SS Class Blimp - Service History and Legacy

Service History and Legacy

During the entire war there was only one instance of a ship being sunk whilst being escorted by an airship. During the final 15 months of the war SS type airships carried out over 10,000 patrols, flying nearly one-and-a-half million miles in more than 50,000 hours. A total of 49 U-boats were sighted, 27 of which were attacked from the air or by ships.

An SS B.E.2c set the current altitude record for a British airship when it reached 10,300 ft (3,100 m) in the summer of 1916, and the sole Hawk-engined SS Maurice Farman on one occasion carried out an extended patrol of 18 hours 20 minutes. Also in the summer of 1916, an Armstrong Whitworth model coated with black dope carried out night-time operations over France, proving that airships could be of value when operating with military forces over land.

The SS type was further developed with purpose-built cars to create the SSP (Pusher), SSZ (Zero), SST (Twin) and SSE (Experimental SST) types. Demand for the versatile "Sea Scouts" was so great that a grand total of 158 of all versions and variants were constructed, some of which were acquired by France, Italy and the United States.

Although the SS class types proved invaluable, their use was restricted to coastal patrols in reasonably fair weather owing to their low engine power and comparatively small size. For work farther out at sea and in all weathers, three further classes were developed: the Coastal, the C* and North Sea-class ships. Each had larger engines and envelopes, carried more crew, and had greater patrol duration than the previous class ships.