August 17, 2024 • 33 mins
Nowadays airships are seen as historical relics or novelties meant to fly overhead during sports games. However, not so long ago, the US military thought airships might be the future of warfare. Today the guys delve into the strange history of the USS Akron, an airship designed not just to carry human beings -- but to carry planes as well. Learn more about the construction of the Akron -- and why it's not aloft today -- in today's Classic episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in.
We're back with a classic episode for you to step two.
I'm Ben Bullen, joined as always with our super producer,
mister Max Williams. Max, How you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I am doing well? Are we talking about Marvel today? Marvels.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
We're not quite quing jet there yet. But I love
that you mentioned this because you know, this classic episode
hearkens back to retro sci fi. It hearkens back again
a little bit too previous careers and car stuff. Nowadays, zeppelins, blimps, airships,
call them what you want. They're seen as historical relics
(00:42):
or novelties that flow, you know, like the goodyear blimp
at your favorite sports game. But it turns out that
not too long ago, the boffins in the US military
thought airships might be the future of warfare. Are you
familiar with this? Have you heard of this?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I have not, but just knowing the history of warfare,
for every like one good idea they had, they had
like five hundred battle.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Oh yeah, it was a really low hit rate.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Really yeah, real high rate of attrition. Real strange writers room.
This classic episode is about something that was ambitious at
the very least, it's called the uss Acrin.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I'm wearing the Ohio shirt right now.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Oh yeah, you are. What's to say?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It's tips for driving through driving in Ohio and it's
all the scoring plays that Michigan did Ohio state that year.
It's a high drive through Ohio's defense.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Can we put this part in? Yeah. Ridiculous History is
a production of iHeartRadio. If you're a fan of Marvel
(02:09):
comic books, you might be familiar with a aircraft called
the Hella Carrier. This thing is a floating base. It's
a floating aircraft carrier that's able to launch other smaller
aircraft off of it. It sounds really cool, it sounds impossible.
It sounds like a work of science fiction. But wait, Hi,
(02:33):
I'm Ben.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Is there more? I'm no, I'm I'm on the edge
of my seat, Ben.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yes, welcome to Ridiculous History, folks, where you pay for
the entire seat, but you only need the edge.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
That is, Ben, You are on fire this morning. It
is the morning, by the way, peek behind the curtain.
So if we sound a little groggy, you'll know why.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Also, also, I think that's a figure of speech from
an old an old Motorcade show or something. But yes, no,
there is a little bit more and with the help
of our super producer, Casey Pegram, we won't stand on ceremony.
We'll dive right in. So at the offset. That sounds crazy.
(03:12):
You're familiar with Marvel movies, right.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
No, I am, but I just not the minutia like
I wouldn't know the vehicle you're talking about, Ben, But
it does sound pretty cool and very much in line
with a science fact thing we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
But give us the segue.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Oh sure, sure, So the segue is the following. The
reason this idea feels so cool even in the realm
of superhero comics and science fiction, is because you have
so much more mobility. For a long long time, aircraft
carriers were juggernauts, and they still are in terms of
military hardware, vessels, warfare, and so on, but they are
(03:53):
limited in their mobility. They can go close to a
coastal area and they can send jets right or other
aircraft that can fly overland.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
And we're talking about floating.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Aircraft carriers here, as in like by sea, right by sea,
by sea.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
But imagine how amazing it would be in theory, if
we could have something that isn't restricted to water, if
we could have something that could fly overland itself and
then launch smaller craft.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Why, Ben, in theory, that sounds like a fantastic idea.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
In theory nol it does so much so that in
the early twentieth century, the US Navy started designing a
real life flying aircraft carrier. And this for everyone who
tuned into our previous episode, this is where we get
to return to dirigibles airships.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
I know you are thrilled about this, Ben, because, as
you've mentioned before on the show, you are a fan
of these.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Leviathans of the sky.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
I'm into the whole thing esthetically. I got really close
actually a few years ago to writing in the Goodyear Blimp?
What Yeah? And I think I might still do it.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Do you know what you know?
Speaker 5 (05:06):
A guy?
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Yeah, can you hook me up?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Well, That's what I was gonna ask Casey Noel. Do
you guys want to go try try to hop in
the Goodyear Blimp?
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Could we do an extra credit segment from the Good
Year Blimp?
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I feel like we would have to.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
I think we would have to. We would be duty bound.
Those ridiculous historians.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So let's let's try to get that off the ground. Hey,
I don't know if it was worth it.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
I think it was worth it, Ben, So everything's worth it,
you know, it's very it's very kind, if a little broad.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I appreciate the sentiment. So in a previous episode on
how Germany gave up sausages for war, or specifically sausage
case and spoiler alert, we go into some detail about
what an airship is, the difference between a blimp and
a zeppelin.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
That was also the one where I profiled the guy
as a Nazi because he had a Nazi sounding name,
and I apologize for that. Von Graf von Graff, Baron
Graf von Zeppelin and you know, wrong war frown. I
think it's a I think it's a great name. You know,
it's a fantastic name. And I also don't want to
imply that every intensely German sounding name has the Nazi
(06:13):
ring to it.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
So I just want to get that out of the
way right now. I know we had a listener email
and point that out, and Mia Koppa.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
You are seen and heard, and I hope you don't
beat yourself up.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I beat myself up about any number of things.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
This is pretty low on the list, but I did
just want to air it out since we are in
fact again talking about Zeppelins, and the Zeppelin name will
come up a little later in this episode.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yes, so the idea is still here, this amazing possibility,
this fascinating concept of an aircraft carrier that now can
go anywhere. And when the US Navy started really working
on this, they said, you know, I think we can actually,
(06:59):
we can actually pull this off. And so in nineteen
twenty nine, November of nineteen twenty nine, they started building
first evership of its kind, a new sort of dirigible
at the Goodyear Zeppelin Air Doc in Akron, Ohio.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
That's right, and in a burst of creativity, as Ben
would like to say, it was called the USS.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Akron Get it.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Get it because it's in the same it's an Akron
where they were building it. And it's really interesting because
they actually, you know, these government contracts, they go out
for bids and the winner was actually a partnership between
the Luftschiffbow Zeppelin Company and the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Corporation,
and they had a joint venture called the good Year
(07:49):
Zeppelin corporation, And as you said, Ben, they created this
partnership in nineteen twenty three and set to work immediately
building this incredibly enormous ship.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
You get some stats, I got a few stats.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
So just as a reminder, the difference between a zeppelin
and a blimp is that a zeppelin has this rigid
skeletal structure, these steel rings, almost like a rib cage,
and they're divided up. They're called deep rings actually, and
they typically would be fifteen meters apart, but with this one,
because of the size, they were spaced twenty two and
(08:26):
a half meters apart. And now instead of using that
intensely flammable hydrogen that we talked about in the previous episode,
they were using the much friendlier gas than the noble gas,
one of the noblest of gases, helium. Right, It was
not flammable and fit the bill to make this thing
lighter than air, and it also allowed them to do
(08:48):
things like you know, cook. They had a galley on
this thing because it was designed to carry quite a
large crew. Oh and I think we're bearing the lead
here a little bit, but if I'm not mistaken, they
were also designed to carry up to five of these
biplanes that they could deploy.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Right, Ben right, Yes, the F nine C Sparrowhawk. Just
to give you a sense of perspective here, folks, the
ship itself, the Acron itself is about as long as
a sixty story skyscraper is tall. The crew numbered close
(09:28):
to one hundred, right, and they had, you know, they
had restrooms. I don't want to be crass, but I
just want it to be clear that they're not. You know,
wizzing off the edge of the zeppelin be fun, though
it might, you know, it'd be a weird thrill, you know,
especially if you don't have to jump afterwards. That's the secret.
