USS Macon over New York City in 1933 Career (United States) Namesake: Macon, Georgia Launched: 21 April 1933 Commissioned: 23 June 1933 Struck: 26 February 1935 Fate: Crashed following structural failure on 12 February 1935. General characteristics Type: Tonnage: 108 t (106 long tons) Length: 239 m (784 ft 1 in) Beam: 40.5 m (132 ft 10 in) (diameter) Height: 44.6 m (146 ft 4 in) Propulsion: 8 × 420 kW (560 hp) internal combustion engines Speed: 140 km/h (76 kn; 87 mph) (maximum) Capacity: Useful load: 72 t (71 long tons) Volume: 184,000 m3 (6,500,000 cu ft) Complement: 91 Aircraft carried: 5 × F9C Sparrowhawk biplane fighters USS Macon (ZRS-5) was a built and operated by the United States Na vy for scouting and served as a "flying aircraft carrier", designed to carry bip lane parasite aircraft, five single-seat Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk for scouting or two-seat Fleet N2Y-1 for training. In service for less than two years, in 1935 Macon was damaged in a storm and lost off 's coast, though mos t of the crew were saved. The wreckage is listed as USS Macon Airship Remains on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Less than 20 ft (6.1 m) shorter than Hindenburg, both the Macon and "sister ship " USS Akron (ZRS-4) were among the largest flying objects in the world in terms of length and volume. Although the hydrogen-filled Hindenburg was longer, the tw o sisters still hold the world record for helium-filled .[citation neede d] Contents [hide] 1 Construction 2 Christening and commissioning 3 Early service history 3.1 1933 3.2 1934 4 Leading up to the crash 5 Disaster 6 Wreck site exploration 6.1 2006 expedition 6.2 Protection 7 In popular culture 8 See also 9 References 10 Bibliography 11 External links Construction[edit] USS Macon was built at the in Springfield Township, Ohio by the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation.[1] Because this was by far the biggest airship e ver to be built in America, a team of experienced German airship engineers—led by Chief Designer Karl Arnstein—instructed and supported design and construction of b oth U.S. Navy airships Akron and Macon.[2] Macon had a structured duraluminum hull with three interior keels.[3] The airshi p was kept aloft by 12 helium-filled gas cells made from gelatin-latex fabric. I nside the hull, the ship had eight German-made Maybach 12-cylinder, 560 hp (418 kW) gasoline-powered engines that drove outside propellers.[4] The propellers co uld be rotated down or backwards, providing an early form of thrust vectoring to control the ship during takeoff and landings. The rows of hull's slots were par t of a system to condense out the water vapor from the engine exhaust gases for use as buoyancy compensation ballast to compensate for the loss of weight as fue l was consumed. Christening and commissioning[edit] Macon was christened on 11 March 1933 by Jeanette Whitton Moffett, wife of Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, Chief of the U.S. Navy's .[5] T he airship was named after the city of Macon, Georgia, which was the largest cit y in the Congressional district of Representative Carl Vinson, then the chairman of the House of Representative's Committee on Naval Affairs.[4] The airship first flew one month later, shortly after the tragic loss of the Akr on. Macon was commissioned on 23 June 1933, with Commander Alger H. Dresel in co mmand. Early service history[edit] 1933[edit] On 24 June 1933 Macon left Goodyear's field for Naval Air Station (NAS) Lakehurs t, N.J., where the new airship was based for the summer while undergoing a serie s of training flights.[6] The Macon had a far more productive career than the Akron, which crashed on 4 Ap ril 1933. The commanders of the Macon developed the doctrine and techniques of u sing her on-board aircraft for scouting while the airship remained out of sight of the opposing forces during exercises.[7] The Macon participated in several fl eet exercises, though the men who framed and conducted the exercises lacked an u nderstanding of the airship's capabilities and weaknesses.[8] It became standard practice to remove the landing gear of the Sparrowhawks while aboard the airshi p and then replace it with a fuel tank, thus giving the aircraft 30 percent more range.[9] Some design details Inside Macon's aircraft .

Sparrowhawk scout/fighter aircraft on its exterior rigging.

Inside Macon's secondary control node.

