L-8

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L-8 delivering spare parts for the Doolittle Raid on the USS Hornet

L-8 was an L-class impact airship used by the US Navy during World War II . It became famous on August 16, 1942, when it landed in California as an unmanned ghost ship .

history

L-8 was an airship (called Blimp) built by Goodyear for civilian use, especially for advertising tours , which was sold to the US Navy at the beginning of the war. Several of these Goodyear ships were combined in the L-Class, and there were also other newbuildings for the US Navy, a total of 22 Blimps. The use of the airships was comparatively small for the Navy. They had only a small range and payload. At the beginning of the war, they were used for reconnaissance and search missions along the US coast until sufficient K-Class Bimps were available. Their main task was the training of airships.

While the names of most of the civil airships handed over to the Navy by Goodyear at the beginning of the war, the Resolute , Ranger , Rainbow , Enterprise and Reliance , can be clearly assigned to the naval identification (L number), there is L-8 different information in the sources. During the diary of the U.S. Marine Unit Blimp Squadron 32 (ZP-32) on March 5, 1942, the day the L-8 was commissioned, which Rainbow identifies as L-8, other sources name the rangers . Goodyear had already sold an airship called Ranger (NC-10A) to the US Navy in 1940 , which was given the identification L-2 and then manufactured a replacement for itself with the hull number D-166. At the beginning of the war, this was also sold to the Navy as the L-8.

The diary entry of March 8 until about two months previously established unit also indicates that the airship had been until then assembled and directly from the Goodyear workshops in Akron , Ohio to the Naval Air Station (Naval Air Station) Moffett Field in California delivered has been.

First missions

On March 8, 1942, the airship was used for the first time from the first outpost that the unit set up at the Treasure Island naval base in San Francisco Bay .

On April 11, 1942, L-8 was tasked with depositing approximately 140 kg (300 lbs) of aircraft parts aboard the aircraft carrier USS Hornet , which had departed San Francisco. The parts were intended for the B-25 bombers that were supposed to carry out the Doolittle Raid , a carrier-based bomber attack on Tokyo. The cargo was set down with a rope on the deck of the aircraft carrier crammed with aircraft while the airship hovered over it. The action on the aircraft carrier is also documented photographically.

On June 17, L-8 began operations from the San Pedro outpost near Los Angeles .

L-8 as a ghost ship

On August 16, 1942, a curious incident, unique in aviation, occurred. The airship landed as a ghost ship with a limp hull, the engine switches on, with the cabin intact, but without the crew on a street in Daly City , California. The whereabouts of the two-man crew who were to patrol San Francisco was never cleared up.

The airship had started from the base on Treasure Island at 6:03 in the morning to look for enemy submarines near the Farallon Islands and Point Reyes and later to complete the mission at the main base at Moffett Field. The crew consisted of the 27-year-old pilot Lieutenant Ernest DeWitt Cody, who had already carried out the mission to the USS Hornet , and the co-pilot Ensign Charles Adams, 38 years old. The mechanic J. Riley Hill, who was actually assigned to the mission, was released because the morning dew made the airship very heavy at take-off and so weight could be saved.

The last radio message was received at 7:42 a.m. when Cody reported that she was filming an oil film on the 5 miles east of the Farallon Islands or about 25 miles west of San Francisco - a possible indicator of enemy Japanese submarine activity at the time Discovered water and wanted to investigate it further. The message ended with "stand by." When there was no further message, Moffett Field tried to radio the airship, but got no answer. Two Kingfisher seaplanes were then dispatched to search for L-8s. However, they remained above a cloud cover that was about 150 m (500 ft) in height. In the meantime, various ships observed how smoke bodies (Mark 4 float lights) were dropped from the airship from a low height. One ship even increased its distance as its crew feared L-8 would deploy its depth charges. L-8 then rose and drove into the cloud. The last of these observations, during which the ship was clearly under the control of the pilots, was made between approximately 09:00 and 09:45.

The next sighting was at 10:20 a.m. from a Pan-Am clipper . The planes and ships in the area had been told to look for L-8s. Ten minutes later, one of the Kingfisher aircraft spotted the L-8 emerging from the clouds at about 600 m (2000 ft), well above normal flight altitude of about 300 m (1000 ft). L-8 was drifting and was not under crew control. A little later the airship sank back into the clouds and disappeared again.

Around 11:15 a.m., bathers near the Olympic golf course saw the airship drift towards the shore. Shortly thereafter, the L-8 touched down on a slope at Ocean Beach near Fort Funston. Two bathers tried to grab the tether, but one of the two Mark 17 depth charges came loose from its holder and the airship rose again.

As the airship continued to drift, its tether brushed against telephone and power lines. The airship's journey ended a little later, almost undamaged, with a “perfect landing on the landing gear” in the middle of Bellevue Avenue in Daly City. Onlookers and firefighters had observed the scene and were quickly on the spot. Photos also document the landing. After it was determined that no one was in the gondola, the fire brigade cut open the shell to look for the crew. In a newsletter of the Navy Airship Association, this practice was reprimanded with the following words: Unfortunately, it was quickly attacked by a group of local firefighters who, apparently unfamiliar with the principles of an unsteady airship, were theirs Slit open the shell with axes to reach the "men up there".

A short time later, members of the US Navy were also on site. During further examinations it quickly became clear that the crew was no longer on board the first time they touched down. She was therefore suspected to be in the ocean with her life jackets "which would not stay afloat forever" or possibly on a ship without radio. The life jackets were worn by the crew as standard when sailing across the ocean.