And these biplanes, the Sparrowhawks themselves, are incredibly small. These
(09:53):
are single seater biplanes. These were stored, as es Noel said,
on the Akron itself. Eight Sparrowhawks were produced to test
this concept. And if you look at the visual of
how they deployed and attached these things, it's terrifying because
(10:16):
just as important as the diminutive size of the Sparrowhawk
was the creation of the trapeze system. It's almost it
reminds me a little bit of it was when one
of the Christopher Nolan Batman's where they use sky Hook,
oh Man, Yeah, exactly, and I think enough times past
that we can talk about that, right.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, it's not even that big a spoil. It's a
pretty cool moment though.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
But hey, let's do a little three two one countdown
to spoiler three to two to one, spoiler, get over it.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
In the Nolan film, Bruce Wayne also spoiler, that's Batman's
real identity.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Oh I got.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Casey is livid.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Sorry.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Sometimes when we crack these jokes, we we lean back
so we can stare at Casey through his super producer window.
And he's a tough crowd sometimes.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
But Skyhook in this story is a mechanism invented I
think by an intelligence agency or some branch of the
military in the US, and it's able to scoop people
and things up from a flying vessel.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
And this is real.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
There was a CIA program called Skyhook that was designed
to extract agents in the field at a moment's notice
and just have them boom they It was like some
kind of parachute thing where he jumped out of a window,
parachute opened up, there was a beacon on it, so
he's kind of gliding along and then the airplane scoops
him up off of a hook or a ring or
(11:44):
something on the parachute and lifts him back up into
the plane.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And this idea of hooking something in mid air is
really what the trapeze mechanism is about. But with way
lower tech, way lower tech, and not much it doesn't
seem like there's much of a margin for error.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Oh my god, I mean what So they would lower
the plane down on this wire. Yeah, and then the
plane would have to start up right, and then they
would release it and it would go. My question, Ben,
is how did they snatch them back up if the
if the engine is running, can a plane just idle
in place? Like? I'm no airplane scientist, but you know, Ben.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Right, and I don't even have my masters in zeppelins.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Do you have your amateur in it though? Don't you?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I have my armchair degree. There you go, so give
it to us. Yeah. So, when we think about the
way these zeppelins or airships in general operate, they have
the ability to just float because of that lighter than
air gas, they can you know, reduce speed and not
(12:45):
lose altitude. So these Sparrowhawks, which were also by the
way referred to as parasite fighters m because they they
lived on this other ship.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
They did they did they clean the plankton from between
its teeth.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Well, that wouldn't be parasitic. Then that would be more symbiotic. Well,
I mean, I guess it's a sort of symbiosis, but
it would be more beneficial.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
That's fair. And you know zeppelins don't have teeth. It
was a dumb joke. We're cutting it.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
No, let's keep it in, will keep it? It's cool,
all right, cool? Then they were getting weird with it anyway, right,
So teeth, why not?
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Why not?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
But the had ribs, they had ribs. There we go.
So the sparrowhawk flies flies beneath the zeppelin and then
it has to go very carefully and just hook back
on and then kill the engine. And then they take
it back up into the into the zeppelin.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
And I guess it would stay balanced because of the
equal weight of the wings on each side. It wouldn't
just flop over, you know, once it was hooked. But
wouldn't that be terrifying, Yes, yeah, it would. It would
be incredibly terrified. Now, of course, we know one strange
thing about humanity is in general, how quickly the most
bizarre and dangerous things can become normal. And were these pilots,
(14:01):
especially once you did the first historic quote unquote landings,
were pros. This was what they were on earth to do.
That's Lieutenant Daniel W. Harrigan and Lieutenant Howard L.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Young.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
And the thing about the Akron, this is the first
of two of these big mothers that were built. It
was never really used in combat. I think it was
mainly just tested and kind of used in these trial flights,
isn't that right, Ben.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, that's absolutely right. It had its first flight on
September twenty third, nineteen thirty one, and then it had
a month's worth of test flights. You can read all
about this in the USS Akron and the Rise, Fall
and Rise of Airships on ohiohistoryhost dot org that comes
(14:55):
from the State Library of Ohio. They had extensive testing,
as you would because this this is the first time
the US Navy has attempted anything like this, right, I
mean we could there are experiments that militaries have done
with hot air balloons, sure, and this is the age
of the airship. But this is the first time anybody
had said, let's remember exhibit on Pimp My Ride. Of course,
(15:17):
it's like, you know, we heard you like aircraft, so
we're gonna put some aircraft in your aircraft.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
There you go, you know, and also maybe like some
ground effects and spinner rims. Yeah, how do you feel
about that kind of stuff?
Speaker 1 (15:31):
You know what, they would look dumb on a Sparrowhawk.
But if you own it and it makes you happy,
you should do it.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
I know with those those shows.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
Don't those usually like take your car and do all
this stuff like without your knowledge, and they present it
to you and you're like, cool, what if you didn't
like it?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
If it was in a front.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I'm sure they have like three producers who were there
just to handle it. It does seem extravagant because sometimes
it seems like they went too far and it's like,
hey man, remember that one time you mentioned donuts. We
knocked out the back half of your van and built
a dunkin Donuts and this guy lives in there.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Now I want to see Pimp my Blimp.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
I would. I would watch that so often. Yes, I
would rewatch episodes of it. I would.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
I would watch the pilot, which will be the only
episode multiple times.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yeah, there maybe maybe they could get to six. I
don't know if it would make it to season two.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
I'm not sure either, because there's only like, how many
blimps could there be left in the world now right?
