Nowadays, we can only imagine what it must have been like to see a gigantic airship like USS Akron or Graf Zepplin flying around in the skies. To put it to scale, the Akron was over three times as long as a Boeing 747-8. With eight separate Maybach 12-cylinder engines roaring away, it must have looked like a cruise ship coming in when it docked at an air station. Akron and sister ship Macon were designed for the U.S. Navy to use as a kind of flying aircraft carrier of sorts. While there were plenty of innovative and fairly novel ideas designed into the craft, including a condensing system used to collect water for ballast and a “spy basket” that exhibited such frightening in-flight characteristics that it was only used once, it was the catch-and-release system for the Curtiss F9C aircraft aboard the airship that was the technological pinnacle for the Navy.
The system consisted of a “trapeze” that would extend the aircraft out into Akron‘s slipstream. Once fully extended, the pilot of the Curtiss would detach and fly away. Returning to Akron, the pilot would fly close enough for the aircraft to hook onto the trapeze, then would set the engine to idle and hang out in the breeze as the trapeze was brought back into the airship. On paper, Akron was supposed to carry five Sparrowhawks, but in reality they could barely shove three into the open space.
The idea of a flying aircraft carrier died with the airships themselves. Akron crashed into the Atlantic after flying into a storm off of New Jersey in 1933, and Macon made a forced landing in the Pacific off of Point Sur, California and promptly sank.
Never saw a dirigible (not that “f ing”old) but plenty ” blimps” flew over our house out of Lakehurst NAS. Not matter what time of day/night, if we heard the unmistakable drone of their engines, we kids would out on the lawn as they past over. Some were so low we could hear the aircrews returning our shouts. Great times. 🙂