The airship itself was unharmed. The tanks were well filled. The radio was in perfect condition. The life raft , the crew's weapons, and secret documents that had to be destroyed in an emergency were in their place in the cabin, only the door was open. There was also no evidence found that the cabin was submerged in the water. The ignition of the engines was switched on and the throttle levers were on “full” and “half”. The sagging and buckling of the hull can be explained by the fact that L-8, as observed by the Kingfisher flying boats, had risen above its rebound height , which then led to helium being blown off via the safety valves. In addition, the ballonets were no longer kept taut with the power of a motor.

After the hull and tail unit had been removed, the airship was brought to Moffett Field by truck.

In addition to an intensive search for the pilots, which was initiated immediately, extensive investigations and questioning of the witnesses followed. Even if the engine failed, the two experienced aeronauts would have been able to drop ballast or the depth charges and let them float back to the mainland like a balloon. One could only speculate about the reasons for the two pilots to leave the cabin.

Ultimately, the disappearance of the crew could not be solved.

Further service with the US Navy

The airship was repaired and fitted with a replacement hull. It took a test drive on August 31st and returned to service on September 5th. The ZP-32 is also deployed from the Watsonville outpost .

After 360 trips with 1607.2 hours of operation, L-8 was taken out of service on November 11, 1942 by the Blimp Squadron 32 and transferred to the naval air base at Moffett Field.

L-8 was again equipped with a new hull (hull D-219), which was completed in July 1943. L-8 then served the US Navy for another nine months before being dismantled on March 25, 1944.

Used as a Goodyear blimp after 1945

After the war, the ship was returned to Goodyear. The company had reclaimed the confiscated Blimps and bought back other L-class airships from the Navy. They were all stationed at Moffett Field, and the L-8 had a new hull. However, the L-8 was not immediately made airworthy again; instead, the nacelle was stored at Goodyear's Wingfoot Lake base for over 20 years . The D-219 hull was used to complete the Mayflower IV and was completed on May 24, 1948.

In 1966 the L-8 gondola was brought to Goodyear Aerospace in Akron and adapted for the Goodyear Blimp GZ-20. This airship received the envelope D-640 with a volume of 5740 m³ (202,700 cft) in the Wingfoot Lake hangar and became the Goodyear Blimp America (N10A). This airship operated from April 1969 to the end of 1973. After that, a new GZ-20A hull (D-643) was added and flight operations continued until mid-1982. The America (N10A) was then dismantled and replaced by a new America (N3A). The nacelle with the serial number C-64, which has meanwhile been put back into storage, was finally donated to the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Florida , where it has been on display since 2007 in the configuration of the L-8 at the time of the World War.

Technical specifications

  • Volume: 3483 m³ (123,000 cft)
  • Length: 44.3 m (145.5 ft)
  • Diameter: 12.1 m (39.8 ft)
  • Height over all: 16.5 m (54 ft)
  • Width overall: 13.9 m (45.5 ft)
  • Statically usable buoyancy: 924 kg (2036 lbs)
  • dynamic lift; 227 kg (500 lbs)
  • Total buoyancy: 1150 kg (2536 lbs)
  • Top speed: 53 kn
  • Cruising speed: 40 kn
  • Flight time at 40 kn: 11.9 hours
  • Crew: 2–4 people
  • Engines: two air-cooled 7-cylinder radial engines of the type Warner Aircraft Corporation Super Scarab with 106 kW (145 HP) each and one two-bladed propeller each
  • Armament: two Mark 17 depth charges , a Browning .30 caliber machine gun and a pistol

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f History of Blimp Squadron Thirty Two ( Memento from February 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Diary of the US Naval Unit ZP-32, accessed on October 9, 2016
  2. ↑ a b c d e http://www.check-six.com/Crash_Sites/L-8_crash_site.htm accessed on October 13, 2016
  3. ↑ a b c d FEASIBILITY STUDY OF MODERN AIRSHIPS, PHASE I, VOL. IV-APPENDICES; GOODYEAR AEROSPACE CORP. AKRON, OH; AUGUST 1975; Page: B5 and B6 online as PDF ; accessed on October 13, 2016
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l THE NOON BALLON The Official Newsletter of THE NAVAL AIRSHIP ASSOCIATION, INC .; No. 74 Summer 2007; P. 14–17 online as PDF ( memento of October 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on October 11, 2016
  5. ^ Kite Balloons to Airships ... the Navy's Lighter-than-Air Experience; (Edition on 75 Years of US Naval Aviation); Published by the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations (Air Warfare) and the Commander, Naval Air Systems Command, Washington, DC, Edited by Roy A. Grossnick, Designed by Charles Cooney, US Government Printing Office: 1983-187-029; P. 47
  6. ↑ Original quote: Unfortunately, she was quickly attacked by a gang of local firemen who, apparently unfamiliar with the principles of the non-rigid airship, slashed her envelope open with axes in order to reach the "men up inside." In: THE NOON BALLON The Official Newsletter of THE NAVAL AIRSHIP ASSOCIATION, INC .; No. 74 Summer 2007; P. 14–17 online as PDF ( memento of October 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on October 11, 2016
  7. ^ San Francisco Call Bullet, August 18, 1942; online at: http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist8/blimp.html accessed on October 11, 2016
  8. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m The Sparrowhawk - from lighter-than-air to faster-than-sound; Moffett Field Historical Society newsletter; Vol III No.3 Autumn 1996; P. 5/6
  9. ↑ https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4380 , accessed October 13, 2016