Speaker 1 (16:24):
The number might surprise you.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Yeah, there were more than you would think, Yes.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Because we there are a few classify very high altitude
blimps that are primarily for limps. It's an interesting question, nol,
because if the primary difference between a blimp and a
zeppelin is that rigid shell, I would be more tempted
(16:49):
to err on the side of a zeppelin of some
sort of some sort of structure beneath the you know,
the balloon for lack of a better word, or within it. Rather,
Lockheed Martin has been making something called the High Altitude Airship.
It's an unmanned airship. Whoa yeah, And it floats about
over sixty thousand feet in the air at a quasi
(17:12):
stationary position.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
And it's just checking us all out, just keeping.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Tabs surveillance, aircraft, telecommunications or a weather observer. Okay, cool,
kind of creepy though, that is super creepy. But let's
let's see, let's get back, let's get back to WW two.
I do want to point out that this is kind
of this episode in general, I feel like is a
sort of a sequel to the sausage episode with the
sausage skins being used for the Zeppelin World War One,
(17:38):
because the Americans kind of got inspired by that use
of the Zeppelins by the Germans and felt like it
was a potentially great strategic move, even though in that
episode we talked about it wasn't the most successful program
in WW one with the Germans. They didn't really have
(17:58):
that many successful kills comparatively, they were notoriously easy to
spot and slow moving and potentially easy to shoot down.
But yet the Americans thought it was a smart idea
to have a fleet of our own, and we don't
want to defence gap, right. That's what all this is about.
That's why all those crazy, crazy remote viewing experiments occurred
(18:20):
too much later in history, decades later. But the uss Akron,
it turns out, wasn't that great. It had a lot
of bumps in the road. It spent from what we found,
it spent a massive amount of time undergoing repairs as
well as trial flights, and people kept saying, look, on paper,
(18:43):
this is a great idea, this is worth trying, but
we still need to test it again and again, and
then things began to go seriously wrong.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Yeah, it's true, Ben.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
During the two years the uss Akron was in service,
it was not the most shining example of a military
program success. During one of its kind of demonstration flights,
I guess, like a test trial flight, it traveled from
lake Hurst, New Jersey, to sunny Vale, California, and it
(19:17):
took a stop along the way at Camp Kearney near
San Diego. And there is some pretty harrowing newsreel footage
of this that made it into theaters at the time
of several sailors who have gotten tangled in the mooring lines,
which were these like long wires that were used to
(19:38):
ground the ships and tether them down, you know, to
park them, I guess. And they're literally attached to these wires.
I don't know how this happens, but it's like a
bundle of humans attached to this line being lifted up
into the air against their will, and then a little,
one by one, boo, they just drop off and fall to.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Their death at the worst possible time.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
It's really rough.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
It's only two of the soldiers felled their death. Excuse me,
but you can see this footage if you just type
in the USS Akron deaths if you want.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
It's not it's nothing grizly. It's a long shot, but
you do see the full fall and the impact and
the dust just popping up, and it's like they did
not make it. That was a seriously long fall.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
And despite this disaster, the Navy decided we're going to
continue experimenting with the Akron and they sent it on
other flights, including patrols of Cuba the Panama Canal until
that is. The airship encountered severe weather on April fourth,
(20:45):
nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
And this severe weather is gonna is a theme that's
going to come up again. It clears clearly weather was
the worst enemy of the Zeppelin. But yeah, I was
right off the Jersey coast and of the seventy six
crew members on board, only three survived when the Akron
crashed into the ocean.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yes, they were vulnerable to gust of wind. Wind is
a huge factor in the performance of a craft like this.
If they were encountering high winds when they were attempting
to redock with the Akron, it would take the Sparrowhawk
pilots several tries, which to me is even more nerve racking.
(21:29):
I think I have to go in again that there
are times the charm, I hope is it. We'll see.
So the Akron breaks up rapidly, it sinks into the Atlantic.
There's a nearby ship, a German ship actually, that sees
the lights hitting the ocean, and they alter their course
(21:50):
to investigate, and that's when they pick up three survivors.
Ultimately several other people. Well, the vast majority of people,
as you said, seventy three of the seventy six do
pass away. Most of the casualties, experts of magic, were
caused by drowning and hypothermia because the crew had not
(22:11):
been issued life jackets and there have been no time
to deploy the single life raft. In many ways, Akron's
loss spelled the not the operative end, but maybe the
beginning of the end for US experimentation with militarized airships.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
But they had another one we haven't mentioned, the USS Macon. Yeah,
in a blast of creativity built in Macon.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
And also bigger than the Akron, and one of the
survivors of the Akron I believe was the commander of
the Macon, Lieutenant Commander Herbert Wiley.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Robin's Air Force base is at the base in Macon,
I believe yes.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
So not only was the MACON much larger than the AFRON,
it also had a more productive career because they realize
more effective ways of using this asset stay out of
sight just to see and not be seen, and mainly
what they did with surveillance, right exactly.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
But also we haven't really mentioned the whole idea of
having these aircraft. You sort of did at the top
of the show with having these aircraft on board, which
were not long range aircraft. These were small, you know,
small capacity tank planes, so you could get them within
range of enemy territory and then deploy these planes for
(23:37):
surveillance and they could zip around and not be seen
as opposed to this big, giant, you know, airship just
hovering in your airspace. That's going to set off some alarms, right,
So that was the idea, and with the make in,
they really started thinking, Okay, we're onto something here. Akron
didn't work out, but we've got Macon, so we're starting
to see this threat in the Pacific.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Right. The activity of the Japanese government in the Pacific
expansionist tendencies. So they noticed that Japan had been quickly
building up its military and they were hoping the US,
that is, to increase the distance these planes could travel
(24:21):
on scouting missions. So now you can do a lot
of the heavy lifting by you know, just putting them
on the make and putting these Sparrowhawks on the MACON
and then having this fly at a very high altitude
over much of the distance. And this is an interesting part.
(24:42):
Eventually on the make and it became a standard practice
for them to remove the landing gear of the Sparrowhawks
and replace it with a fuel tank modification, like.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Like an extender.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Kind of yeah, give them a little more capacity, thirty
percent more Wow.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Okay, interesting because they never had to land. It got
snatched out of the air hopefully or you know, crashed.
