Oct 222010
 

One of the great tragedies in aviation history was the failure of lighter than air vehicles tlo fulfill their promise. Probably the highest achievement in the field were the US NAvy’s flying aircraft carriers of the 1930’s, like the USS Macon. While not as big as the Hindenberg, the Macon and it’s sister ship the Akron had the advantage of actually being full-fledged flying aircraft carriers, carrying nine of the small F9C Sparrowhawk biplane fighters.

The Macon first flew in April of 1933, but was lost in February 1935 due to wind shear tearing off a tailfin and subsequent pilot error.

Almost certainly, had the Macon survived and proved the concept out, similar flying aircraft carriers would have seen service in WWII. And even more certainly, they would have been fairly easy meat for enemy aircraft. But for naval picket duties, such as guarding convoys and coasts against German and Japanese submarines, the concept seems like it might have proven to be of value. A late-war super-Macon loaded with Corsairs seems like a concept of considerable awesomness.

 Posted by at 9:43 pm

  29 Responses to “USS Macon”

  1. There was an article about the U.S.S. Macon in a 1992 edition of National Geographic magazine with a color fold-out section of the Macon and its inner workings and showed how the planes were hoisted into the airship
    using a crane once the plane was near the top of the mast that it hooked onto and pulled upward.

  2. You ever want to read the _hands-down best book_ about dirigibles and their tragic ends, read this one:
    http://www.amazon.com/Great-Dirigibles-John-Toland/dp/0486213978
    Particularly the chapters about the loss of the Shenandoah.
    It’s like you are right in the control car as the lightning keeps getting closer and closer…and then the line squall hits and the thunderstorm cloud forms directly over the airship, where the crew can’t see it…and the whole thing starts getting torn apart in midair, leaving some of the crew inside of the hull seeing everything in front of their feet suddenly just rip away and leave, as they stare into open sky where the whole front end of the airship used to be a few moments before.
    Then the shrieking noise and sparks as the steel cables to the tail control surfaces rip free and start running up through the hull to the nose as it leaves…and since those cables formed the main structural support for the control car, it breaks free and heads earthward…with everyone that was still left in it. Then the back end comes off also and the rear motor cars fall off with their crews still in them…
    Brilliant, brilliant, writing!

  3. Here’s the aircraft the Akron and Macon carried as fighter/scouts BTW:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtiss_F9C_Sparrowhawk
    They got so confident in dropping them off and picking them up in flight again that they eventually took the landing gear off of them to save drag and weight:
    http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h84000/h84571.jpg

  4. And in case anyone’s thinking “That’s a really cool little aircraft; pity they didn’t make a model kit of one of those.”:
    http://modelingmadness.com/reviews/preww2/tc/tmcf9c.htm
    Never had it, always wanted it. 🙂

  5. Pat. I got one, unmade, still sealed in the polybag, box is a bit squashed……

  6. I remember when I was in grade school the library there had this book called “Airships: Past Present and Future”

    It was not a tome for the faint of heart, being at least three inches thick, but I checked it out numerous times and probably read it cover to cover at least twice. To this day it is still easily in my top three list of ‘Best Books EVAR’, as it had a full detailed history of airships, the state of the art at the time, and more speculative sections about giant atomic powered super airships of the future. All lavishly illustrated in full color, with fold-out sections and even a god damned post card glued into it that had actually been delivered by airship mail.

    Should I ever come upon a copy of it I would gladly drop a couple hundred dollars to acquire it right then and there. Problem is this damn book might as well be a unicorn or something, I can find absolutely no evidence anywhere that it even exists. I’ve called a few libraries, spent hours on line and more and I have nary even an author or publisher name to show for it.

    I have a very dim view of people who steal things for almost any reason, but I’ve entertained the notion from time to time of a daring midnight raid of that old school library to obtain it. As far as I know it’s the only copy and it’s currently in the reach of grade school children who as a group aren’t noted for taking good care of objects like it…

  7. There is a book called “Airships for the Future” if that’s close enough and
    their was something on the Nova series that was called “The Blimp is Back”
    which had a few designs that were in the book I just mentioned and some
    experimental footage.

  8. Let’s not forget the “Akron” which was the sister ship.

  9. The difference between the loss of the loss of the Akron and the Macon was that the Akron went down in the Atlantic at night and almost no one surivded, and the Macon went down in the Pacific in daylight and almost everyone survived-ed..
    “Akron” was a ill-starred name for an airship, as the first one of that name was full of hydrogen and went down with all hands.
    You want something cool, you should see what I have in one of my airship books – a full size removable replica postcard printed on heavy paper stock from the Graf Zeppelin.

  10. Given the odd turn of phrase in that posting, one must ask oneself “Has Pat been drinking?”
    The answer is of course “Yes”.
    Again, the devil has somehow gotten behind me; probably due to the fact that I tied that “Welcome” mat to the back of the heels of my shoes. 🙂

  11. It seems to me that the lesson of the airship disasters of the thirties is that the most extreme weather is much worse than was appreciated at the time. I am not certain however that our understanding has improved much less that it will be appreciated in the design process. This concerns me when I see designs (both airship and heavier than air) for long term fliers doing surveillance and such. Airship seem barely practical when designing for moderate weather much less the weather that really exists.

