Lebaudy Morning Post
| Morning Post | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Type | Military reconnaissance airship |
| Manufacturer | Lebaudy Frères, Moisson, France |
| First flight | September 1910 |
| Owners and operators | British Army |
| In service | 1910-1911 |
| Last flight | May 1911 |
| Fate | Destroyed |
The Lebaudy Morning Post was a French semi-rigid airship built for the British Army in Moisson, France, by manufacturers Lebaudy Frères. The airship was commissioned by the newspaper The Morning Post, who created a fund to purchase the airship and present it to the British Army. The airship's envelope was damaged on the delivery flight and then it was destroyed on a subsequent trial flight after repair. At the time of construction it was the largest airship that had been built in France.
The Morning Post was designed by Henri Julliot to the same principles as the earlier Lebaudy République and Lebaudy Patrie but was larger and faster. The envelope was made of panels of waterproof canvas with two valves at the bottom to allow the hydrogen to be released, either automatically or by hand. An additional manual valve on the top of the envelope could be used to completely deflate the envelope. Two long quick-release panels were also built into the envelope for emergency deflation. The gas bag had three ballonets, one at the front, one in the centre and one at the rear: the front and rear ballonets could be used to fly the airship up or down. Two centrigual fans were used to inflate the ballonets. Small fixed vertical and horizontal stabilisers were mountes at the rear of the enveleope.
Suspended below the envelope a diamond-section keel constructed from steel tubing extended nearly the whole length of the envelope. This contained a horizontal stabilising surface for the front two-thirds of its length: the rear part also had a fixed vertical surface. It carried two pairs of elevators, one pair forward and the other aft, and a single rear-mounted rudder. Below this the car, also made from steel tubes was suspended. This had a single landing pivot in the bow. and was divided into compartments and could carry 20 persons. Also inside the car were two Panhard four-cylinder water-cooled piston engines rated at 135 hp, driving a pair of two-bladed pusher propellers through clutches and a gearbox. The propellers, which rotated in opposite directions, were 16 ft 5in (5 m) in diameter and revolved at about one third of the engines' speed.
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