We didn't see any evidence of botched no skyhook situations,
but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Well also, I don't know if there was a long
enough span a time for one to occur.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
It's true this was more or less an experiment than
kind of fizzled pretty quickly, and it fizzled in the
form of another tragic crash.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Right on February twelfth, nineteen thirty five, the USS Macon
also ran a foul of severe weather off the coast
of California.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Yeah, and I think at the top of the show,
I may have made it sound like these were actively
used during World War two, but it was really just
technology that was in play leading up to World War
two that could have potentially come in handy in a
very interesting way that we'll talk about in just a second.
But that's right, Ben, The Macon hit that severe the
(26:00):
kryptonite to these ships, and it sank very slowly off
the California coast. And that was lucky because it saved a.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Lot of lives, right, And it's incredibly fortunate that there
was this slow, inevitable descent. The crew had enough time
to put some life jackets on, and only two people
in the crew died, one from jumping into the ocean
from too high a distance and another from swimming back
into the galley while it was sinking to retrieve some
(26:36):
of his stuff. He drowned.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
What are you doing, man, what are you thinking?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Well, who knows? We don't know what he was going
to retrieve.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
And now we shouldn't judge.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Yeah, But so there we go. That's essentially the end
of the airship program.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
It was just too risky, right at least in terms
of manned aircraft, because, as we said, the high altitude
airships that at least five countries are working on building
now are all unmanned, as one of the big differences
between them and something like the Akron or the Macon,
with which whom they share a lot of DNA. There's
(27:13):
an interesting point you alluded to, Nol that I think
we should emphasize here explore a bit, which is that
for a lot of military historians, the story of war
is also a story of what iffery. Of course, so
would what would have happened if the Akron and the
Macon had not crashed.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Well, given what we talked about, with their ability to
kind of like get close to enemy territory and then
send these guys out that were much less easy to detect,
there's the potential that they could have spotted an event,
a very important event, in advance, and possibly headed it
(27:55):
off at the pass.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Had the USS Macon been in service active in nineteen
forty one, it may well have been able to send
warning of the Japanese fleet headed to Pearl Harbor. However,
it was not active, and as a result, the course
of history was set.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yeah, and you know, no other dirigibles of this kind
were ever commissioned for use as aircraft carriers.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
And I think it's super cool that they still exist
in some capacity, in that unmanned capacity that you mentioned, Ben,
But you.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Don't think that's a little creepy.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
I mean, it's no creepier than anything else, you know, then,
no creepier than Facebook.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Oh wow, you really took it. He really took it
to a place there. No, it's all pretty creepy, Ben.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
But you get to a point where you just get
so comfortable with your ability to play words with friends.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
That out that you can have all my data. It's fine,
just take it.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
I want to point out that Facebook is also developing
a high altitude fly and wing UAV.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Is that true?
Speaker 1 (28:57):
That is true? Wow, It's a what D had. It's
designed to stay aloft for like ninety days. The stated
purpose is to provide Internet connectivity, so maybe.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Like remote areas, maybe where maybe they don't have infrastructure. Okay,
that's cool.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
I'm sure there's no other underhanded secret creepy motive for it.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Well, and do remember folks that, as as Coast mentioned here,
you can go see news real footage of not just
these airships nextion, but another thing as well. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Well, the more recently, a crew in twenty fifteen, actually
a underwater crew, a lah like James Cameron, you know,
went and explored the wreckage of the USS make In
and made some amazing like photo mosaic shots of it
where you know, you take photos from all different angles
and there is real video you can see where they
(29:57):
you know, you can see the galley and all of
the different space that would have been occupied in this
giant airship. It's pretty cool and you can actually see
it at the article on how stuff works called Ridiculous History.
The US Navy used dirigibles as flying aircraft carriers by
Lori L.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Dove.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
There's a link at the bottom to a YouTube clip
of the feed from one of these expeditions. It's pretty
cool stuff. And yeah, currently it's still there fourteen hundred
feet below the surface of the ocean, and there is
a concern that because of the salt water, that all
(30:34):
of this stuff is going to eventually just degrade to nothing.
So it's pretty cool that you can see it. It
was actually made a historic place by the National Register
in twenty ten.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
So do check it out. Let us know what you think.
Would you ride it in airship? I think most people
would say, of course, as long as there's no one
shooting at me. If you'd like to learn more about airships,
you can check out our previous episode we mentioned earlier
in the sho show. You can also check out the
Rise and Fall of airships on our peer podcast car Stuff.
(31:07):
And speaking of Facebook, hey, guess guess what We're on it?
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Boy are we ever? We're on Facebook.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
You can check us out there Ridiculous History we have
I am really digging the Facebook group, the Ridiculous Historian.
Just some really smart people on there, having really smart,
interesting conversations. We've been popping in there here and there
and and having some fun and yeah, so you can
check that out if you're interested in being a moderator
or something and that sort of thing floats you. But
let us know it ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot Com.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
As always, we'd like to thank Casey Zeppelin Pegrim what
any thing is that gonna work?
Speaker 5 (31:45):
I'll take him CZP.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
I'm into it, and I personally would like to thank
lo Keith Barton for keeping airships alive and so forth.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah, keep the keep the dream alive man, the X
Men dream.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
And of course thanks to our composer, Alex Williams. I
love that we can.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Say we have a Oh man, that's the best.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I'm just it feels like such a such a cool
thing to drop in conversation. Anyway, I was talking to
my composer.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
To be fair, he only wrote one song for us,
but he's not technically our composer.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
He composed it, he did.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
It's true.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
What if he composed just the soundtracks of our lives?
We just we just had his music playing when we
walked into a room.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
You know, that'd be great. He has fantastic tasting me,
he really does. I mean you do too. I'm not
seeing you, but uh, that's this casey of course.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
And is this the big up section of the show,
we pick up each other and our pals.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like it, so I think it's
I think it's a cool, regular thing to end on.
But of course the biggest of ups go to you,
specifically you, friends and neighbors. Thank you so much for tuning.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
In, and we hope you'll tune in again next time
for another episode of ridiculous history.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
Goodbye everyone.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in.
We're back with a classic episode for you to step two.
I'm Ben Bullen, joined as always with our super producer,
mister Max Williams. Max, How you doing?
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I am doing well? Are we talking about Marvel today? Marvels.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
We're not quite quing jet there yet. But I love
that you mentioned this because you know, this classic episode
hearkens back to retro sci fi. It hearkens back again
a little bit too previous careers and car stuff. Nowadays, zeppelins, blimps, airships,
call them what you want. They're seen as historical relics
(00:42):
or novelties that flow, you know, like the goodyear blimp
at your favorite sports game. But it turns out that
not too long ago, the boffins in the US military
thought airships might be the future of warfare. Are you
familiar with this? Have you heard of this?
