by Steve 'All Thumbs" Andersen

HMNAS Saratoga shown here leaving Brooklyn Yards to join the Dominion of North America Squadron traveling to London for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebration in 1897.

Launched in 1892, she was named after the famous victory by General Burgoyne (later Lord Saratoga) in 1777 over rebellious General Gage and the traitorous Benedict Arnold.

Saratoga was the first of a class of long-range aerial cruisers designed and built in the Dominion of North American for service on the western frontier. Unlike the aerial battleships of the Channel or Mediterranean Fleets, ships of the colonial fleets did not face a large number of nearby; heavily armed, potential opponents nor were they likely to operate close to coaling stations. These colonial Patrol Cruisers as they were known, were thus much lighter armed and armored then their European counterparts. Similar designs were to see service in Cape Colony, Canada, over the Hindu Kush, East Asia, and the Australian Outback

Her primary armament was 2 rapid-fire 8 inch guns carried in 2 ventrally mounted turrets. Two 6-pounders were mounted in sponsors on the gondola, as were 2 maxim guns.

Lift was provided by 77,000 cubic feet of Helium in 6 cells. 2 scotch boilers powered her triple expansion engine that spun the 67’ diameter aero-propeller.

The European aerial arms race of the 1870s and 80s is believed by scholars to have started with the Prussian use of Über-sea boats (U-Boats) in the Franco-Prussian war in 1871.

The Model

I when through several twists and turns with this model. The inspirations were the many “steam punk” novels with their armed airships and the steel navy ships of the 1890s. I originally thought of the sleeker airships of the 1930s like the Shenandoah and the Hindenburg. But since my construction date was 1892, I went ahead a studied the earliest airships like Zeppelin’s LZ-1 in 1903. It had a straight shell and exposed metal keel and supports. I used this as my guide.

The main body is a 6-inch piece of ¾ PVC pipe. The end caps are Plastruct elliptical tank heads. The structural steel is also Plastruct pieces. The gondola, turrets, stacks, skylight, prop, etc are scratch-build from various bits of sheet styrene, rods, tubes, and angle. The 8-inch are very close to scale as is the huge 14 foot steering wheel that would be required by pure mechanical steering.

When I began the project I had some 1/700 pieces from ships and planes from WWII. While they would have been easier, they just didn’t have the primitive look I was going for.

This is a fairly small scale to work in. I was able to include machine guns, spotlights and even a ships wheel, but I probably should have tried for something a little less ambitious.

Image: Front, showing armament

Image: Bottom/rear

Image: Top/right