Reminds me of a model I saw in 1971. The builder made a sort of Very Crude zeppelin structure, using balsa and tissue covering (probably silkspan). The model below is NOT IT, but it was sort of that ratio for length vs diameter
WAY cruder than this:
IIRC. may have had only 8 sides, and way fewer front-aft frame locations. Really crude, but neat in its own way. Today we’d say it looked like a Steampunk rocket. He built it for the NAR’s Drag Race event, that gives a point not only for first off the pad but also a point for lowest altitude and a point for last to land, of two models flown in a heat. It was about 4” diameter, 15-18” long, VERY LIGHT, and ejected a HUGE parachute that was stored inside all of that volume. Do not think he even won his heat though (may not have gotten the huge chute to deploy). Anyway, it was a neat model and I can see good reasons to make models like that for fun, even if not out of balsa and tissue (he built his in the days before CA, so he either used wood glue or model plane cement, needing to let parts dry a long time before moving to the next step).
Here’s another way:
https://www.papercraftsquare.com/goodyear-blimp-airship-paper-model-free-download.html
Use the file, perhaps rescale the print, to make a paper (thin yardstick) model. Leave off the Gondola. Perhaps using a bit longer tube than needed for the engine mount tube, in order to build the rear of the blimp around the body tube. I say that since in the photo it looks like the builder built it crooked as it gets near the tail. Or maybe it is just an optical illusion as the horizontal fins droop. Actually, for the sake of reliability and lasting longer, perhaps have a larger tube inside of it, so if it was 4" diameter with an 18mm motor tube, have a BT-60 inside of it and a BT-60 nose base attached to the front end of the blimp. So, it might be more like you had a Big Bertha living inside of the Blimp, as far as the rocket prep and ejection goes.
- George Gassaway
