Namely, the airship then started to sharply ascend, and control over its direction of movement was lost. The engines moved the aircraft upwards, higher and higher the USS Macon had as many as eight Maybach engines made in Germany, each of whom possessed 12 cylinders and hp.
The USS Macon thus reached an altitude of 1, meters, which forced the crew to release a large amount of helium to prevent ruptures due to the great differences in air pressure between the air inside and outside the airship. It sank to a depth of meters, near the coast of California. The wreck can still be found there, and it is protected as a historical monument. Two crew members died in the crash, and 74 were saved — thankfully, the sea was warm and they had both lifebelts and lifeboats.
Facebook Comments. Whales trapped in ice in northern Alaska discovered — October 07, Auschwitz-Birkenau Rebellion October 07, And by , the USS Akron was aloft.
The United States of America's first flying aircraft carrier came equipped with crews that numbered close to The massive blimp included the usual comforts, such as sleeping barracks and restrooms. Individual hangars could stow up to five fixed wing biplanes on board. And because its balustrades were filled with helium to give the ship lift rather the highly flammable hydrogen , the Akron even had fully functional cook stoves with open flames.
The single-seat Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk biplanes that "parked" at this blimp were snatched out of the air by a trapeze affixed to the dirigible, and attached to what served as the blimp's landing gear. Take-offs were no less risky; the trapeze dangled the airplanes as they roared into flight. The USS Akron was in service for two years, much of that time undergoing repairs and trial flights. Along the way, a stop at Camp Kearny near San Diego turned tragic when three sailors became tangled in the ship's mooring lines as it lifted unexpectedly.
Two of the soldiers fell to their deaths, a sight memorialized on film and shown in newsreels at American theaters. Later Akron flights included patrols of Cuba and the Panama Canal. Then, on April 4, , the dirigible encountered severe weather and crashed into the ocean off the New Jersey coast. Of the 76 people on board, only three survived — one of whom went on to captain the Navy's next flying aircraft carrier, the USS Macon.
The Macon also had a singular mission: monitoring what the Navy perceived as an increased threat in the Pacific. The US Navy was eyeing Japan, which had been quickly building up its military, and used some its most advanced technology at the time — the dirigible — to increase the distance biplanes could travel on scouting missions.
However, on Feb. The slow descent gave the Macon's crew enough to time to don lifejackets, although one crew member died by jumping into the ocean from too high a distance, and another drowned after swimming back into the galley of the sinking airship to retrieve some personal belongings. What's perhaps most remarkable is that, according to Navy historians, had the USS Macon been in service in , it may have sent warning of the Japanese fleet headed to Pearl Harbor.
Instead, the USS Macon was the last of its kind.
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