Speaker 2 (00:59):
I have not, but just knowing the history of warfare,
for every like one good idea they had, they had
like five hundred battle.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Oh yeah, it was a really low hit rate.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Really yeah, real high rate of attrition. Real strange writers room.
This classic episode is about something that was ambitious at
the very least, it's called the uss Acrin.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I'm wearing the Ohio shirt right now.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
Oh yeah, you are. What's to say?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
It's tips for driving through driving in Ohio and it's
all the scoring plays that Michigan did Ohio state that year.
It's a high drive through Ohio's defense.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Can we put this part in? Yeah. Ridiculous History is
a production of iHeartRadio. If you're a fan of Marvel
(02:09):
comic books, you might be familiar with a aircraft called
the Hella Carrier. This thing is a floating base. It's
a floating aircraft carrier that's able to launch other smaller
aircraft off of it. It sounds really cool, it sounds impossible.
It sounds like a work of science fiction. But wait, Hi,
(02:33):
I'm Ben.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Is there more? I'm no, I'm I'm on the edge
of my seat, Ben.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Yes, welcome to Ridiculous History, folks, where you pay for
the entire seat, but you only need the edge.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
That is, Ben, You are on fire this morning. It
is the morning, by the way, peek behind the curtain.
So if we sound a little groggy, you'll know why.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
Also, also, I think that's a figure of speech from
an old an old Motorcade show or something. But yes, no,
there is a little bit more and with the help
of our super producer, Casey Pegram, we won't stand on ceremony.
We'll dive right in. So at the offset. That sounds crazy.
(03:12):
You're familiar with Marvel movies, right.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
No, I am, but I just not the minutia like
I wouldn't know the vehicle you're talking about, Ben, But
it does sound pretty cool and very much in line
with a science fact thing we're going to talk about today.
Speaker 3 (03:26):
But give us the segue.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
Oh sure, sure, So the segue is the following. The
reason this idea feels so cool even in the realm
of superhero comics and science fiction, is because you have
so much more mobility. For a long long time, aircraft
carriers were juggernauts, and they still are in terms of
military hardware, vessels, warfare, and so on, but they are
(03:53):
limited in their mobility. They can go close to a
coastal area and they can send jets right or other
aircraft that can fly overland.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
And we're talking about floating.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
Aircraft carriers here, as in like by sea, right by sea,
by sea.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
But imagine how amazing it would be in theory, if
we could have something that isn't restricted to water, if
we could have something that could fly overland itself and
then launch smaller craft.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Why, Ben, in theory, that sounds like a fantastic idea.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
In theory nol it does so much so that in
the early twentieth century, the US Navy started designing a
real life flying aircraft carrier. And this for everyone who
tuned into our previous episode, this is where we get
to return to dirigibles airships.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
I know you are thrilled about this, Ben, because, as
you've mentioned before on the show, you are a fan
of these.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Leviathans of the sky.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
I'm into the whole thing esthetically. I got really close
actually a few years ago to writing in the Goodyear Blimp?
What Yeah? And I think I might still do it.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Do you know what you know?
Speaker 5 (05:06):
A guy?
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Yeah, can you hook me up?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Well, That's what I was gonna ask Casey Noel. Do
you guys want to go try try to hop in
the Goodyear Blimp?
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Could we do an extra credit segment from the Good
Year Blimp?
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I feel like we would have to.
Speaker 4 (05:18):
I think we would have to. We would be duty bound.
Those ridiculous historians.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
So let's let's try to get that off the ground. Hey,
I don't know if it was worth it.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
I think it was worth it, Ben, So everything's worth it,
you know, it's very it's very kind, if a little broad.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
I appreciate the sentiment. So in a previous episode on
how Germany gave up sausages for war, or specifically sausage
case and spoiler alert, we go into some detail about
what an airship is, the difference between a blimp and
a zeppelin.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
That was also the one where I profiled the guy
as a Nazi because he had a Nazi sounding name,
and I apologize for that. Von Graf von Graff, Baron
Graf von Zeppelin and you know, wrong war frown. I
think it's a I think it's a great name. You know,
it's a fantastic name. And I also don't want to
imply that every intensely German sounding name has the Nazi
(06:13):
ring to it.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
So I just want to get that out of the
way right now. I know we had a listener email
and point that out, and Mia Koppa.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
You are seen and heard, and I hope you don't
beat yourself up.
Speaker 3 (06:24):
I beat myself up about any number of things.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
This is pretty low on the list, but I did
just want to air it out since we are in
fact again talking about Zeppelins, and the Zeppelin name will
come up a little later in this episode.
Speaker 1 (06:38):
Yes, so the idea is still here, this amazing possibility,
this fascinating concept of an aircraft carrier that now can
go anywhere. And when the US Navy started really working
on this, they said, you know, I think we can actually,
(06:59):
we can actually pull this off. And so in nineteen
twenty nine, November of nineteen twenty nine, they started building
first evership of its kind, a new sort of dirigible
at the Goodyear Zeppelin Air Doc in Akron, Ohio.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
That's right, and in a burst of creativity, as Ben
would like to say, it was called the USS.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
Akron Get it.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Get it because it's in the same it's an Akron
where they were building it. And it's really interesting because
they actually, you know, these government contracts, they go out
for bids and the winner was actually a partnership between
the Luftschiffbow Zeppelin Company and the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Corporation,
and they had a joint venture called the good Year
(07:49):
Zeppelin corporation, And as you said, Ben, they created this
partnership in nineteen twenty three and set to work immediately
building this incredibly enormous ship.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
You get some stats, I got a few stats.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
So just as a reminder, the difference between a zeppelin
and a blimp is that a zeppelin has this rigid
skeletal structure, these steel rings, almost like a rib cage,
and they're divided up. They're called deep rings actually, and
they typically would be fifteen meters apart, but with this one,
because of the size, they were spaced twenty two and
(08:26):
a half meters apart. And now instead of using that
intensely flammable hydrogen that we talked about in the previous episode,
they were using the much friendlier gas than the noble gas,
one of the noblest of gases, helium. Right, It was
not flammable and fit the bill to make this thing
lighter than air, and it also allowed them to do
(08:48):
things like you know, cook. They had a galley on
this thing because it was designed to carry quite a
large crew. Oh and I think we're bearing the lead
here a little bit, but if I'm not mistaken, they
were also designed to carry up to five of these
biplanes that they could deploy.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Right, Ben right, Yes, the F nine C Sparrowhawk. Just
to give you a sense of perspective here, folks, the
ship itself, the Acron itself is about as long as
a sixty story skyscraper is tall. The crew numbered close
(09:28):
to one hundred, right, and they had, you know, they
had restrooms. I don't want to be crass, but I
just want it to be clear that they're not. You know,
wizzing off the edge of the zeppelin be fun, though
it might, you know, it'd be a weird thrill, you know,
especially if you don't have to jump afterwards. That's the secret.
