ZEPPELIN P CLASS AIRSHIP

Plastic kit from TAKOM for the assembly of a German airship ZEPPELIN P CLASS, of the WW I, in 1/350 scale.Includes sprues with plastic parts, assembly instructions, clear parts, P.E. parts and decals.

The Zeppelin P Class was the first Zeppelin airship type to be produced in quantity after the outbreak of the First World War. They were used for many of the airship bombing raids on the United Kingdom in 1915-16, for naval patrol work over the North Sea and Baltic and were also deployed on the eastern and south-eastern fronts. The P class was an enlarged version of the preceding M class. The P class had a more streamlined hull shape than previous Zeppelins, with only 60 m (197 ft) of the 163.5 m (536 ft) overall length being parallel sided. P and Q class Zeppelins were operated by both the German Army and the Navy. Although the bombing raids are their best known activity, the majority of the flights made by the naval craft were patrols over the North Sea and the Baltic. The class was obsolete by 1917 and most of the craft that had not been lost to accidents or enemy action had been dismantled by the end of September 1917. The first P class Zeppelin constructed was LZ 38, assigned to the Army and first flown on 3 May 1915. After a series of raids on the East coast of England, it became the first airship to bomb London on 31 May 1915, dropping 1,400 kilograms (3,000 lb) of bombs on the eastern suburb of London, killing seven people.