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Problem is they use fuel and as they use fuel they get lighter. The other problem is their top speed is less than common wind speeds and they don't do "wheels up" landings very well.I do not think that airships were cost-efficient in cargo transportation ever, in any period of time. I'd like them to be.
Enthusiasts are still trying to find a right niche for them.
Some of the earlier threads:
Why weren't zeppelins/airships used on a large scale during the war?
Use of Zepplins in the U-boat war
Problem is they use fuel and as they use fuel they get lighter. The other problem is their top speed is less than common wind speeds and they don't do "wheels up" landings very well.
Huh, like the Japanese, I never thought of that either, good call.The Japanese were on the right track with the FuGo balloons, their one mistake was that they weren't sending them over between June and September, which is when the West Coast is tinder dry.
Had they done that, than the program would have been far more successful.
Also operated out of North Africa for Atlantic approaches to the Gib straits and also into the Med as well.The USN used lighter-than-air aircraft for maritime patrol during WWII. I do know they operated off the US Eastern Seaboard, and over the Caribbean, and the Gulf of Mexico.
The Japanese were on the right track with the FuGo balloons, their one mistake was that they weren't sending them over between June and September, which is when the West Coast is tinder dry.
Had they done that, than the program would have been far more successful.
Vulnerability in an area where there was any possibility of enemy aircraft has to be considered. That makes their deployment or use in much of western Europe and the Atlantic problematic.
During the late August phase of the Battle of Britain the Luftwaffe adopted huge fighter escorts for relatively few bombers, which had to be intercepted in an attempt to get at the bombers, but also fighter sweeps ahead of raids in an effort to confuse British RDF and draw of British fighters. These were usually ignored and one such raid, just six Bf 109s shot down all 23 balloons of the Dover barrage in a few minutes.
Obviously, barrage balloons are not airships, but it does illustrate how vulnerable airships or any other aircraft lifted by flammable gas, would have been to modern fighters with modern weapons and ammunition.
The British had an imperial airship scheme in the works.It must have been something to travel by zeppelin. Looking out the windows, down at earth, while slowly flying by...