And these biplanes, the Sparrowhawks themselves, are incredibly small. These
(09:53):
are single seater biplanes. These were stored, as es Noel said,
on the Akron itself. Eight Sparrowhawks were produced to test
this concept. And if you look at the visual of
how they deployed and attached these things, it's terrifying because
(10:16):
just as important as the diminutive size of the Sparrowhawk
was the creation of the trapeze system. It's almost it
reminds me a little bit of it was when one
of the Christopher Nolan Batman's where they use sky Hook,
oh Man, Yeah, exactly, and I think enough times past
that we can talk about that, right.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, it's not even that big a spoil. It's a
pretty cool moment though.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
But hey, let's do a little three two one countdown
to spoiler three to two to one, spoiler, get over it.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
In the Nolan film, Bruce Wayne also spoiler, that's Batman's
real identity.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
Oh I got.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
Casey is livid.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
Sorry.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Sometimes when we crack these jokes, we we lean back
so we can stare at Casey through his super producer window.
And he's a tough crowd sometimes.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
But Skyhook in this story is a mechanism invented I
think by an intelligence agency or some branch of the
military in the US, and it's able to scoop people
and things up from a flying vessel.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
And this is real.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
There was a CIA program called Skyhook that was designed
to extract agents in the field at a moment's notice
and just have them boom they It was like some
kind of parachute thing where he jumped out of a window,
parachute opened up, there was a beacon on it, so
he's kind of gliding along and then the airplane scoops
him up off of a hook or a ring or
(11:44):
something on the parachute and lifts him back up into
the plane.
Speaker 1 (11:46):
And this idea of hooking something in mid air is
really what the trapeze mechanism is about. But with way
lower tech, way lower tech, and not much it doesn't
seem like there's much of a margin for error.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Oh my god, I mean what So they would lower
the plane down on this wire. Yeah, and then the
plane would have to start up right, and then they
would release it and it would go. My question, Ben,
is how did they snatch them back up if the
if the engine is running, can a plane just idle
in place? Like? I'm no airplane scientist, but you know, Ben.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Right, and I don't even have my masters in zeppelins.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Do you have your amateur in it though? Don't you?
Speaker 1 (12:23):
I have my armchair degree. There you go, so give
it to us. Yeah. So, when we think about the
way these zeppelins or airships in general operate, they have
the ability to just float because of that lighter than
air gas, they can you know, reduce speed and not
(12:45):
lose altitude. So these Sparrowhawks, which were also by the
way referred to as parasite fighters m because they they
lived on this other ship.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
They did they did they clean the plankton from between
its teeth.
Speaker 1 (12:59):
Well, that wouldn't be parasitic. Then that would be more symbiotic. Well,
I mean, I guess it's a sort of symbiosis, but
it would be more beneficial.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
That's fair. And you know zeppelins don't have teeth. It
was a dumb joke. We're cutting it.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
No, let's keep it in, will keep it? It's cool,
all right, cool? Then they were getting weird with it anyway, right,
So teeth, why not?
Speaker 3 (13:17):
Why not?
Speaker 1 (13:17):
But the had ribs, they had ribs. There we go.
So the sparrowhawk flies flies beneath the zeppelin and then
it has to go very carefully and just hook back
on and then kill the engine. And then they take
it back up into the into the zeppelin.
Speaker 4 (13:38):
And I guess it would stay balanced because of the
equal weight of the wings on each side. It wouldn't
just flop over, you know, once it was hooked. But
wouldn't that be terrifying, Yes, yeah, it would. It would
be incredibly terrified. Now, of course, we know one strange
thing about humanity is in general, how quickly the most
bizarre and dangerous things can become normal. And were these pilots,
(14:01):
especially once you did the first historic quote unquote landings,
were pros. This was what they were on earth to do.
That's Lieutenant Daniel W. Harrigan and Lieutenant Howard L.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Young.
Speaker 4 (14:19):
And the thing about the Akron, this is the first
of two of these big mothers that were built. It
was never really used in combat. I think it was
mainly just tested and kind of used in these trial flights,
isn't that right, Ben.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Yeah, that's absolutely right. It had its first flight on
September twenty third, nineteen thirty one, and then it had
a month's worth of test flights. You can read all
about this in the USS Akron and the Rise, Fall
and Rise of Airships on ohiohistoryhost dot org that comes
(14:55):
from the State Library of Ohio. They had extensive testing,
as you would because this this is the first time
the US Navy has attempted anything like this, right, I
mean we could there are experiments that militaries have done
with hot air balloons, sure, and this is the age
of the airship. But this is the first time anybody
had said, let's remember exhibit on Pimp My Ride. Of course,
(15:17):
it's like, you know, we heard you like aircraft, so
we're gonna put some aircraft in your aircraft.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
There you go, you know, and also maybe like some
ground effects and spinner rims. Yeah, how do you feel
about that kind of stuff?
Speaker 1 (15:31):
You know what, they would look dumb on a Sparrowhawk.
But if you own it and it makes you happy,
you should do it.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
I know with those those shows.
Speaker 4 (15:37):
Don't those usually like take your car and do all
this stuff like without your knowledge, and they present it
to you and you're like, cool, what if you didn't
like it?
Speaker 3 (15:45):
If it was in a front.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
I'm sure they have like three producers who were there
just to handle it. It does seem extravagant because sometimes
it seems like they went too far and it's like,
hey man, remember that one time you mentioned donuts. We
knocked out the back half of your van and built
a dunkin Donuts and this guy lives in there.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Now I want to see Pimp my Blimp.
Speaker 1 (16:04):
I would. I would watch that so often. Yes, I
would rewatch episodes of it. I would.
Speaker 4 (16:11):
I would watch the pilot, which will be the only
episode multiple times.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yeah, there maybe maybe they could get to six. I
don't know if it would make it to season two.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
I'm not sure either, because there's only like, how many
blimps could there be left in the world now right?
