USS Macon (ZRS-5)

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USS Macon over New York City

The ZRS-5 USS Macon was a 239 m long rigid airship that served the US Navy as a flying aircraft carrier from 1933 to 1935 . A hangar was housed in the fuselage of the rigid airship, from which the aircraft could be lowered under the fuselage in order to take off. For the landing, a catch hook was attached to the top of the aircraft, with which the pilot could latch into a trapezoid under the fuselage. The aircraft was then pulled into the fuselage and stowed away.

The Macon, the improved sister ship of the ZRS-4 USS Akron , was designed primarily as a long-range reconnaissance aircraft over the water, but was also used over land. The planes served as scouts and were also supposed to protect the airship.

history

The USS Macon (ZRS-5) in Hangar One at Moffet Field , 1933

The airship was developed by Goodyear-Zeppelin Co. , a joint venture between the German Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH and the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company . The airship was christened on March 11, 1933 by Jeanette Whitton Moffett (wife of Rear Admiral William A. Moffett ) and took off on its maiden voyage a month later on April 21, shortly after the tragic crash of the USS Akron . There were 105 people on board. The Macon was put into service on June 23, 1933 under the command of Commander Alger H. Dresel in Lakehurst, New Jersey and shortly afterwards transferred to Lakehurst.

In July 1933, sparrowhawks took off for the first time without landing gear from the Macon and then returned to her. This procedure then became the standard. The rescue system for pilots who were thrown into the water was also tested: a simple raft and a boatswain's chair on a rope from the hangar opening. A scouting basket was also tested on later trips .

From October 15, 1933, she was at Moffet Field for training purposes before she was transferred to Florida in April 1934. During the transfer, ballast and gasoline had to be dropped over the mountains of Arizona and helium was lost. In addition, the girder structure in the rear was overloaded, which led to girder deformations and breaks, especially on the tail units, some of which were poorly repaired and reinforced during the journey. After the repair in Florida, it was decided to strengthen the affected areas on the tail unit, but never fully implemented.

In May 1934 the fleet maneuver “Fleet Problem XV” taking place in the Caribbean was observed. In mid-May the ship returned to California. In July 1934 she undertook a reconnaissance mission off Hawaii, during which she observed the cruiser USS Houston , on board Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was en route from Panama to Hawaii. He was very astonished when planes appeared 2600 km from the coast and dropped the latest newspapers and then the USS Macon appeared to pick up the planes again.

On December 8, 1934, a maneuver was canceled after the two aircraft on board the USS Cincinnati went missing. The Macon found the landed planes and stayed over them until ships arrived.

loss

The airship was lost on February 12, 1935 near Point Sur on the southern California coast. The accident was observed by the lighthouse keeper Thomas Henderson.

The stern was too weak. In the original plan, the tail fins should be long, low, and attached to three support rings. However, the Navy insisted on seeing the lower tail fin from the nacelle, whereupon Karl Arnstein planned the fins higher and shortened them. They were only attached to two rings. There were already breaks and change plans in place during previous trips. Due to the objection of the Navy, however, reinforcements were only installed between trips, while otherwise the avoidance of dangerous situations such as storms was relied on.

After a fleet exercise, the airship was on its way home when it got caught in a storm. The upper tail unit including the rudder was not reinforced at the time of the accident and tore off completely. Three of the rear gas cells were damaged and lost their lifting gas. As a result, the Macon sank at the stern and began to climb. It was ordered ballast throw and empty further gas cells to the ship to trim center. However, these measures were unsuccessful and the ship continued to climb. Ultimately, the impact height of 850 m (930 m) was exceeded, the height at which the overpressure in the gas cells becomes critical and the helium cells are automatically emptied via a valve.

However, the ship remained above this altitude for about 15 minutes and reached 1,480 m (1,700 m) before it began to sink. This time, which the crew described as terrible, gave them the opportunity to put on life jackets and prepare life rafts that were in place due to the disaster of the sister ship USS Akron, as well as to call for help. 81 of the 83 crew members survived; the radio operator and a cook who could not swim died.