  12. Nick,

    one copy of “Airships: Past, Present, and Future” by H. Beaubois is available here:

    http://www.alibris.com/booksearch.detail?invId=9237097457&pwork=0&pisbn=&siteID=5Nv03vHgBCI-YHkJ2hLP0RRBq6_L0W9kKg

    Hope this helps,

    Martin

  13. Nick,

    note that Henry Beaubois also published a book titled “Airships: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow”, which might be the same (and is available more often and cheaper): http://www.amazon.com/Airships-Yesterday-tomorrow-Henry-Beaubois/dp/0846701502

    Another related title and potentially identical book authored by him is “Airships: An Illustrated History”: http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?author=beaubois&title=airships&lang=en&isbn=&submit=Begin+search&new_used=*&destination=us&currency=USD&mode=basic&st=sr&ac=qr

    Good luck,

    Martin

  14. Nick, are these it?
    http://www.fullbooks.com/-British-Airships-Past-Present-and-Future1.html

    http://www.amazon.com/British-Airships-Past-Present-Future/dp/0554307723

    I like the idea of an airship patrolling for U-boats, using something like a quartet of SBDs as a way to expand the patrol area.

  15. I was actually hoping that the Icelandic volcanoes would still be active so that alternative means of travel would no longer have the foot of jet aviation on their respective throats. Seeing the SS United States back under way, newer Airships with modern weather data used to avoid convection, etc.

    I have often wondered about the possibility of a small reactor on an airship, and ion-wind lifter coils as ribs to move air along the surface of the airship in addition to props.

    The good thing about airships is that you could change filters and service engines in flight, which jets cannot do with volcanic plumes which would only be a threat to airships due to weight of ash deposition. If the ash can be given a charge, and the airship a different charge, the envelope would be cleaner.

    Also, gondolas might be designed as lifeboats and eqipped with ballistic parachutes to fall away–like large version of F-111 escape cabins.

  16. I always loved airships and USS Akron & Macon most of all.
    Flying aircraftcarriers seems to be more sci-fi (or Popular Mechanics) today than during 30’s, and that’s sad…..

    I could use the good 2 views posted by Scott to do a nice Macon’s drawing (if Scott has further infos on that topic, especially about Macon class evolution, it would be a nice subject for future APR article).

  17. Atlantis Productions has some very good airship books and videos. The videos in particular are much better then the usual films on such matters in that they are very accurate.

    http://www.airshiphistory.com/index.html/

  18. One day, if I ever develop enough motivation (not likely), I’d like to try to recreate the interiors of Macon and Hindenburg using one the 3D game engines, just so I could see what it’d be like to walk around inside them.

  19. I remember reading that they had the men move (walk) back and forth
    between the front and back to adjust the ballast. Also I want to mention a good fictional blimp movie called “Master of the World” with Vincent Price as
    the captain and Charles Bronson but I forgot what part he played. Also the
    cook on the ship is played by the same guy that was a guest on “Gilligan’s
    Island” if anyone remembers the guy that cast spells on them in that
    episode.

  20. “Master Of The World” is based on two Jules Verne novels — Robur the Conquer and Master Of The World. Interestingly, though the vehicle is shaped like a dirigible, it’s a heavier-than-air craft, a sort of giant helicopter.

    Powered LTA aircraft always have the problem of “sail area” vs. motive power. They are unable to outrun storms or overcome them. At least one SF writer (L. Neil Smith, I think in The American Zone) has proposed really huge airships that avoid the worst storms by operating at very high altitudes and never landing, passengers and cargo shuttled off and on with smaller flying vehicles.

  21. “Airships a Illustrated History” is also “Airships, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow” (one name is on the spine, the other on the title page) This is the book I have that has the post card replica in it.
    It’s translated, so I assume that variations in the translation account for the two slightly different titles, as the page count between the two is almost exactly the same.
    It has fold-outs of the war Zeppelin L11, Graf Zeppelin, and Hindenburg.

  22. My lodger (and good friend) came back from visiting her boyfriend and handed me a book they’d found at a big new-and-used bookseller. “This one just had your name on it,” she said.

    Yep: Airships, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow!

  23. If you are into WWI German military airships, this is the book to get:
    http://www.amazon.com/Zeppelin-Combat-History-Airship-Division/dp/088740510X
    Hundreds of great photos, some going clean up to double page spread size.
    Details on each class and individual airship, going down to info on how much oil each one carried to lubricate its engines.

  24. For one interesting look at airship escape mechanisms, check out the rather odd musical comedy “Madam Satan” (directed by Cecil B. DeMille, no less), in which the climax takes place aboard an airship which does a Shenandoah and the passengers have to parachute off — landing in various amusing spots.

  25. Martin:

    Taking a chance, order placed. If it is what I hope it is then I could almost kiss you.

  26. Nick,having my local library get me a copy soon through interlibrary loan.

  27. Take good care of the binding on that book; mine is starting to disintegrate due to age. Assuming that the book is identical to mine, one of the interesting things is at the end, where there are several pages showing illustrations of all the airships in the book to the same scale.
    One interesting bit of trivia regarding just how efficient large dirigibles were in regards to speed versus horsepower; the total horsepower that let Hindenburg cruise at 76 mph is about the same as _one_ of the turboprop engines on a Bear bomber.

  28. There’s a WWI Zeppelin gondola on display in France, in the air museum north of Paris.

  29. Photos of it here: http://www.wwi-models.org/Photos/Ger/Zepp/index.html
    It’s off the LZ 113, and is the rear engine/gunners car.

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