Abakan rose slowly, its interior gas bags struggling to get the necessary lift on the cold morning air. This ship, like most all the others still in service, was a model by the inspired genius of the German airship engineer Karl Arnstein, one of the great pioneers of rigid airship design who had worked closely with Count (‘graf’) Ferdinand von Zeppelin. The airship was every bit as big as the ship that first bore the count’s name, the Graf Zeppelin, all of 770 feet long and just over 100,000 cubic meters in total gas volume. A helium lifter, as all airships in the Siberian fleet, it had incorporated the new Vulcan self-sealing gas bags, eighteen in all from nose to tail, and this single breakthrough had extended the life of the airship for decades.
The first designs had used hydrogen, highly prevalent and easy to obtain, and the lightest of all gasses to give it the best lifting power. Yet its Achilles heel was its volatile nature and flammability, which was driven home during the First World War.
Overmatched in the deadly proving ground of the war, airship technology was once on the verge of dying out when the airplane was seen to be a much less costly and effective means of controlling the skies. The duels of bi-winged canvas fighters fluttering around the big airships like flies stinging the back of a rhino were legendary in the first great war. The Germans had found out the hard way over England when their hydrogen inflated zeppelins were ravaged by agile fighters with incendiary rounds. Too many had plummeted from the sky as flaming wrecks, prompting Germany to all but abandon its zeppelin fleet.
The Russian states had stubbornly held on to their fleets, finding them too useful on the vast open heartland as their lifting power saw them capable of transporting a full battalion of armed troops as an air carrier.
The planes were still a threat, but the greatest danger to an airship in the new war would come from the long range anti-aircraft guns that were getting bigger and more effective every year.
Non flammable helium was adopted as the key alternative lifting gas. After the Hindenburg disaster of 1937, not a single airship now dared to use the more efficient hydrogen. Instead, rigid airship frames were made lighter and stronger with “Duralumin,” an alloy of aluminum with exceptional durability, and its composition and heat treatment were a wartime secret. But the real advance that had extended the life of the airship was the discovery of “Vulcan,” a self-sealing gelatinized latex rubber lining that was used in the shell and all gas bags. If penetrated by machinegun fire from enemy aircraft, it could reseal within seconds, and the bullets would simply end up going right through the gas bags or clattering against the Duralumin frames and ending up at the bottom of the big interior air cells, which had special openings where the air engineers would remove the rounds and count them as trophies.
Abakan had already reclaimed over a thousand rounds on its many combat missions over the years, a veteran of the continuing infighting during the long Russian civil war, and more recently against the ever more aggressive Japanese. Machinegun fire was still a threat to the gondolas, which could not be too heavily armored, and had too many view ports to provide a safe environment. But here the AA defense of the zeppelin often saw eight or ten machine guns, and even heavier 20mm to 30mm caliber weapons that made any approach by a fighter plane a very hazardous attack.
The only problem was the scarcity of helium, until vast discoveries were made near Irkutsk in Siberia that provided an ample supply. Helium production increased dramatically after hydrogen was proved too dangerous during the war. In Russia, the breakaway Orenburg Federation had production centered on the fields around Kashagan in the Caspian Basin, and that state still maintained the largest fleet of airships in the world. In Siberia, gas and condensate fields unique for their massive reserves were located in the Irkutsk Region at Kovykta and Chayanda, and provided enough helium to keep a smaller fleet active.
With eight big ships, the Siberian fleet was only a third the size of the Orenburg air fleet, which was the largest in the world with 24 active ships. Yet the Siberian zeppelins served well in the vast, tractless steppes, where it was simply impossible to travel by any other means. The Trans Siberian rail was still operating, but it had fallen into disrepair east of Omsk, torn up by ceaseless war and the pillaging of Cossacks, Tartars and others. The trains were often seen as good prizes for roving war parties, who would ride in on fast moving cavalry units and board the train cars at the gallop. Ambushes were common, rail blocks always a problem, so traveling by airship avoided all that, and it was faster than the train as well.
Other powers still maintained a few airships in service. The British Farman Aerodrome and the firm of Armstrong-Whitworth, had produced Beardmore models that became known as “Pulham’s Pigs” when they operated out of Royal Navy Air Field Pulham. The British “Pigs on the wing” became the backbone of the Imperial Airship Fleet for a time, but by 1940 only three were still used by the Royal Navy.
There were five German Junkers LuftSchiffs and two built by Parseval Engineering in Friedrichschafen. Italy deployed two Forianini airships and France had one Freres airship still assigned to the Lafayette Escadrille Aerodrome. Even the Americans got in on the game with the deployment of several airship carriers that could launch and recover up to five bi-winged aircraft in flight by means of a specially designed trapeze docking system. With substantial helium resources of its own, the U.S. still kept a modest airship fleet active with designs from Wellman and Goodyear, and the Japanese still used floating reconnaissance balloons and a few airships designed by Yamada and Fujikura.
The Abakan was taking off on a very special mission that morning, up from its mooring facility on the Ob river near Novosibirsk and heading west with a most important passenger. Troops of the 18th Siberian Rifles were aboard to provide security, and the airship would link up with two brother ships within the hour to form an air flotilla of three as it made the long 750 kilometer journey west to Omsk.
“Inflation?” Air Commandant Bogrov was carefully monitoring his status from the main gondola bridge as the ship rose into the mackerel sky.
“95 percent, sir, and all engines nominal.”
A helium airship would never take off with its gas bags fully inflated. For longer journeys they would want to fly at high elevation and therefore take off at only 90 % inflation. Helium expanded as the airship rose to seek out the fast moving jet streams above. If they began with 100 % inflation their climb would be much easier, but they would later have to slowly vent helium to prevent the gas bags from overfilling with expansion, and helium was too valuable to waste.
So instead they took off at 90 % inflation, or 95 % on a short run like this where they would not be gaining much altitude. They would simply drop ballast to facilitate the climb, and then special air condensers on top of the ship could distill water from the atmosphere to take on additional ballast. They could even harvest rain in stormy weather, braving the certain threat of lightning to get open the rain catches to collect all the fresh water needed.
Up in a jet stream the airships could make remarkable speed, some achieving 160KPH with favorable prevailing winds along their intended heading. On their own power using four powerful ram air turbines, they could make over 70 knots, or 135KPH at lower altitudes, much slower than any plane, but twice the speed of even the fastest ocean going ships, which made the airship a very useful scouting vessel in a naval reconnaissance role. It’s endurance could outlast most any other aircraft of its day, but one drawback was that it was highly visible in the sky, and also easily detected with the early development of radar.
Air Commandant Bogrov was soon satisfied that all was well, and he turned to the Admiral seated at the plotting table behind him on the bridge.