Navy Airships Were Insane

In 1929, the US Navy begins building an enormous machine. And when it's finished, it'll be the size of three city blocks. Inside its vast hull, up to a hundred men will live thousands of feet above the ground for up to a week at a time. It'll be the world's first flying aircraft carrier. Defended by machine guns and armed with multiple fighter aircraft, it was the brainchild of one of the greatest visionaries in naval aviation. And the United States had planned to build an entire fleet of them. For a war it knew was coming. We are convinced that this airship is by no means a vulnerable target. In the early 20th century, a new world power emerged. In just a few decades, Japan, once an isolated island nation, transformed into an empire hell-bent on conquest. Little by little, the nation began to ruthlessly seize resources from its neighbors. And by 1921, Imperial Japan was pouring more than a third of its national budget into building one of the most powerful navies the world had ever seen. Japan was preparing to conquer much of Asia. And American interests stood directly in their way. Sooner or later, conflict with the United States was inevitable. And if war were to break out, America would be vulnerable. A powerful Japanese fleet could sail across the vast Pacific Ocean undetected to strike a devastating blow to Hawaii, the western seaboard, or the Panama Canal. The U.S. Navy, already stretched thin across two oceans, just didn't have enough ships to spot an incoming threat. Scout cruisers were the Navy's primary means of spotting enemy fleets. But they were slow, too few in number, and expensive to build. Scout aircraft, while faster, lacked the range needed to search large swaths of ocean. So America stood little chance of spotting an approaching Japanese fleet. And it was in this moment of crisis that Admiral William A. Moffett, chief of the U.S. Bureau of Aeronautics, pushed for a radical alternative. The rigid airship. It could scout four times faster than any ship, and fly ten times further than any airplane, remaining airborne for up to a week at a time. Under Moffett's direction, the United States started experimenting with rigid airships in 1923. The Los Angeles was built for the U.S. as a flying laboratory to perfect techniques for carrying and launching planes, and also for mooring on ships at sea. But for a Navy that had only just begun to accept conventional aircraft, airships would be a huge adjustment. A mix of aviation and naval warfare. Sailors would have to learn how to operate, navigate, and fight in three dimensions. But the Navy's first airship prototypes were only a stepping stone. Because Moffett envisioned something far more ambitious. In October 1929, construction began on two enormous airships. Thousands of skilled workers and the brightest engineers were involved in the effort. But these were no ordinary airships. They were enormous floating fortresses, designed to spot the enemy far beyond the horizon. Thousands of kilometers from the nearest coastline, they would remain airborne for up to a week at a time. Nearly 100 men would operate much like any other naval crew. From the control room, the commander would orchestrate operations, working with navigation and radio personnel. Observation posts would keep a watch for any sign of enemy activity, while intelligence officers scanned the radio for signals. Eight enormous engines would be kept humming by engineers, who would also manage the lifting gas and ballast. At nearly 240 meters long, the airships would dwarf any scout cruiser. And with all that space, off-duty crew could relax in a mess hall or their dedicated quarters. Life on board would take on a predictable routine. Until an enemy fleet was spotted. The airship would now be in a dangerous situation. Pilots would race to don their gear while hangar crews readied the Sparrowhawk fighters. One after another, the fighters would launch to form a defensive perimeter, and machine gunners would take up positions throughout the airship. With an enemy fleet in visual range, the crew's best hope would be to run to safety. The enormous airship would be pushed all the way up to its top speed of 140 kilometers an hour. Preparing for the worst, damage control teams would stand ready, relying on the airship's safety features like non-combustible helium cells and a high-strength framework to resist stress and damage. But with a bit of luck, the airship could slip away unscathed, having radioed crucial intelligence back to the U.S. Navy. On August 8, 1931, thousands of spectators crammed into the Goodyear Air Dock to catch a glimpse of the enormous USS Akron, a second, nearly identical airship, the USS Macon, was already under construction. And if Moffat got his way, a dozen more would follow. But not everyone was convinced. Skeptics warned that airships were too fragile for military use, a concern the Navy felt it had to confront head-on. And defended by many machine guns, as well as by fighting planes carried within her, she is by no means a vulnerable target. The Akron and Macon were no battleships, but they could still take a few hits. As rigid airships, their lifting gas wasn't under pressure. A few punctures might doom a blimp, but not a rigid airship. A decade earlier, a British airship showed just how durable they could be when it