Aerial reconnaissance "spy car" observer's basket which could be lowered below c louds with a tether. The Macon first docked an aircraft on 6 July 1933 during trial flights out of La kehurst, New Jersey. The planes were stored in bays inside the hull and were lau nched and retrieved using a trapeze. The Macon departs the East Coast on 12 October 1933 on a transcontinental flight to the scout ship's permanent homebase at NAS Sunnyvale (now Moffett Federal Ai rfield) near San Francisco in Santa Clara County, California.[10] 1934[edit] In 1934, two two-seat Waco UBF XJW-1 biplanes equipped with skyhooks were delive red to the USS Macon. In June, 1934, Lieutenant Commander Herbert V. Wiley took command of the airship , and shortly afterwards he surprised President Franklin D. Roosevelt (and the N avy) when the Macon searched for and located the heavy cruiser Houston, which wa s then carrying the president back from a trip to Hawaii. Newspapers were droppe d to the President on the ship, and the following communications were sent back to the airship: "from Houston: 1519 The President compliments you and your plane s on your fine performance and excellent navigation 1210 and 1519 Well Done and thank you for the papers the President 1245." The commander of the Fleet, Admira l Joseph M. Reeves, was upset about the matter: but the Commander of the Bureau of Aviation, Admiral Ernest J. King[11] was not. Wiley, one of only three surviv ors of the crash of the Akron, was soon promoted to commander, served as the cap tain of the battleship West Virginia in the final two years of World War II, and then retired from the Navy in 1947 as a rear admiral. Leading up to the crash[edit] Question book-new.svg This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this s ection by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challe nged and removed. (February 2014) USS Macon over Moffett Field During a crossing of the continent, Macon was forced to climb to 6,000 ft (1,800 m) to clear mountains in Arizona. As the ship's pressure height (the height at which the gas cells would start to leak and eventually rupture due to pressure d ifference) was less than 3,000 ft (910 m), a large amount of helium was vented i n reaching this altitude. To compensate for the loss of lift, 9,000 lb (4,100 kg ) of ballast and 7,000 lb (3,200 kg) of fuel had to be dumped. Macon was being f lown 15,000 lb (6,800 kg) "heavy" and was operating at full power not only in or der to have sufficient dynamic lift, but also to have enough control to fly in t he severe turbulence through a mountain pass near Van Horn, Texas. Following a s evere drop, a diagonal girder in ring 17.5, which supported the forward fin atta chment points, failed. Rapid damage control by Chief Boatswain's Mate Robert Dav is repaired the girders before further failures could occur. Macon completed the journey safely but the buckled ring and all four tailfins were judged to be in need of strengthening. The appropriate girders adjacent to the horizontal and lo wer fins were repaired, but the repairs to the girders on either side of the top fin were delayed until the next scheduled overhaul, when the adjacent gas cells could be deflated. Disaster[edit] On 12 February 1935 the repair process was still incomplete when, returning to S unnyvale from fleet maneuvers, Macon ran into a storm off Point Sur, California. During the storm, the ship was caught in a wind shear which caused structural f ailure of the unstrengthened ring (17.5) to which the upper tailfin was attached . The fin failed to the side and was carried away. Pieces of structure punctured the rear gas cells and caused gas leakage. Acting rapidly and on fragmentary in formation an immediate and massive discharge of ballast was ordered. Control was lost and, tail heavy and with engines running full speed ahead, Macon rose past the pressure height of 2,800 ft (850 m), and kept rising until enough helium wa s vented to cancel the lift, reaching an altitude of 4,850 ft (1,480 m).[12] It took 20 minutes to descend and, settling gently into the sea, Macon sank off Mon terey Bay. Only two of the 76 crew members were lost thanks to the warm conditio ns and the introduction of life jackets and inflatable rafts after the Akron tra gedy. Radioman 1st Class Ernest Edwin Dailey jumped ship while still too high ab ove the ocean surface to survive the fall and Mess Attendant 1st Class Florentin o Edquiba drowned while swimming back into the wreckage to try to retrieve perso nal belongings. An officer was rescued when Commander Wiley swam to his aid, an action for which he was later decorated.[13] The cause of the loss was operator error following the structural failure and lo ss of the fin. Had the ship not been driven over pressure height (where the cell s were expanded fully and lifting gas released) Macon could have made it back to Moffett Field.[citation needed] Four Sparrowhawks carried aboard were lost with the airship. Macon, having completed 50 flights since being commissioned, was stricken from t he Navy list on 26 February 1935. Subsequent airships for Navy use were of a non rigid design. A depiction of the crash by artist Noel Sickles was the first piece of art sent over the wire by the Associated Press. Wreck site exploration[edit] The pre-1941 pattern U.S. roundel emblem still faintly visible on the sunken wre ckage of a Macon airplane. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) succeeded in locating and s urveying the debris field of Macon in February 1991, and was able to recover som e artifacts.[14] The exploration included sonar, video, and still camera data, a s well as some recovery of parts. In May 2005, MBARI returned to the site as part of a year-long research project to identify archeological resources in the bay. Side-scan sonar was used to surv ey the site. 2006 expedition[edit] A more complete return, including exploration with remotely operated vehicles an d involving researchers from MBARI, , and the National Oceani c and Atmospheric Administration's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, took p lace in September 2006.[15][16] Video clips of the expedition were made availabl e to the public through the OceansLive Web Portal, a service of NOAA. The 2006 expedition was a success, and revealed a number of new surprises and ch anges since the last visit, ~15 years previously. High-definition video and more than 10,000 new images were captured, which were assembled into a navigation-gr ade photomosaic of the wreck.[17] Protection[edit] U.S.S. Macon Airship Remains U.S. National Register of Historic Places Uss-macon-sparrowhawk-sky-hook-09-2006b.jpg Sky hook visible on the remains of one of Macon's F9C-2 biplanes (2006) Location Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Big Sur, California Area 5654.7 square meters[19] Governing body Private NRHP Reference # 09001274[18] Added to NRHP 29 January 2010[18] The wreckage of Macon was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on 29 January 2010.[18] The location of the wreck site remains secret and is within a marine sanctuary, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. It is not acces sible to divers due to depth (1,500 ft or 460 m).[19][20][21] The U.S. states:[22] When the USS Macon was christened on 11 March 1933 the rigid airship was the mos t sophisticated of the Navy’s lighter-than-air (LTA) fleet. The Macon exhibited th

