[Milsurplus] USS Shenandoah at 100 - Airships

[Ray Fantini]

Back during the transition from the last of Analog TV to Digital at the Maryland Public Television Annapolis transmitter we had to change out the old High split Digital (channel 55) and Analog (channel 22) to a new digital antenna, think the total weight of both were around twenty thousand pounds with the new spacer and digital antenna being about the same. Usually they rig the tower with a gyn pole and use huge winches with all that taking  several days just to set up and more time striking it off the tower afterword's. The contracted crew from Stainless used a heavy lift helicopter and did in all in two days. Swapping the antennas only took a couple hours. Its amazing how much weight and how well they can hold location above a fixed point. Somehow don't think the big gas bag airships can do that.
There is a video of the process at:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-sIuR0rCqU

Ray F/KA3EKH






Gordon (et al):

     If you want dirigibles, here are a couple of links that might be of interest.  Enjoy.

73 de
Gene Smar  AD3F

o  https://www.airspacemag.com/airspacemag/airships-rise-again-180978682/

o  https://piasecki.com/fnp-accomplishments/pa-97-multiple-helicopter-heavy-lift-system/2632/
This one is of personal interest to me.  When I worked at a local electric utility in PA (early 1980s), my research group was asked by a close-to-retirement VP to see if we could use dirigibles to transport ungodly heavy power transformers across our service territory.  (Quick backgrounder - one of our generating stations had lost a main step-up transformer in a fire, so our transportation department put their emergency restoration plan into motion by scheduling a rail car to transport a spare transformer 80 miles to the location of the fire.  However, Penn Central Railroad, which had placed the spare originally, had since gone bankrupt and the rails to the fire location had been torn up and scrapped.  This transformer had to be re-routed over other tracks from central PA through southern Canada and back, a distance of over 3,000 miles, to replace the failed unit 80 miles away.)  Our group approached Piasecki folks to discuss the feasibility of hoisting 50+ ton transformers with these things and flying across populated areas in PA, but we ultimately came to our senses and recommended against it.

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