stayed aloft for nearly six hours after severe damage. Still, America's newest airships had much to prove. Through the rest of the year, the Akron's crew worked to master the giant airship. In front of rolling cameras, they made it all look easy. But soon, it would be obvious that operating the Akron was anything but. On February 22, 1932, a group of U.S. congressmen were eager to board the Akron for a demonstration flight. But as preparations were underway, the airship was suddenly hit by a powerful gust of wind. Ground crews scrambled to regain control, but not before the Akron's tail struck the ground, causing significant damage. The incident quickly made headlines, with several congressmen vowing to never board the Akron again, further tarnishing her already fragile image. And only two months later, another incident. This time, the Akron found itself unable to land, as its lifting gas had become overheated in the sun, creating excessive lift. Ground crews struggled to pull the enormous airship back to Earth, when suddenly, they were yanked upwards. In front of horrified onlookers, three sailors were pulled ever higher, desperately clinging to the rope. Tragically, two of them fell to their deaths before a third could be rescued. Once again, the incident made national headlines. Although the accidents were caused by errors made by the crew, there were growing doubts about whether the Akron was simply too unwieldy and fragile. And with the Makin nearing completion, Moffat had to prove his airships really belonged in the Navy. On the night of April 3rd, 1933, the Akron was on a routine exercise off the coast of New Jersey. To the west, a fearsome storm was brewing. On board were a crew of 76, including Admiral Moffat himself. As lightning lit up the sky, the captain had a decision to make, either bring the airship back to safety, or press on. Moffat had long insisted that US Navy airships should face any kind of weather. They were warships, after all, built to endure. But the truth was, no one really knew how tough they were. By 10pm, even as conditions deteriorated, the Akron held steady, increasing her speed to push through the worsening turbulence. But as the hours passed, she would be enveloped by the most violent storm front There were only three survivors. And Moffat wasn't one of them. The loss of the Akron shocked the nation. Investigators determined that strong downdrafts forced the Akron into the ocean, tail first. The accident was blamed on poor decision-making by the crew and their over-reliance on faulty altitude readings caused by the low-pressure storm front. In other words, the airship was flying too low for the conditions. The Akron was supposed to have been the sturdiest and most advanced airship ever built. So when her sister ship, the Macon, took to the skies just two weeks later, the US Navy's airship program already had more enemies than it did allies. But the story was far from over. In July 1934, Captain Herbert Victor Wiley took over as commander of the Macon. Wiley had served on every US Navy airship before her and, incredibly, was one of the three survivors from the Akron disaster. Wiley knew a thing or two about airships, and he was convinced that the Navy had been using them all wrong. Before Wiley took command, the Macon did terribly in Navy exercises. Although she could effectively scout enemy fleets, she was almost always shot down in mock drills. Her performance was so poor, Navy sailors started calling her the s***bag. The problem was the airship itself was doing all the scouting, while the fighters were merely for defense. This meant as soon as the Macon spotted an enemy fleet, they'd spot her right back. So Wiley turned the approach on its head. Under his command, the fighters would do the scouting, while the Macon would be kept hidden from view. But this approach came with its own risks. In 1935, reliable radar and radio homing equipment simply didn't exist. If the pilots flew out of sight of the Macon, they risked never finding their way back. So Wiley worked with his pilots to develop a mathematical vectoring system. The fighters would fly at a predetermined speed, 60 degrees off course, while the airship moved forward at its own pace. At a set time, they would turn back another 60 degrees to safely return. Under Wiley's command, the Sparrowhawk's confusing audio-based radio homing equipment was replaced with a new visual system. One of the first of its kind, it made navigation far more reliable. The Sparrowhawk fighters were also modified for greater speed and range by replacing heavy landing gear with a streamlined fuel tank. With these improvements in place, the fighters could now scout hundreds of kilometers on either side of the airship. But there was still one problem. The Navy's exercises seemed almost guaranteed to ensure the Macon failed. Time and again, the airship was forced to tactically scout crowded areas full of enemy ships and planes. But the Macon was built to search vast swaths of open ocean. Unable to convince the Navy to run a fair exercise, Wiley came up with a bold plan. One that would leave everyone stunned. In July 1934, U.S. President Roosevelt set out on a month-long tour aboard the USS Houston. The 22,000-kilometer trip would see the President visit several countries, with a final leg across the vast Pacific to reach