The crash of the Macon sealed the end of American rigid airship travel. The last remaining rigid airship in the USA, the ZR-3 USS Los Angeles (built as the Zeppelin LZ 126), was already in storage. It never rose again and was later disarmed. Only Germany continued to build large airships. However, the US Navy continued to use impact airships . They served until the end of the U.S. Navy airship program on August 31, 1962.

Discovery of the wreck

In 1951, a three-meter part of a Macon propeller was discovered on a lonely beach on Santa Rosa Island (around 320 km south of the crash site). In June 1990 an expedition of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) led by Chris Grech and the US Navy found the Macon wreck a few miles south of Point Sur and visited it with diving robots at a depth of 450 m. In the meantime, not much of the collapsed skeleton could be seen. However, the remains of the four Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawks that were on board at the time of the accident were striking .

In August 2005 the crash site was examined with a side-scan sonar . At the end of September 2006, employees of the MBARI, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the US Navy undertook another expedition to this area with the research vessel Western Flyer . This time, high-resolution photos of the wreck were also taken.

In 2010, the crash site was added to the National Register of Historic Places .

Data

  • Roll-out: April 21, 1933
  • Length: 239 m
  • Top speed: 140 km / h
  • Carrying gas : helium
  • Volume: 195,000 m³
  • Impact height : 900 meters
  • Empty weight: 111,000 kg
  • Payload: 75,000 kg (of which payload: 39,000 kg)
  • Range: 17,000 km
  • Drive: Eight internal 412 kW gasoline engines (560 hp), the outer wooden propeller drives. The engines were manufactured by Maybach . The VL2 engines were installed across the direction of flight.
  • Propellers: The propellers swiveled up and down to facilitate take-off and landing.
  • Equipment: Four Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk biplanes came on board in the hangar as airplanes specially equipped with catch hooks for the “landing” . For this purpose there is an opening on the underside of the airship and a trapezoid on a lattice arm for catching and lifting an aircraft.

Records

The sister ships USS Akron and the USS Macon are to this day the largest airships ever built with a helium filling and occupy 3rd and 4th place for the largest airships built to date behind the German zeppelins LZ 129 and LZ 130 .

See also

literature

  • Bock, JK / Knauer, B .: Lighter than air: transport and carrier systems . Verlag Frankenschwelle, Hildburghausen 2003, ISBN 3-86180-139-6 .
  • Hebert, G .: Military airship projects of the twenties and thirties in Germany and the USA . In: Meighörner, W. (Ed.): Airships that were never built. Friedrichshafen 2002, ISBN 3-86136-076-4 , p. 67-83 .

Web links

Commons : ZRS-5 USS Macon  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Image on the US Navy History website ( Memento from January 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ The Great Zeppelins - The History of Airship Construction. Peter Kleinheins, Wolfgang Meighörner (eds.); 3rd edition, Springer-Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-540-21170-5 , page 231
  3. ↑ a b c Kite Balloons to Airships ... the Navy's Lighter-than-Air Experience; (Edition on 75 Years of US Navy 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; Page 33
  4. ↑ a b The great zeppelins - The history of airship construction. Peter Kleinheins, Wolfgang Meighörner (eds.); 3rd edition, Springer-Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-540-21170-5 , page 232
  5. ↑ FliegerRevue January 2011, p. 55, airships as aircraft carriers
  6. ↑ a b c The great zeppelins - The history of airship construction. Peter Kleinheins, Wolfgang Meighörner (eds.); 3rd edition, Springer-Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-540-21170-5 , page 233
  7. ↑ a b c Airship Hindenburg and the great age of airships; 2005; ISBN 3-8094-1871-4 ; Bassermann-Verlag; Page 138
  8. ↑ a b c Bock / Knauer: Lighter than air: Transport and carrier systems, p. 338.
  9. ^ Hebert, G .: Military airship projects of the twenties and thirties in Germany and the USA. In: Meighörner, W. (Ed.): Airships that were never built. ; ISBN 3-86136-076-4 ; Friedrichshafen 2002, p. 77

Coordinates: 36 ° 17 ′ 26.8 "  N , 121 ° 59 ′ 51.7"  W.