Latest / Ridiculous History / That Time the US Built a Flying Aircraft Carrier

Transcript

That Time the US Built a Flying Aircraft Carrier · Ridiculous History

0:24
Speaker 1: If you're a fan of Marvel comic books, you might
0:27
Speaker 1: be familiar with an aircraft called the Hellic Harrier. This
0:32
Speaker 1: thing is a floating base. It's a floating aircraft carrier
0:37
Speaker 1: that's able to launch other smaller aircraft off of it.
0:41
Speaker 1: It sounds really cool. It sounds impossible, It sounds like
0:45
Speaker 1: a work of science fiction. But wait, hi, I'm Ben,
0:50
Speaker 1: is there more? I'm no, I'm on, I'm on the
0:52
Speaker 1: edge of my seat. Ben. Yes, welcome to ridiculous history, folks,
0:55
Speaker 1: where you paid for the entire seat, but you only
0:58
Speaker 1: need the edge that Ben, you are on fire this morning.
1:02
Speaker 1: It is the morning by the way, peak behind the curtain.
1:04
Speaker 1: So if we sound a little groggy, you'll know why. Also, also,
1:09
Speaker 1: I think that's a figure of speech from an old,
1:12
Speaker 1: an old motorcade show or something. But yes, no, there
1:16
Speaker 1: is a little bit more. And with the help of
1:19
Speaker 1: our super producer, Casey Pegram, we won't stand on ceremony,
1:24
Speaker 1: will dive right in so at the offset. That sounds crazy.
1:29
Speaker 1: You're you're familiar with Marvel movies, right, No, I am,
1:31
Speaker 1: but I just not the minutia like I don't I
1:34
Speaker 1: wouldn't know the vehicle you're talking about, Ben, But it
1:36
Speaker 1: does sound pretty cool and very much in line with
1:39
Speaker 1: a science fact thing we're gonna talk about today. But
1:43
Speaker 1: give us the segue. Oh sure, sure, So the segue
1:47
Speaker 1: is the following. The reason this idea feels so cool
1:52
Speaker 1: even in the realm of superhero comics and science fiction,
1:56
Speaker 1: is because you have so much more mobility. For a
1:59
Speaker 1: long long time, aircraft carriers were juggernauts, and they still
2:03
Speaker 1: are in terms of military hardware, vessels, warfare, and so on,
2:08
Speaker 1: but they are limited in their mobility. They can go
2:14
Speaker 1: close to a coastal area and they can send jets
2:17
Speaker 1: right or other aircraft that can fly over land. And
2:20
Speaker 1: we're talking about floating aircraft carriers here, as in like
2:23
Speaker 1: by sea, right by sea, by sea. But imagine how
2:27
Speaker 1: amazing it would be in theory if we could have
2:30
Speaker 1: something that isn't restricted to water, if we could have
2:32
Speaker 1: something that could fly overland itself and then launch smaller craft.
2:38
Speaker 1: Why Ben, in theory, that sounds like a fantastic idea.
2:40
Speaker 1: In theory, Noll, it does so much so that in
2:45
Speaker 1: the early twentie century, the U. S. Navy started designing
2:50
Speaker 1: a real life flying aircraft carrier and this for everyone
2:56
Speaker 1: who tuned into our previous episode. Uh, this is where
3:00
Speaker 1: we get to return to Dirigibles Airships. I know you
3:04
Speaker 1: are thrilled about this band, because, as you've mentioned before
3:06
Speaker 1: on the show, you are a fan of these Leviathans
3:09
Speaker 1: of the Sky. I'm I'm into the whole thing aesthetically.
3:14
Speaker 1: I got really close, actually a few years ago to
3:18
Speaker 1: writing in the Good Year Blimp and yeah, and I
3:20
Speaker 1: think I might still do it. You know what, you
3:22
Speaker 1: know a guy? Yeah, can you hook me up? Well,
3:25
Speaker 1: that's what I was gonna ask Casey. No, do you
3:27
Speaker 1: guys want to go try try to hop in the
3:29
Speaker 1: Good Year Blimp? Could we do an extra credit segment
3:32
Speaker 1: from the Good Year Blimp? I feel like we would
3:34
Speaker 1: have to. I think we would have to. We would
3:35
Speaker 1: be duty bound this ridiculous historians. So let's let's try
3:40
Speaker 1: to get that off the ground. I don't know if
3:44
Speaker 1: it was worth it. I think it was worth it, Ben,
3:45
Speaker 1: So everything's worth it. You know, it's very It's very kind,
3:49
Speaker 1: if if a little broad, I appreciate the sentiment. So
3:53
Speaker 1: in a previous episode on how Germany gave up sausages
3:58
Speaker 1: for war or specifically sausage casey, and spoiler alert, we
4:02
Speaker 1: go into some detail about what an airship is, the
4:04
Speaker 1: difference between a blimp and a Zeppelin. That was also
4:07
Speaker 1: the one where I profile the guy as a Nazi
4:09
Speaker 1: because he had a Nazi sounding name, and I apologize
4:12
Speaker 1: for that. V Graph von graph zap zap baron Graf
4:15
Speaker 1: von Zeppelin and uh, you know wrong, war Brown. I
4:20
Speaker 1: think it's a I think it's a great name. You know,
4:23
Speaker 1: it's a It's a fantastic name. And I also don't
4:25
Speaker 1: want to imply that every intensely German sounding name has
4:28
Speaker 1: the Nazi ring to it. So I just want to
4:31
Speaker 1: get that out of the way right now. And I
4:32
Speaker 1: know we had a listener email and point that out
4:34
Speaker 1: and you are seen and heard, and I hope you
4:39
Speaker 1: don't beat yourself up. I beat myself up about any
4:42
Speaker 1: number of things. Um, this is pretty low on the list,
