80 years ago

[HunterICX]

The forgotten Airship.

While most always remembers the Hindenburg disaster as the most well known airship disaster in history it wasn't the largest.

That unfortunate event goes to the USS Akron which was a helium rigged US navy airship which also served as a flying aircraft carrier with the ability to launch F9C Sparrowhawk Biplane fighter aircraft. (Crimson Skies? :cool:)

During it's accident prone service of 18 month service it sadly resulted in the loss of 73 lives on April the 4th 1933 as it struck water when the airship got caught in a bad storm near the New Jersey Coast.

read more: http://www.airships.net/us-navy-rigid-airships/uss-akron-macon/uss-akron

and some more info about the design which imo was a very interesting one as these airships could also launch and recover aircraft.
http://www.airships.net/us-navy-rigid-airships/uss-akron-macon

HunterICX

[Mork_417]

I never knew of that one, interesting reading. Thanks for the link. :)

[GoldenRivet]

personally i think one of the most interesting airship / blimp stories is the ghost blimp.

thinnnk it happened in 1942

crew of 2 left Southern California, headed about 20 miles out to sea for a check out flight. The crew later radioed the sighting of an oil slick on the surface of the water that they were moving to investigate.

no more transmissions were made, attemps to reach her were not successful

some hours later the blimp came back and "crash landed" into a small town with nobody aboard.

the door was open and the microphone was dangling out of the gondola. theories swirled as to what happened to the two men aboard as everthing in the gondola was in tact and undisturbed... but the two men were never seen or heard from again and were declared dead.

the blimp was later used as the goodyear blimp

[Sailor Steve]

Not forgotten by me. I've long been a fan of the Curtiss Sparrowhawks and the ships that carried them. :sunny:

[Stealhead]

Here is a side scan sonar image of the sister ship the USS Macon which also crashed at sea.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/99/02990522.jpg

NOAA page about the USS Macon wreck.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2708.htm

[Jimbuna]

My favourite...K-74 attacks U-134:

http://www.blimpinfo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/The-Battle-Between-the-Blimp-and-the-Sub.pdf