Speaker 1 (16:24):
The number might surprise you.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Yeah, there were more than you would think, Yes.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
Because we there are a few classify very high altitude
blimps that are primarily for limps. It's an interesting question, nol,
because if the primary difference between a blimp and a
zeppelin is that rigid shell, I would be more tempted
(16:49):
to err on the side of a zeppelin of some
sort of some sort of structure beneath the you know,
the balloon for lack of a better word, or within it. Rather,
Lockheed Martin has been making something called the High Altitude Airship.
It's an unmanned airship. Whoa yeah, And it floats about
over sixty thousand feet in the air at a quasi
(17:12):
stationary position.
Speaker 3 (17:14):
And it's just checking us all out, just keeping.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Tabs surveillance, aircraft, telecommunications or a weather observer. Okay, cool,
kind of creepy though, that is super creepy. But let's
let's see, let's get back, let's get back to WW two.
I do want to point out that this is kind
of this episode in general, I feel like is a
sort of a sequel to the sausage episode with the
sausage skins being used for the Zeppelin World War One,
(17:38):
because the Americans kind of got inspired by that use
of the Zeppelins by the Germans and felt like it
was a potentially great strategic move, even though in that
episode we talked about it wasn't the most successful program
in WW one with the Germans. They didn't really have
(17:58):
that many successful kills comparatively, they were notoriously easy to
spot and slow moving and potentially easy to shoot down.
But yet the Americans thought it was a smart idea
to have a fleet of our own, and we don't
want to defence gap, right. That's what all this is about.
That's why all those crazy, crazy remote viewing experiments occurred
(18:20):
too much later in history, decades later. But the uss Akron,
it turns out, wasn't that great. It had a lot
of bumps in the road. It spent from what we found,
it spent a massive amount of time undergoing repairs as
well as trial flights, and people kept saying, look, on paper,
(18:43):
this is a great idea, this is worth trying, but
we still need to test it again and again, and
then things began to go seriously wrong.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Yeah, it's true, Ben.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
During the two years the uss Akron was in service,
it was not the most shining example of a military
program success. During one of its kind of demonstration flights,
I guess, like a test trial flight, it traveled from
lake Hurst, New Jersey, to sunny Vale, California, and it
(19:17):
took a stop along the way at Camp Kearney near
San Diego. And there is some pretty harrowing newsreel footage
of this that made it into theaters at the time
of several sailors who have gotten tangled in the mooring lines,
which were these like long wires that were used to
(19:38):
ground the ships and tether them down, you know, to
park them, I guess. And they're literally attached to these wires.
I don't know how this happens, but it's like a
bundle of humans attached to this line being lifted up
into the air against their will, and then a little,
one by one, boo, they just drop off and fall to.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Their death at the worst possible time.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
It's really rough.
Speaker 4 (20:02):
It's only two of the soldiers felled their death. Excuse me,
but you can see this footage if you just type
in the USS Akron deaths if you want.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
It's not it's nothing grizly. It's a long shot, but
you do see the full fall and the impact and
the dust just popping up, and it's like they did
not make it. That was a seriously long fall.
Speaker 1 (20:22):
And despite this disaster, the Navy decided we're going to
continue experimenting with the Akron and they sent it on
other flights, including patrols of Cuba the Panama Canal until
that is. The airship encountered severe weather on April fourth,
(20:45):
nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
And this severe weather is gonna is a theme that's
going to come up again. It clears clearly weather was
the worst enemy of the Zeppelin. But yeah, I was
right off the Jersey coast and of the seventy six
crew members on board, only three survived when the Akron
crashed into the ocean.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yes, they were vulnerable to gust of wind. Wind is
a huge factor in the performance of a craft like this.
If they were encountering high winds when they were attempting
to redock with the Akron, it would take the Sparrowhawk
pilots several tries, which to me is even more nerve racking.
(21:29):
I think I have to go in again that there
are times the charm, I hope is it. We'll see.
So the Akron breaks up rapidly, it sinks into the Atlantic.
There's a nearby ship, a German ship actually, that sees
the lights hitting the ocean, and they alter their course
(21:50):
to investigate, and that's when they pick up three survivors.
Ultimately several other people. Well, the vast majority of people,
as you said, seventy three of the seventy six do
pass away. Most of the casualties, experts of magic, were
caused by drowning and hypothermia because the crew had not
(22:11):
been issued life jackets and there have been no time
to deploy the single life raft. In many ways, Akron's
loss spelled the not the operative end, but maybe the
beginning of the end for US experimentation with militarized airships.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
But they had another one we haven't mentioned, the USS Macon. Yeah,
in a blast of creativity built in Macon.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
And also bigger than the Akron, and one of the
survivors of the Akron I believe was the commander of
the Macon, Lieutenant Commander Herbert Wiley.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Robin's Air Force base is at the base in Macon,
I believe yes.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
So not only was the MACON much larger than the AFRON,
it also had a more productive career because they realize
more effective ways of using this asset stay out of
sight just to see and not be seen, and mainly
what they did with surveillance, right exactly.
Speaker 4 (23:16):
But also we haven't really mentioned the whole idea of
having these aircraft. You sort of did at the top
of the show with having these aircraft on board, which
were not long range aircraft. These were small, you know,
small capacity tank planes, so you could get them within
range of enemy territory and then deploy these planes for
(23:37):
surveillance and they could zip around and not be seen
as opposed to this big, giant, you know, airship just
hovering in your airspace. That's going to set off some alarms, right,
So that was the idea, and with the make in,
they really started thinking, Okay, we're onto something here. Akron
didn't work out, but we've got Macon, so we're starting
to see this threat in the Pacific.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Right. The activity of the Japanese government in the Pacific
expansionist tendencies. So they noticed that Japan had been quickly
building up its military and they were hoping the US,
that is, to increase the distance these planes could travel
(24:21):
on scouting missions. So now you can do a lot
of the heavy lifting by you know, just putting them
on the make and putting these Sparrowhawks on the MACON
and then having this fly at a very high altitude
over much of the distance. And this is an interesting part.
(24:42):
Eventually on the make and it became a standard practice
for them to remove the landing gear of the Sparrowhawks
and replace it with a fuel tank modification, like.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Like an extender.
Speaker 4 (24:54):
Kind of yeah, give them a little more capacity, thirty
percent more Wow.
Speaker 3 (24:57):
Okay, interesting because they never had to land. It got
snatched out of the air hopefully or you know, crashed.
We didn't see any evidence of botched no skyhook situations,
but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
Well also, I don't know if there was a long
enough span a time for one to occur.
