Long story short, we ended visiting The Museum of Military History in Vienna on the 2nd of January and it was great! To my surprise, my passion for airships followed us there too.
The first encounter ended up with an image of “Imperial and Royal Military Airship M.IV, Boemches system, 1912.
Apparently, the Imperial and Royal (k.u.k.) military airship M. IV, utilizing the “Boemches system” and designed by Army Captain Friedrich Boemches, was built in the Fischamend hangar during the winter of 1911–1912. It was a non-rigid or semi-rigid dirigible designed to advance Austro-Hungarian military aviation capability, but it ultimately proved to be a failure.
The next one was just a beautiful picture of an “Anchored Imperial and Royal military balloon M.1896.”
I haven’t been able to find much more on that, but this period (1884–1890s) was marked by increased military focus on surveillance and technological advancements, such as French military maneuvers and the adoption of balloons by the Imperial Russian Army around this time.
The last exponate we bumped into was this beauty:
I had its label OCR’d and translated into following:
French war balloon with gondola, from the year 1796, “L’Intrépide” (“The Fearless”)
On 3 September 1796, the Austrian Army of the Rhine, 44,000 men strong, under the command of Archduke Charles, defeated General Jourdan’s French troops near Würzburg. Among the captured items were the apparatus and equipment of the first French “compagnie d’aérostier” (aeronaut company), which was used between 1795 and 1799 by the French Army for aerial reconnaissance.
Since this is the oldest aircraft in Europe that is still known, the original balloon envelope had to be stored separately, not least in consideration of conservation requirements.
It’s been all so inspiring and we had a great time there! Surely come back for more!
H2Use 