Hawaii. To safeguard the President once out on the Pacific, the Houston would operate in complete radio silence, going dark to keep its location a closely guarded secret. But something else was lurking in the great expanse. Under the guise of a routine exercise, Wiley had also taken the Macon out to sea. And he planned to track down the President's ship, as a way to prove the Macon's unmatched scouting capabilities. While the Macon had speed and endurance on her side, locating the President's ship out in the Pacific would be like finding a needle in a haystack. Even as the Houston made a last-minute detour, it took Wiley's planes, scouring hundreds of kilometers of open ocean, less than a day to track down the President's ship. Wiley then radioed the Houston and launched two more fighters. Moments later, the planes dropped packages containing the latest newspapers and magazines for the President to enjoy. Far beyond the range of any aircraft, the Macon had demonstrated her incredible capabilities. Wiley's daring stunt made headlines across the country. Just not in the way he'd hoped. The papers hailed the world's first air-to-ship mail delivery. But almost none acknowledged that the Macon had tracked down the President's ship when it was supposed to have been untraceable. The Navy was furious at Wiley's stunt. It was only because President Roosevelt was so thoroughly impressed that Wiley was spared from disciplinary action. In the following months, Wiley further refined the Macon's capabilities, doubled operating hours, tightened procedures, and rigorously drilled the airship's crew. Because he had an even more daring operation in mind. For fleet exercises in the spring of 1935, Wiley would target the pride of the U.S. Navy, the aircraft carrier Lexington. Under the cover of darkness when the carrier was most vulnerable, Wiley would have his aircraft strike the Lexington in mock dive-bombing runs. But the Macon was running on borrowed time. For nearly a year, she had been operating with a serious structural flaw. Engineers had discovered a critical weakness in her upper fin's design. Structural reinforcements would have fixed the issue. But despite repeated warnings, the Navy delayed repairs. On the afternoon of February 12, 1935, while returning from another successful scouting mission, heavy windshear damaged and eventually tore off the Macon's upper tail. For nearly an hour, the crew fought to regain control. Their efforts were in vain. They finally managed to bring the airship down onto the water's surface, and 81 of the 83 crew were rescued. But the USS Macon, along with its four Sparrowhawk fighters, sank into the depths. On December 7, 1941, Japan launched a devastating surprise attack on the United States. Carrier-based bombers and fighter aircraft damaged or destroyed 19 U.S. Navy warships, tragically taking the lives of over 2,400 American sailors. An enormous Japanese fleet, including the largest assembly of aircraft carriers the world had ever seen, had sailed across the Pacific completely undetected for more than a week before attacking Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. In just a little over an hour, America's Pacific battleship fleet was decimated, putting the United States on the back foot as it was drawn into the Second World War. Over the years, some have suggested that a fleet of airships, just as Admiral Moffat had envisioned, could have prevented the Pearl Harbor attack. Serving as the eyes of the Navy, they could have spotted the advancing Japanese fleet and radioed back a warning to the United States to be ready and waiting. Although there were follow-up designs for even larger aircraft-carrying airships, the reality was, by the mid-1930s, airships had already reached their limit. A cubic meter of helium wasn't going to lift any more in the future than it already did. Meanwhile, airplanes were making incredible leaps forward, flying ever faster and further. Even during the Akron and Makin's time, the future of long-range scouting had already started to shift towards seaplanes. And with their massive size and vulnerability to weather, U.S. Navy rigid airships were ultimately impractical. The purpose of this brief is to refresh our memories of certain characteristics and performance of Soviet aircraft. This is the MiG-15. Shot to hell, huh? Okay, they intercepted. For decades, the United States enjoyed near-total dominance in the skies, with the most advanced fighter aircraft and the best-trained pilots. But in April 1966, as the Vietnam War raged on, that changed. The skies above suddenly escalated into a deadly struggle for survival. American pilots were forced to confront a new threat. The MiG-21. A cutting-edge Soviet fighter with exceptional acceleration and remarkable agility. Mach 2 capable and armed with the latest infrared missiles, it took only a handful of MiG-21s to wreak havoc with brutal hit-and-run tactics. And it had a chilling psychological impact. But amidst the chaos, Colonel Robin Olds, a legendary pilot in the making, hatches a bold plan to lure the MiGs into a deadly trap. What follows is one of the most incredible combat operations of the Vietnam War. Coming soon to Nebula. Nebula is where you can watch hours of exclusive mustard videos you won't find anywhere else. 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