Word: zr3
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Purpose. Unlike the Shenandoah, the ZR3 is designed for commercial use, not warfare. She is 24 ft. shorter than the Shenandoah, but has 300,000 cu. ft. more gas-capacity and luxurious quarters for 32 passengers. Upon her arrival at Lakehurst, she was to be given over to the U. S. Navy for experimental work, the German crew and commander (Hugo Eckener) staying on to train a U. S. personnel...
Other Facts. The safe arrival of the ZR3 was insured by Dutch and German companies for $600,000. Some said her purpose in sailing direct to Manhattan was to aid the German loan, the securities of which were offered to U. S. investors just previous to the big ship's arrival. The only Americans on board were the four members of the U. S. Naval Commission, pictured by The New York World as sitting "like drummers in a Pullman car" playing cards in mid-air and mid-Atlantic...
...ZR3 is almost ready for its flight from Friedrichshafen, South Germany, to Lakehurst, N. J. The directors of the Zeppelin company foresee success and little danger. But they predict failure for Amundsen's plan of airplane flight from Spitzbergen, Norway, to Point Barrow, Alaska. "Many flights will be necessary to lay in supplies at the Pole. One forced landing on barren and broken ice fields may mean death, without the faintest hope of succor for the lightly provisioned aviators...
...commander was appointed-Lieutenant Commander Zachary Landsdowne. He was the official observer for the Navy on the British airship R-34, which crossed the Atlantic. He was later assigned to duty at the Zeppelin plant in Germany where the ZR3 is now being constructed for the U. S. No other officer in naval aviation has had the experience he has in handling rigid airships...
...reason for the willingness of the Zeppelin interests to sell out arises from the fact that under the Treaty of Versailles the vast hangars and shops at Friedrichshafen must be razed as soon as the Navy ZR3 is completed. The reason for Goodyear's acquisition of the patents is to be found partly in the unprofitable character of the tire business at present, and partly because the American Company, as the nation's largest manufacturer of mechanical rubber goods, can undertake this branch of manufacturing on a large scale with existing equipment...