over Calais for 45 minutes and, in five attacks, dropped bombs on the train station, docks, ammunition stores and other buildings. The beams of light from the searchlights on the ground did not penetrate the cloud cover and the gondola was too small to be noticed.
On the ground one puzzled how they had managed to make themselves invisible. A system of mirrors and colors was assumed, although this had already been recognized by science as impossible. Some innocent residents who rode their bikes at night were suspected of signaling with their lanterns and were temporarily arrested.
On the voyage from September 2 to 6, 1916, the LZ 60 (tactically: LZ 90) bombed London. On September 4th, the observation gondola was dropped in order to reach greater heights, which was achieved with the record height of 5,900 m. Probably this specimen was found near Colchester and is now on display in the Imperial War Museum in London.
On the construction drawings of LZ 62 (tactical: L 30, first voyage: May 28, 1916) and LZ 72 (tactical: L 31, first voyage: July 12, 1916) a scouting basket system is drawn, but it was not used on the naval airships more built in. On the other hand, on some photos of the Army Airship LZ 83 (tactical: LZ 113, first voyage: February 22, 1917) a fish-shaped scouting basket can be made out. On the army airship LZ 77 (tactically: LZ 107, first voyage: October 16, 1916) there was also a scouting basket.
The navy rejected the use of the scouting basket mainly because of its heavy weight. Even commanders of later, larger ships almost always refrained from taking the scout gondola with them. It was also shown that the weather conditions in which the ship could still take off and land and use the scouting basket were rare. There have only been one or two cases where an attack using the scouting basket was successful.
Gergassewitsch observation gondola - Austria-Hungary
In the last days of the World War the Austro-Hungarian Lieutenant Gergassewitsch (phonetically notated) developed a modified version of the observation gondola for aerial reconnaissance. It was also an arrow-like body. At the stern he had a laterally movable rudder and at the front a battery-operated propeller, which was operated by a person lying down. On a wire rope up to 2,000 m long, lateral movements could be carried out or flown in a circle.
A demonstration film of the formerly secret and now forgotten invention was shown in the Austrian newsreel on January 5, 1934, as well as reports on the American experiments.
Spy Basket of the USA
Scouting gondolas were used in the United States with the airships USS Akron (ZRS-4) (in service from October 2, 1931 to April 4, 1933) and its successor, the USS Macon (ZRS-5) (in service from April 21, 1933 to April 12, 1933 ) February 1935).
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Ernst August Lehmann (author), Leonhard Adelt (ed.): Auf Luftpatrouille und Weltfahrt , 21st edition, Volume 4 by Volksverband der Bücherfreunde , Schmidt & Günther, 1936, pp. 60, 67.
- ^ Klaus Kramer: Max Oertz: Genie, Yacht Konstrukteur, Aeronaut and Inventor , Klaus Kramer Verlag, 2001, ISBN 978-3-9805874-3-3 , p. 55 ( limited preview in Google book search)
- ↑ a b c Peter Kleinheins, Wolfgang Meighörner: The big zeppelins: the history of airship construction , 3rd edition, Springer, 2005, ISBN 978-3-540-21170-9 , p. 146 ( limited preview in Google book search)
- ^ "As soon as the Z 12 landed, I commissioned a powerful winch.", Auf Luftpatrouille und Weltfahrt , p. 60. The first trip was on December 14, 1914
- ↑ “So prepared, we were eager to be the first to visit the British on his own island. But we had difficulties, and so the two naval zeppelme L3 [= LZ 24] and L4 [= LZ 27] under the naval officers Fritz and Graf Platen came before us by scanning the English coast on January 19, 1915. ", On air patrol and world travel , p. 60
- ↑ Rudolf Wolf: MAYBACH engines and automobiles in the Rhine-Neckar triangle and the Palatinate , 4th edition, BoD - Books on Demand, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8334-8938-9 , p. 77 ( restricted preview in the Google Book Search)
- ↑ Andreas Horn: Zeppelin L30 , Basel May 1997, zeppelin-museum.dk
- ↑ Wolfgang Leonhardt : List, Vahrenwald, Vinnhorst: Drei Hannoversche Stadtteile mit Geschichte (n) , BoD - Books on Demand, ISBN 978-3-8448-7810-3 , p. 79 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
- ^ Franz Kollmann: Das Zeppelin Luftschiff , M. Krayn, 1924
- ↑ The American observation gondola - an Austrian invention , 31b / 34, January 5, 1934, Austrian newsreels 1933–1981 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 624 kB) , Media library of the University Library Graz, status: May 2011
- ^ USS Macon (ZRS-5), Airship 1933–1935 - On Board, Construction and Miscellaneous Views; Image: NH 77431 and NH 77432 at history.navy.mil ( Memento from November 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
See also
- Zeppelin
- Sea anchors , in particular abortion anchors lowered into a body of water from tethered balloons
