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Goodyear-Zeppelin Airship Pilot's Uniform of Capt. Karl L. Lange

From the Joan Reisig Collection.  Complete with Service cap, double-breasted coat, matching trousers, shirt, and company tie.  Lange is seen in the photos in this progression: as a Naval Aviator (1917), leaning out of a gondola with Charles and Anne Lindbergh who are about to come aboard the Defender (1927), wearing this Goodyear-Zeppelin cap (1927), posing in front of the Reliance (1932), the same photo up-close, Lange second from left, in an article about his transferring to the Navy to command N.A.S. Tillamook (1943) and in his Navy uniform as CO of N.A.S. Tillamook (1945).  He retired as an admiral.  According to the website Projektlz129.blogspot.com, Lange was "in charge of station operations at (N.A.S.) Lakehurst during the LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin's first landing there in 1928, and then overseeing the Graf Zeppelin's landing and refueling at Mines Field in Los Angeles during the Graf's round-the-world flight in 1929."  He was an official observer aboard LZ-129, Hindenburg, on its 7th North American flight, August 17-19, 1936.  Joan Reisig's obituary states that she “worked for engineering firms in Cleveland and the Akron area before working for Goodyear Aerospace as a design draftsman in advanced airships. Also, at the Wingfoot Lake Blimp Base for a total of 20 years. She was associated with the Lighter than Air Society” (Akron Beacon Journal, March 25, 2019).  Later in her career, she was an archivist for the Engineering Department of the Airship Support Group at Goodyear.

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