The Metalclad Airship ZMC-2 [Prospectus for Investors in Dirigible Airships] de [Detroit Aircraft Corp] - 1929

Detroit: Detroit Aircraft Corp, 1929. 1st Edition. A Very Good Hardcover. Very Good/No Dust Jacket Issued.

Boards in shades of blue with vertical stripes of dark blue and midnight blue, decorated with four vertical silver stripes, and a small silhouette of an airship over a starlit sea; small folio; 9.5 by 12.25 inches tall; 32 pages; illustrated with photographs and charts; includes a 4 by 7-inch sample of 'Aiclad Sheet' Aluminum Alloy laid-in.

Printed on glossy page stock. The 'Aiclad' aluminum sample has printing on both sides with details of its specifications, as well as information about the Officers of the Detroit Aircraft Corporation and a list of its Divisions. [Lockheed was one] Minor age wear.

Moderate handling with rubbed corners, the unprinted spine has sun-lightened. Pages 3-10 lower corner dog-ear now opened. Several pages were stuck together and were professional separated by Grace Bindings, there are a few minor spots of light adhesion damage to the perimeter of a few pages with very minor occasional textual damage with no loss of content. Gift inscription from 1962 on the front free endpage.

OCLC lists copies in 13 institutions, none mention the  Alclad Sheet. . An extraordinary piece of Lighter-than-Air History. Though dealing with technical aspects of the US Navy vessel ZMC-2, this book is a prospectus and sales brochure clearly intended to stimulate interest in commercial applications.

Background Information:
The ZMC-2 was the only successfully operated metal-skinned airship ever built. Constructed at Naval Air Station Grosse Ile by The Aircraft Development Corporation of Detroit, the ZMC-2 was operated by the U.S. Navy at Lakehurst, New Jersey from 1929 until its scrapping in 1941.

While at Lakehurst it completed 752 flights, and logged 2265 hours of flight time. The ZMC-2 was the brainchild of Ralph Hazlett Upson, a balloonist and engineer. Upson teamed up with Carl B. Fritsche of Detroit and together they formed the Detroit Aircraft Corporation, with backing from Henry Ford and Edsel Ford, as well as Charles Kettering of General Motors, Alex Dow, president of Detroit Edison, and William B. Stout, a local industrialist. Chief of hull design was the young Czech-American designer Vladimir Pavlecka.

The ZMC-2 was nicknamed the 'Tin Bubble' and was also sometimes called a 'tinship'. The skin was not tin but Alclad. The airship was roughly teardrop shaped and had eight small stabilizer fins, four of which had rudders. It was held together with over 3.5 million rivets, which were applied by an innovative sewing machine-like device which produced airtight seams.

The ZMC-2 was constructed out of Alclad, corrosion resistant aluminum sheet formed from high-purity aluminum surface layers metallurgically bonded to high strength aluminum alloy core material. The result was about as strong as carbon. The downside was that Alclad was thicker than sheet aluminum, making the ship several hundred pounds heavier than originally envisioned. [wiki]