airborne machine shop

[aostling]

The recent post about the USS Macon and its squadron of five Sparrowhawk fighters makes me wonder about the repair facility inside the dirigible. http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/sho...ighlight=macon

Imagine you were a chief in the 1930s Navy, asked to stock this imaginary on-board machine shop. What would you choose? Light weight, of course, is critical.

What would you select for machine tools? A valve grinder?

[IOWOLF]

Oh Yea a valve grinder, with all that Hydrogen .

How did we end up with this guy, Just lucky I guess.

[Your Old Dog]

1. A Sawzall
2. leather gloves
3. Duct tape
4. coat hanger
5. pliers
6. screwdriver
7. clean floor to work on
8. tube of Lanacane

Total expense: $185.00

Tube of leak detector: priceless

[Bmyers]

IOWolf, Last time i looked, the Navy used Helium.

[A.K. Boomer]

If I were in charge of the machinery department Id go to Evan and have him build me up an aluminum mill like the one he's got, like weight and should do the trick

[Doc Nickel]

A machine shop would have been considered superfluous on an airship.

Oceangoing ships have them because they often have just one or possibly two engines, and one can't exactly row the ship to shore. The Macon had what, a dozen engines, and the loss of even most of them would not adversely affect the safety of the ship. (Well, assuming it wasn't being fired at. )

A zeppelin with no engines is in trouble, yes, but can still land in an emergency by simply venting gas. (Being out over the ocean would be a different matter, of course.)

But suffice it to say that with fairly minimal cargo capacity (by weight, anyway) a machine shop would be largely unneccesary deadweight. The Hindenburg used a great deal of aluminum fixtures, and went to extensive lengths to save weight, such as using simple stretched canvas as cabin and passenger walls.

Now, that said, I could see a small combination machine or 3-in-1, perhaps even special-made with aluminum castings rather than iron, but certainly not much more than that.

Doc.

[A.K. Boomer]

How many of you guys seen that documentory on the Kee-bird? that was really amazing, there was what i think was a B-24 consolidated liberator that had to be set down in wartime close to the artic or anartic or some cold ass place, it sat for decades frozen half under ice and then a millionaire desided to go free it up and get it home, he had some workhorse of a plane with much tooling, Im pretty sure it had a little machine shop on board, they go through many many pains including flying engines in and out to get rebuilt, it took years because thier window of work time was only a month or two out of the year, His mechanic died due to an illness in the harsh environment, then the day came and they had cleared a runway in the snow, it was a bumpy runway and while the plane was taxying the onboard generator in the back of it spilled fuel and caught on fire, the entire plane burnt to the ground and the ice reclaimed the rebuilt engines and all ------- that show broke my heart, they almost had it and were pressed for weather cond. --- it was either going to sit for another year or they had to rush it --- they rushed it...

[rollin45]

Not that it makes any difference, but it was a B 29, and you are right about it being a heartbreaker !

rollin'

[IOWOLF]

IOWolf, Last time i looked, the Navy used Helium.

(With the lowest bow)

I stand corrected !

[A.K. Boomer]

Not that it makes any difference, but it was a B 29, and you are right about it being a heartbreaker !

rollin'

I knew i might have been off on that, something jogs my mind about a split/twin tail in that show and I wonder now if it was the rescue plane or if I just totally slipped a cog