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| Imperial Russian Airship Giant | |||||
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Compared to other European powers, Russia was relatively late entering the field of lighter-than-air craft. However in the first years of the 20th century the military recognized the potential of airships, and over the next decade Russia was to acquire 20 of various types. Though many ships were purchased from other countries, over time Russian engineers began experimenting with their own designs. The largest of these was a semi-rigid ship appropriately called Giant. The ship as originally designed was 114 m long, with a diameter of 17 m and four 215 horsepower engines. It was intended to fly up to 2500 m altitude, carrying 9000 kg for 20 hours. During construction the number of engines was reduced to two, placed in the middle of the ship.
The first flight occurred on February 10, 1915, but after half an hour aloft the airship sagged in the centre, weighed down by the re-positioned engines. With its keel broken, the damaged Giant dropped gently into a forest and the crew escaped with no injuries. Although the ship was rebuilt, the success of the aeroplane bomber had made military airships largely obsolete and the Giant was scrapped in 1916.
This model builds into a 1:350 scale replica of the Giant. The completed model is approximately 13 inches long. You will need a colour printer capable of handling card or cover stock to print the parts sheets. 67 lb cover stock (approx 8.5 thousandths of an inch or 0.2 mm thick) is recommended.
Note to webmasters! If you want to offer this kit on your site, please read this first.
The model files The parts and instructions are in Adobe PDF format, and have been compressed into ZIP files for faster transfer. They should work on any Windows, Macintosh, OS/2 or Unix/Linux computer. You will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader and an un-ZIP program. If files are unavailable or slow to download, try at a different time of day, when the file servers may be less busy. Primary site: Follow this link to download the instruction and parts files.
Secondary site: If you have trouble downloading files using the above link, you can try getting them from another site.
Related links Dirigibles of Imperial Russia - photos and information about Russia's early airships. |
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Last updated on December 4, 2006 Copyright 2006 by Ralph Currell |
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