Following the success of the Sea Scout Airship launched on 18 March, the team at RNAS Kingsnorth have been busy designing a new airship. The purpose of the new C-Class airship is to detect and attack submarines in the English Channel and the Western Approachese and carry out extended patrols in those areas.
The prototype was built using the envelope from the No. 10 Astra-Torres airship, and a gondola built using the front-sections of two Avro seaplane fuselages joined together back-to-back to provide one tractor- and one pusher propeller. The envelope is composed of rubber-proofed fabric that is also doped to hold the gas and resist the effects of weather. It has a distinctive trilobe shape in which the two lower lobes are situated side-by-side, and the third is positioned centrally above them.
C-Class Airship showing the distinctive trilobe design.
airwar19141918 