Britannian Aircraft

[APDAF]

The VK-3 is a medium bomber which has a maximum take off weight of less the 3 and a half tons
and the Graf Zeppelin had a useful lift of 60 metric tons and the Graf Zeppelin is rather small by Britannian standards.

And Raxar the wings are dihedral like the VK-3 and the Sopwith camels lower wing so look thicker then they are.

[eswube]

On the drawing Your VK-3 is 133 pixels long, that's 66,5 feet or 20,27m. Zeppelin-Staaken R.VI (where "R" stood for Riesenflugzeug - Giant Aircraft) was 22,1m long (72 ft 6 in), so not much larger. Handley Page V/1500 was 19,51m long (64 ft), Ilya Muromets was 17,5m long (57 ft 5 in), postwar American NBL-1 Barling Bomber was 19,81 long (65 ft).
For the standards of World War I and immediate postwar years (or their technological equivalent in Your AU) it is a heavy bomber. Very heavy bomber.
And the useful lift for Graf Zeppelin LZ-130 was just 10 metric tons (22 000 lb), unless You're talking about some other Graf Zeppelin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graf_Zeppelin_%28LZ_130%29

[APDAF]

I am talking about this one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_127_Gra ... ifications

Oh my weight estimate is way off then.

[ezgo394]

Plus you also have to account for the weight of aviation facilities, such as fuel, maintenance crews and a sturdy runway to handle the launching of aircraft.

[eswube]

Well if You read carefully this paragraph:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_127_Gra ... evelopment

it says:
The Graf Zeppelin had a total lift capacity of 87,000 kilograms (191,800 lbs) with a usable payload of 15,000 kg (33,000 lbs) on a 10,000 km (6,200 mi) flight.

I don't know where they get the 60 tons in the specifications - maybe it's fuel, crew etc.
Anyway, I think that Your bomber would weigh somewhere around 15-20 tons.
Perhaps You could make a viable airship able to carry one such bomber USS Akron (ZRS-4) style, but I think that operating it (esp. any maneuvers of such behemoth) would be a nightmare, even if it would look quite sexy in a comic book or anime.

[ezgo394]

Also, it looks as if these aircraft are WW1 era. The bigger airships didn't come about until a few years after the war, so really, you're stuck with a smaller, lighter zeppelin that can't carry a whole lot of weight.

[APDAF]

That is where our world differs from their world there they have HUGE Steam powered Zeppelins some being nearly half a mile long and have the payload of a small-medium cargo vessel but tend to explode when an someone forgets to close the door to the boiler room.

[ezgo394]

Honestly, I think it would be easier for you to work off of the world we have now. Refine your AU for this world, and get a grasp on how history unfolds, how things work, and what the difference between realistic and cool is, and then create your own world. Really, there seems to be no thorough explanation on the history of your world. You just want everything to be bigger and better for no reason. While yes, 'big' stuff is cool, youre practically handwaving everything to the point where it just is an eyesore. Just so you know, I went from having 'the worlds largest navy,' to having a small rich volcanic archipelago. To tell you the truth, that's a lot easier than makning a whole world... Just my two cents.
Point being, come to the real world, and follow real history and real physics, and all of this designing and history making will make much more sense and be much easier for you, and for US.

[eswube]

APDAF - I think You should listen to ezgo394's advice. Or at the very least to contain Your ambitions a bit.

I really don't think it would be possible to make a zeppelin half mile long with the technology of early XX century.
Note that by making Your theoretical "huge zeppelin" three times as long as the real ones You'll have to roughly keep it's proportions (lenght to diameter), so it's volume would have to increase about 27 times (that's extremely rough calculation, just to show You an order of magnitude, not the exact numbers).
Besides all the challenges with creating a structure of such size (plus hangars for such airships), it would mean that to move this thing against the wind (and that's a damn big area to blow at) You'll need LOTS of engines. LZ-127 had 5 engines, each 550 hp. For a ship about 30 times larger? Do the math...
And if You want them to be steam engines, remember that they are far less efficient then combustion engines, so to produce the same amount of power they will have to weigh much more and the same applies to their fuel (if You're thinking about coal, then... well, that's just too crazy for me to even seriously consider, while making oil-burned steam engines for airships carrying normal aircraft with normal engines is like reaching to left ear with right hand under your knees ).
If You really insist on mega-zeppelins, try to stick to something with a volume roughly twice as big as LZ-127. Perhaps it was doable on this level of technology. But such airship would be about just 1/5 - 1/4 of a mile long.

[APDAF]

I am writing it up slowly but I can give you the gist.

1) The Empire of Britannia is the amalgamation of the major European empires apart from the French, Italian, and Spanish empires due to their religion.

2) The empire is bigger than Europe and Russian Empire combined.

3) Religion plays a big part of the worlds history in the the last 1000 years as their is only one sect of Christianity (Catholicism), Islam and Judaism where made extinct during the crusades and plagues respectively. (Sorry if you feel insulted by that.) And the Empire of Britannia has two major religions Britannian and Norse mythology, (Britannian having a subject that you cannot say he does not exist.)

4) the empire has been at war for it's entire history with the Catholics and other nations along the way.

5) Industrialisation started in the late 17th century but is more prolonged as there are other powers working.

6) Do not mess with Imperial Inquisition or the Cultum Imperator.