AERONAUTICS: A Mast

It requires over 300 men to take the Shenandoah in or out of its hangar, and there is always considerable hazard in such work. But now (for the first time in American aviation) a dirigible has been made fast to a mooring mast. With Captain Frank R. McCrary and Captain Anton Heinen, the German engineer-pilot, in charge, the Shenandoah, her nose about 200 feet above the ground, glided towards the apex of a huge mooring mast which stands some 1,500 feet west of the Lakehurst hangar. As the dirigible approached the mast, it dropped a steel cable. A ground crew of three officers and 15 men seized the cable and fastened it to another cable attached to the mast. A windlass in the mooring mast hauled the cable upwards and taking out its slack drew the airship’s nose into an automatically locking swivel at the very top of the tower. The Shenandoah now rides like a huge weathercock, immune to the most violent wind and ready to fly away with but a few minutes’ preparation. The use of mooring masts means smaller personnel, greater safety.