Akron-class airship
| Akron-class airship | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| USS Macon preparing to tie up to the mooring mast at NAS Moffett Field in October 1933 | |
| Role | Patrol and reconnaissance airship |
| Manufacturer |
Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation, Springfield Township, Ohio |
| Primary user | United States Navy |
| Number built | 2 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Rigid Airship |
| Displacement: | 7,401,260 cu ft (209,580.3 m3) |
| Length: | 785 ft (239.3 m) |
| Beam: | 133 ft (40.5 m) (hull diameter) |
| Draft: | 146 ft 5 in (44.6 m) (height) |
| Installed power: | 560hp per engine |
| Propulsion: |
|
| Speed: | |
| Range: | 5,940 nmi (11,000 km; 6,840 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement: | 60 |
| Armament: | 8 x.30-cal machine guns |
| Aircraft carried: | Up to 5 |
| Aviation facilities: | 1 aircraft launch trapeze |
The Akron-class airships were a class of two rigid airships constructed for the US Navy in the early 1930s. Designed as scouting and reconnaissance platforms, the intention for their use was to act as "eyes for the fleet", extending the range at which the US Navy's Scouting Force could operate to beyond the horizon. This capability was extended further through the use of the airships as airborne aircraft carriers, with each capable of carrying a small squadron of aeroplanes that could be used both to increase the airship's scouting range, and to provide self-defense for the airship against other airborne threats.
The two ships were built as a continuation of the US Navy's rigid airship programme that had started just after World War I, and were used to further refine the tactics of the use of such machines in the fleet, predominantly over whether it was the airship that was the scout, with its air group only there for self-defense, or whether the airship was merely the mother ship and the aeroplanes were responsible for carrying out the long-range scouting mission.
Both ships had short careers in the US Navy, as each one crashed into the sea during routine flights less than two years after it was commissioned.
The US Navy had been experimenting with rigid airships since shortly after the end of the First World War. In 1917, a German zeppelin, L 49, was forced down in France following a bombing raid over England, and was captured virtually undamaged. This led to the idea of the United States obtaining a pair of German airships as part of the reparations plan; however, the ones that were earmarked were destroyed by their crews in 1919. As a substitute plan, it was agreed that Germany would build and pay for an airship to be turned over to the Americans, while the US would build one of its own. In July 1919, the US Navy placed an order with the Naval Aircraft Factory in Philadelphia for the components to build a new rigid airship, which would be assembled at Naval Air Station Lakehurst in New Jersey; initially designated as FA-1 (Fleet Airship Number 1), the ship was soon redesignated as ZR-1. The plan for the Germans to construct an airship was modified when the Royal Navy cancelled its own order for four rigid airships. The first ship of the class, R38, was already under construction, and so an agreement was reached in October 1919 to sell the incomplete airship to the United States, which gave it the designation ZR-2.
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