My newest product was inspired by the cover of the John Kessel story collection The Dark Ride.  The credit says "Collection of the Buffalo History Museum 1901 Pan-American Exposition photo collection Picture P36 Box 9 PAV B14".  I assume that pertains to the airship because it's the main focus but it may be the background view of the exposition site.  In any case the airship looks to me like a genuine 1901 conception of a future flying machine.

My version will look a lot like the cover airship but differ in many details.  Here are some early views:

I did a little better searching and found the original art. It's from "the most popular ride at the fair", a Trip to the Moon.  "This picture from a souvenir album of the exhibition shows the lunar transport vehicle "Luna" taking off from the Pan American Exposition and hovering over Niagara Falls ... shortly before taking off on its trip to the Moon."

The air frame reminds me of an aquatic animal or bird.

Wings.  This is close to the original artwork view.

Two cartoon views.

The mesh is nearly complete.

Now in Poser and rigged.

Partially textured.  There'll be several MAT sets and several different airship configurations. The wings, tails and flippers are all poseable.

Like it, but that seems a bit small balloon to keep that ship afloat.

Good observation, bwldrd.  As an engineer I usually try to keep some practicality in my designs, but this time I decided to (mostly) keep to the inspiration image.  I only changed the tail to make it more birdlike and the vents to make them less cartoonish.  The result is impractical but still nicely retro to 1901.  Some of the earliest flying machine attempts were even more impractical.  Here's the original artist's impression of the moon trip vessel:

Here's a render of the pilothouse controls:

And the hatch in the process of opening:

Example render, stylized Snow Goose MAT.

The airship is easily reconfigured from the baseline figure:

Flying

Floating

and a swimming (sea) version

Further, the stack and vents are easily individually hidden.

Now in the Marketplace: https://www.renderosity.com/rr/mod/bcs/retro-sci-fi-airship-for-poser/158162/