On April 21, 1933, the USS Macon, costing $2.5 million, left Akron, Ohio on its maiden voyage.
Known officially as ZRS-5 the USS Macon, more modern and slightly faster that its sister ship, the Akron ZRS-4, had a top speed of about 87 miles per hour.
The rigid airship was developed by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Co., a business jointly owned by the Zeppelin Company of Germany and the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.
Unlike the blimps made famous by Goodyear today, the Macon had a hollow steel hull with three interior keels. The intent of the strong spine was to prevent the type of hull collapse that occurred with one of the Macon’s predecessors, the Shenandoah.
The Macon had a crew of 100 officers and men.
The Macon had accommodations for 100 officers and crew, including sleeping berths, a large mess room, a galley and observation platform at the nose and tail.
From the outside it looked and functioned much like a helium balloon. But on the inside the ship was an open cavern of girders, cables and catwalks with few places crewmen could not go.Before 1925, many lighter-than-air craft operated on hydrogen. But the flammability of the gas proved to be very dangerous as would be demonstrated in May, 1937 when fire killed 36 people aboard the German Zeppelin, Hindenburg.
The Macon was kept aloft by non-burning helium contained in 12 large gelatin-latex cells inside the craft.
The ship carried a large supply of additional helium, and navigators were able to set the Macon’s altitude by releasing more of the gas.Inside the hull, the ship had eight large 560-horsepower engines driving outside propellers, one of the craft’s few noisy operations. The propellers could be pointed up or down to control the ship during take-off and landings.
The giant USS Macon landed at Moffett Field on October 16, 1933. During the next 16 months, the Macon became a familiar and popular sight on the Peninsula, never failing to amaze the public whenever it took off or landed.
The airplanes were release via a trapeze and harness which lowered the planes through a T-shaped hole in the Macon’s underside.
The Macon carried its own protection - five sparrow hawk fighter planes stored in the aircraft’s belly.
The airplanes were release via a trapeze and harness which lowered the planes through a T-shaped hole in the Macon’s underside.Retrieving the planes, however was a difficult process. Like a performing air stunt, the pilots had to match their speed to that of the ship, and “catch” the trapeze with a hook at the top of the plane. The harness would then be attached to the fuselage, and the aircraft would be raised.
Despite the difficulty of the maneuver the pilots, know as the men on the flying trapeze, had a flawless record on both the Akron and Macon.
The Macon had scouted for the Pacific Fleet eight times in all. When the airship left Moffett Field on February 11, 1935, to go on maneuvers off the Southern California coast, repairs to two damaged tail fins had not been completed.
Because of the pressure to prove its value, Navy officials decided to do the repair piecemeal. Largely because of that decision, this would be the Macon’s 54th and final flight.
The next day, as the ship was returning from a successful mission, it encountered sever storm winds off Point Sur, south of Monterey. Suddenly, a crosswind struck the ship with such force that the upper fins of the previously damaged tail were completely severed, sending shards of metal into the rear gas cells.
In the control car, the steering wheel went slack and the navigators felt the tail drop. Wiley ordered the dumping of ballast and fuel.
Crewmen hurried about the ship discharging anything they could do without to lighten the tail. But the Ship was doomed. After rising to nearly 5,000 feet, the Macon began to fall. Moments later it settled gently into the water.The crew, clad in life jackets and prepared with life rafts, jumped into the water safely. Ships were quickly on the scent to pull the men out. A radioman was killed when he jumped from the falling ship, and another man was lost when he apparently tried to retrieve his belongings. But in all, 81 of the 83 aboard the Macon survived the crash.
The Macon’s Control Car
These small training blimps resemble orphans within the lonely expanse of the 198-foot tall Hangar one, built in 1932 at a cost of $2.25 million. Former USS Macon engineer George Weldy, 89, one of the few surviving U.S. military dirigible crew members, recalled in an interview that fate took a big part in his life while he worked on airships.
“I happened to be off duty the day she went down (off Monterey in 1935),” he said. “They were breaking in some new crew members, and they happened to be aboard that day.”“You know, that day was the only day I saw the Macon in the air,” Weldy said. Why? Because he had always been aboard! He had a total of 52 flights on the Macon.
The first airship Weldy was assigned to, the Akron, also crashed, but Weldy again was lucky. “A fellow asked to trade duty station with me, he said. It’s sad when you lose friends like that, because we were all like family.”
Weldy had a 30 year career in the military before retiring in 1958. He and his beautiful wife, Laura have been married for 65 years and have one son, David.
A commission set up to determine the cause of the ship’s demise concluded that the blame belonged not to the crew, but to the Navy’s refusal to repair the Macon’s tail damage before it was sent on its ill-fated mission. The Macon was the nation’s last rigid airship.
From http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/macon2.html
It has been put forward that if these flying aircraft carriers had been in service in the Pacific in the 1940’s, then the Japanese Navy may never have been able to launch their surprise attack on Pearl Harbour.
