Category:Goodyear-Zeppelin Akron-class Airship
In october 1929 started the construction of two rigid airships for the United States Navy.
Slighty shorter of the German Hindenburg class, the 785 ft (239 m) long Akron class was the largest helium-filled airship and the only one able to carry Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk fighter planes, which could be launched and recovered while it was in flight. Helium was used in order to avoid explosion but both the two nevertheless met with a tragic fate. Launched in 1931 and put into service at the end of this year, USS Akron (ZRS-4) was lost during its 73th mission on 4 April 1933 (crashed off coast during a thunderstorm with the loss of all the crew and passenger but three).
USS Macon (ZRS-5) was commissioned only few weeks later, on June 1933. It left the East Coast on 12 October 1933, on a transcontinental flight to her new permanent homebase near San Francisco. On 20 April 1934, a two-day trip enroute for Florida led the airship to Texas where some structural damage occured. Poorly assessed, the damage was not properly repaired, which proved fatal a few months later when a new flight crossed a storm off the Californian coast. On 12 February 1935, a structural failure of a ring near the tailfin proved to be excessive and the airship sank off Monterey Bay, this time with only two deaths.
This page lists all films that feature the USS Akron or USS Macon.
See also
Pages in category "Goodyear-Zeppelin Akron-class Airship"
The following 2 pages are in this category, out of 2 total.