e highest expression of naval LTA technology during the ship s short career. At 785 feet in length, the airship’s size captured American fascination during flyove rs of U.S. communities as chronicled in numerous advertisements, articles, and n ewsreels. The dramatic loss of the Macon and sister ship Akron within two years of each other contributed to the cancellation of the Navy’s rigid airship program. The archeological remains of the USS Macon lie off California’s Big Sur coast in NOAA’s Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. The site also contains the remains of four of the airship’s squadron of small Curtiss F9C Sparrowhawk scout aircraft which the Macon carried in an internal hangar bay. The site was listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on 29 Janua ry 2010.[18] The listing was announced as the featured listing in the National P

ark Service s weekly list of 12 February 2010.[23] In popular culture[edit]

The Macon is featured as a setting and key plot element in Max McCoy s novel Ind

iana Jones and the Philosopher s Stone; Indiana Jones travels aboard the Macon w hile it makes a to London.

The Macon is featured toward the end of the 1934 Warner Bros. film Here Comes th e Navy starring , Pat O Brien and . Cagney s character is assigned to the Macon after serving on the USS Arizona, which is featured hea vily in the film. The Arizona was sunk in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. See also[edit] List of airship accidents Hangar One (Mountain View, California), built to house the Macon References[edit] Jump up ^ Akron-Summit County Public Library, Summit Memory. "Goodyear-Zeppelin

Corporation, Facts About the World s Largest Airship Factory & Dock". Retrieved 2008-11-15. Jump up ^ Akron-Summit County Public Library, Summit Memory. "Dr. Karl Arnstein photo and biography". Retrieved 2008-11-15. Jump up ^ Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, Submerged Maritime Heritage Re source: USS Macon. "The Marvel of the USS Macon". Retrieved 2008-11-15. ^ Jump up to: a b Moffett Field Museum, Moffett Field Historical Society. "U.S.S . Macon". Retrieved 2008-11-13. Jump up ^ Akron-Summit County Public Library, Summit Memory. "USS Macon christen ing photograph". Retrieved 2008-11-15.

