Dictatorship of the Air » Airships http://dictatorshipoftheair.com Russia History Culture Technology (and, of course, Aviation) Sat, 10 Apr 2010 14:29:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Aviation History http://dictatorshipoftheair.com/2007/03/11/aviation-history/ http://dictatorshipoftheair.com/2007/03/11/aviation-history/#comments Sun, 11 Mar 2007 12:04:06 +0000 Scott Palmer http://dictatorshipoftheair.com/2007/03/11/aviation-history/ Those who haven’t seen it yet may want to pick up a copy of the latest (May 2007) issue of Aviation History. The magazine’s cover story, “Return to the Macon,” is devoted the recent underwater expedition that explored the offshore wreckage of the dirigible USS Macon, the largest aircraft ever built by the United States. [I blogged about the USS Macon and the expedition here.]

The issue also contains a review of Dictatorship of the Air written by Walter J. Boyne, former Director of the National Air & Space Museum and recent inductee to the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

ScP

]]> http://dictatorshipoftheair.com/2007/03/11/aviation-history/feed/ 0 Raise the Macon! http://dictatorshipoftheair.com/2006/09/13/raise-the-macon/ http://dictatorshipoftheair.com/2006/09/13/raise-the-macon/#comments Wed, 13 Sep 2006 20:17:40 +0000 Scott Palmer http://dictatorshipoftheair.com/2006/09/13/raise-the-macon/ Constructed for the U.S. Navy in the mid-1930s for the purpose of undertaking reconnaissance over the open seas, the USS Macon was the largest dirigible in American history. Requiring 6.5 million cubic feet of helium to inflate and weighing 400,000 pound, 785-foot long airship was a flying behemoth. Its interior was sufficiently large to accommodate a crew of 100 and up to five airplanes (which could be launched and retrieved in mid-air through an opening in the bottom of the dirigible’s hangar).

On February 12, 1935, the USS Macon, was lost in a storm off the coast of California. Miraculously, only two of the 83 crew members who were on board perished with the craft. Still, the loss of the dirigible effectively marked the end of the American military’s ill-fated and accident prone experiment with lighter-than-air technology. (Just two years earlier, Macon’s sister ship, the USS Akron, had gone down over the Atlantic, killing 76 crew members.)

On Monday, researchers from the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, the National Marine Sanctuary Program, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Stanford University, and the University of New Hampshire are planning to revisit the “age of the airship.” They will send a submersible robotic probe to film the wreckage of the USS Macon which now rests nearly 1,000 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.

For more information about the USS Macon and next week’s expedition, head over to the web site of the Monteray Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The web site will have live streaming video of the underwater expedition beginning around 10:00 AM CST on Monday and continuing throughout the week.

ScP

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