Speaker 4 (25:20):
It's true this was more or less an experiment than
kind of fizzled pretty quickly, and it fizzled in the
form of another tragic crash.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
Right on February twelfth, nineteen thirty five, the USS Macon
also ran a foul of severe weather off the coast
of California.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Yeah, and I think at the top of the show,
I may have made it sound like these were actively
used during World War two, but it was really just
technology that was in play leading up to World War
two that could have potentially come in handy in a
very interesting way that we'll talk about in just a second.
But that's right, Ben, The Macon hit that severe the
(26:00):
kryptonite to these ships, and it sank very slowly off
the California coast. And that was lucky because it saved a.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
Lot of lives, right, And it's incredibly fortunate that there
was this slow, inevitable descent. The crew had enough time
to put some life jackets on, and only two people
in the crew died, one from jumping into the ocean
from too high a distance and another from swimming back
into the galley while it was sinking to retrieve some
(26:36):
of his stuff. He drowned.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
What are you doing, man, what are you thinking?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Well, who knows? We don't know what he was going
to retrieve.
Speaker 3 (26:42):
And now we shouldn't judge.
Speaker 4 (26:44):
Yeah, But so there we go. That's essentially the end
of the airship program.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
It was just too risky, right at least in terms
of manned aircraft, because, as we said, the high altitude
airships that at least five countries are working on building
now are all unmanned, as one of the big differences
between them and something like the Akron or the Macon,
with which whom they share a lot of DNA. There's
(27:13):
an interesting point you alluded to, Nol that I think
we should emphasize here explore a bit, which is that
for a lot of military historians, the story of war
is also a story of what iffery. Of course, so
would what would have happened if the Akron and the
Macon had not crashed.
Speaker 4 (27:34):
Well, given what we talked about, with their ability to
kind of like get close to enemy territory and then
send these guys out that were much less easy to detect,
there's the potential that they could have spotted an event,
a very important event, in advance, and possibly headed it
(27:55):
off at the pass.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
Had the USS Macon been in service active in nineteen
forty one, it may well have been able to send
warning of the Japanese fleet headed to Pearl Harbor. However,
it was not active, and as a result, the course
of history was set.
Speaker 3 (28:15):
Yeah, and you know, no other dirigibles of this kind
were ever commissioned for use as aircraft carriers.
Speaker 4 (28:23):
And I think it's super cool that they still exist
in some capacity, in that unmanned capacity that you mentioned, Ben,
But you.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Don't think that's a little creepy.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
I mean, it's no creepier than anything else, you know, then,
no creepier than Facebook.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
Oh wow, you really took it. He really took it
to a place there. No, it's all pretty creepy, Ben.
Speaker 4 (28:41):
But you get to a point where you just get
so comfortable with your ability to play words with friends.
Speaker 3 (28:47):
That out that you can have all my data. It's fine,
just take it.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
I want to point out that Facebook is also developing
a high altitude fly and wing UAV.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Is that true?
Speaker 1 (28:57):
That is true? Wow, It's a what D had. It's
designed to stay aloft for like ninety days. The stated
purpose is to provide Internet connectivity, so maybe.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Like remote areas, maybe where maybe they don't have infrastructure. Okay,
that's cool.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
I'm sure there's no other underhanded secret creepy motive for it.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Well, and do remember folks that, as as Coast mentioned here,
you can go see news real footage of not just
these airships nextion, but another thing as well. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:35):
Well, the more recently, a crew in twenty fifteen, actually
a underwater crew, a lah like James Cameron, you know,
went and explored the wreckage of the USS make In
and made some amazing like photo mosaic shots of it
where you know, you take photos from all different angles
and there is real video you can see where they
(29:57):
you know, you can see the galley and all of
the different space that would have been occupied in this
giant airship. It's pretty cool and you can actually see
it at the article on how stuff works called Ridiculous History.
The US Navy used dirigibles as flying aircraft carriers by
Lori L.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
Dove.
Speaker 4 (30:13):
There's a link at the bottom to a YouTube clip
of the feed from one of these expeditions. It's pretty
cool stuff. And yeah, currently it's still there fourteen hundred
feet below the surface of the ocean, and there is
a concern that because of the salt water, that all
(30:34):
of this stuff is going to eventually just degrade to nothing.
So it's pretty cool that you can see it. It
was actually made a historic place by the National Register
in twenty ten.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
So do check it out. Let us know what you think.
Would you ride it in airship? I think most people
would say, of course, as long as there's no one
shooting at me. If you'd like to learn more about airships,
you can check out our previous episode we mentioned earlier
in the sho show. You can also check out the
Rise and Fall of airships on our peer podcast car Stuff.
(31:07):
And speaking of Facebook, hey, guess guess what We're on it?
Speaker 3 (31:12):
Boy are we ever? We're on Facebook.
Speaker 4 (31:16):
You can check us out there Ridiculous History we have
I am really digging the Facebook group, the Ridiculous Historian.
Just some really smart people on there, having really smart,
interesting conversations. We've been popping in there here and there
and and having some fun and yeah, so you can
check that out if you're interested in being a moderator
or something and that sort of thing floats you. But
let us know it ridiculous at HowStuffWorks dot Com.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
As always, we'd like to thank Casey Zeppelin Pegrim what
any thing is that gonna work?
Speaker 5 (31:45):
I'll take him CZP.
Speaker 1 (31:46):
I'm into it, and I personally would like to thank
lo Keith Barton for keeping airships alive and so forth.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Yeah, keep the keep the dream alive man, the X
Men dream.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
And of course thanks to our composer, Alex Williams. I
love that we can.
Speaker 3 (31:59):
Say we have a Oh man, that's the best.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I'm just it feels like such a such a cool
thing to drop in conversation. Anyway, I was talking to
my composer.
Speaker 4 (32:07):
To be fair, he only wrote one song for us,
but he's not technically our composer.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
He composed it, he did.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
It's true.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
What if he composed just the soundtracks of our lives?
We just we just had his music playing when we
walked into a room.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
You know, that'd be great. He has fantastic tasting me,
he really does. I mean you do too. I'm not
seeing you, but uh, that's this casey of course.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
And is this the big up section of the show,
we pick up each other and our pals.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like it, so I think it's
I think it's a cool, regular thing to end on.
But of course the biggest of ups go to you,
specifically you, friends and neighbors. Thank you so much for tuning.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
In, and we hope you'll tune in again next time
for another episode of ridiculous history.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
Goodbye everyone.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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