Jump up ^ "Macon Comes East; Her Voyage Calm: New Queen of Navy s Air Fleet Dock ed at Lakehurst After Smooth Flight from Ohio". The New York Times, 25 June 1933 , p. 3 Jump up ^ Robinson 1973, p.242. Jump up ^ Robinson 1973, p.243. Jump up ^ Robinson 1973, p.244. Jump up ^ "Macon Takes Off for Flight to the West: Dirigible Leaves Lakehurst fo r Its Permanent Station at Sunnyvale, Calif" The New York Times, 13 October 1933 , P. 21 Jump up ^ the Chief of Naval Operations during World War II, Jump up ^ Robinson 1973, p.246. Jump up ^ Herbert V. Wiley, Captain USN, USS West Virginia, 1944-1945

Jump up ^ "MBARI s First Decade: A Retrospective" (PDF). Monterey Bay Aquarium R esearch Institute. c. 1997. Retrieved 2006-10-04. (page 11) Jump up ^ "Expedition To Probe Sunken Airship". KSBW-TV. 13 September 2006. Retr ieved 2006-10-04. Jump up ^ "Studying a Navy Relic, Undisturbed for Nearly 60 Years". The New York Times. 3 October 2006. Retrieved 2011-12-06. Jump up ^ "USS Macon Exploration Findings Unveiled". KSBW-TV. 27 September 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-04. (includes slideshow) ^ Jump up to: a b c d "Announcements and actions on properties for the National Register of Historic Places for February 12, 2010". Weekly Listings. National Pa rk Service. 12 February 2010. Retrieved 2010-05-18. ^ Jump up to: a b Bruce G. Terrell (10 February 2009). "National Register of His toric Places Registration: USS Macon" (PDF). National Park Service. Retrieved 20 10-05-18. (39 pages, with 20 historic and wreckage exploration photos) Jump up ^ "2006 USS Macon Expedition". Sanctuaries.noaa.gov. Retrieved 2012-11-0 7. Jump up ^ "NOAA News Online (Story 2708)". Noaanews.noaa.gov. 27 September 2006. Retrieved 2012-11-07. Jump up ^ "Weekly Highlight 02/12/2010 USS Macon Airship Remains, Monterey Count y, California". Jump up ^ "Weekly List Actions". National Park Service. Retrieved 2010-05-18. Bibliography[edit] Robinson, Douglas H., and Charles L. Keller. "Up Ship!": U.S. Navy Rigid Airship s 1919-1935. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1982. ISBN 0-87021-738- 0 Robinson, Douglas H., Giants in the Sky. Henley-on-Thames: Foulis, 1973. ISBN 0 85429 145 8 Miller, Henry M., "Human Error: Road to Disaster", Canyon Books, 1975, ISBN 0-89 014-128-2 Smith, Richard K. The Airships Akron & Macon (Flying Aircraft Carriers of the Un ited States Navy), United States Naval Institute: Annapolis, Maryland, 1965 External links[edit] Wikimedia Commons has media related to: ZRS-5 USS Macon (category) Airships.net: U.S.S. Akron and Macon A 1964 KPIX-TV documentary about the U.S.S. Macon U.S. Naval Historical Center pages on ZRS-5 Lucidcafe.com has a good page with some additional photos of the ship and crew c

alled USS Macon: The US Navy s last dirigible Casualties: US Navy and Marine Corps Personnel Killed and Injured in Selected Ac cidents and Other Incidents Not Directly the Result of Enemy Action Uncovering the USS Macon: The Underwater Airship" Der Spiegel Construction of the USS Macon Airship (photo gallery) KQED has put together a video with info about USS Macon, historical and wreck-si te footage, as well as info about the new zeppelin that is flying over the San F rancisco Bay Area. Moffett Field Museum near San Jose, CA has an exhibit dedicated to the USS Macon . This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Nav al Fighting Ships. [show] v t e rigid airships [show] v t e Lists relating to aviation [show] v t e Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company [show] v t e U.S. National Register of Historic Places Coordinates: 36°17′27″N 121°59′52″W Categories: Airborne aircraft carriersHistory of Monterey County, CaliforniaUnit ed States Navy Georgia-related ships1933 ships1935 in aviation1935 in California United States aircraft 1930–1939Shipwrecks on the National Register of Historic Pl aces in CaliforniaGoodyear aircraftAkron-class airshipsAviation-related listings on the National Register of Historic Places Navigation menu Create accountLog inArticleTalkReadEditView history Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Donate to Wikipedia Wikimedia Shop Interaction Help About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact page Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Wikidata item Cite this page Print/export Create a book Download as PDF Printable version Languages Čeština Deutsch Esperanto Français Italiano Nederlands 日本語 Norsk bokmål Norsk nynorsk Polski Suomi Edit links This page was last modified on 30 September 2014 at 12:16. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; add itional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and P rivacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, I nc., a non-profit organization. Privacy policyAbout WikipediaDisclaimersContact WikipediaDevelopersMobile viewWi kimedia Foundation Powered by MediaWiki