4:45
Speaker 1: but I did just want to air it out since
4:46
Speaker 1: we are in fact again talking about uh Zeppelin's and
4:50
Speaker 1: the Zeppelin name will come up a little later in
4:53
Speaker 1: this episode. Yes, so the the idea is still here,
4:58
Speaker 1: this amazing possibility, this fascinating concept of an aircraft carrier
5:04
Speaker 1: that now can go anywhere. And when the US Navy
5:10
Speaker 1: started really working on this, they said, you know, I
5:14
Speaker 1: think we can actually, we can actually pull this off.
5:19
Speaker 1: And so in nineteen twenty nine, November of nine, they
5:25
Speaker 1: started building first ever ship of its kind, a new
5:30
Speaker 1: sort of dirigible at the good Year Zeppelin Air Dock
5:33
Speaker 1: in Akron, Ohio. That's right, and uh, in a burst
5:37
Speaker 1: of creativity, as ben would like to say, it was
5:40
Speaker 1: called the USS Akron get it. Get it because it's
5:43
Speaker 1: in the same it's an acron where they were building it.
5:45
Speaker 1: And it's really interesting because they actually, you know, these
5:49
Speaker 1: government contracts, they go out for bids and the winner
5:53
Speaker 1: was actually a partnership between the looked shift Abou Zeppelin
5:58
Speaker 1: Company and the Goodyear Tie and Rubber Corporation, and they
6:02
Speaker 1: had a joint venture called the good Year Zeppelin Corporation.
6:06
Speaker 1: And as you said, Ben Um, they created this partnership
6:10
Speaker 1: in nineteen three and set to work immediately building this
6:15
Speaker 1: incredibly enormous ship. I got a few stats. So, just
6:21
Speaker 1: as a reminder, the difference between a zeppelin and a
6:24
Speaker 1: blimp is that a zeppelin has this rigid skeletal structure.
6:27
Speaker 1: This the steel rings almost like a rib cage, and
6:30
Speaker 1: they're divided up. Um. They're called deep rings actually, and
6:34
Speaker 1: they typically would be fifteen meters apart um, but with
6:39
Speaker 1: this one, because of the size, they were space twenty
6:42
Speaker 1: two and a half meters apart um. And now instead
6:46
Speaker 1: of using that intensely flammable hydrogen that we talked about
6:50
Speaker 1: in the previous episode, they were using the much friendlier gas,
6:54
Speaker 1: uh than the than the noble gas, one of the
6:55
Speaker 1: noblest of gases, helium. Right, it was not flammable and
6:59
Speaker 1: fit the um to make this thing lighter than air,
7:03
Speaker 1: and it also allowed them to do things like you know,
7:06
Speaker 1: cook they had they had a galley on this thing
7:09
Speaker 1: because it was designed to you know, carry quite a
7:12
Speaker 1: large crew. Oh and I think we're bearing the lead
7:14
Speaker 1: here a little bit, but if I'm not mistaken, they
7:16
Speaker 1: were also designed to carry up to five of these
7:21
Speaker 1: biplanes that they could deploy, right, Ben right, Uh, Yes,
7:26
Speaker 1: the F nine C Sparrow Hawk. Just just to give
7:30
Speaker 1: you a sense of perspective here, folks, the ship itself,
7:34
Speaker 1: the acron itself is about as long as a sixty
7:39
Speaker 1: story skyscraper is tall. Uh. The crew numbered close to
7:45
Speaker 1: one hundred, right, and they had you know they had restrooms.
7:48
Speaker 1: I don't want to be crass, but I just wanted
7:50
Speaker 1: to be clear that they're not, you know, whizzing off
7:53
Speaker 1: the edge of the Zeppelin ben though it might. You know,
7:56
Speaker 1: it would be a weird thrill, you know, especially if
7:58
Speaker 1: you don't have to jump. After words, that's the secret.
8:01
Speaker 1: And these by planes, the sparrow hawks themselves, are incredibly small.
8:09
Speaker 1: These are single cedar by planes. These were stored, as
8:14
Speaker 1: Asnell said, on the Akron itself, eight sparrow hawks were
8:19
Speaker 1: produced to test this concept. And if you look at
8:25
Speaker 1: the visual of how they deployed and attached these things,
8:30
Speaker 1: it's terrifying because just as important as the diminutive size
8:36
Speaker 1: of the sparrow Hawk was the creation of the trapeeze system.
8:41
Speaker 1: It's almost it reminds me a little bit of it
8:44
Speaker 1: was when one of the Christopher Nolan Batman's where they
8:47
Speaker 1: use sky and I think enough times past that we
8:52
Speaker 1: can talk about that, right. Yeah, it's not even that
8:54
Speaker 1: biggest spoil. It's a pretty cool moment though, but hey,
8:56
Speaker 1: let's do a little three to one countdown to spoiler.
8:57
Speaker 1: Three to one spoiler, get over it. In the Nolan film,
9:02
Speaker 1: Bruce Wayne also spoiler, that's Batman's real identity. Casey is livid. Sorry.
9:12
Speaker 1: Sometimes when we crack these jokes, we we lean back
9:15
Speaker 1: so we can we can stare at Casey through his
9:19
Speaker 1: through his super producer window, and he's a tough crowd sometimes.
9:24
Speaker 1: But sky Hook in this story is a mechanism invented
9:28
Speaker 1: I think by an intelligence agency or some branch of
9:31
Speaker 1: the military in the US, and it's able to scoop
9:35
Speaker 1: people and things up from a flying vessel. And this
9:39
Speaker 1: is real. There was a CIA program called sky Hook
9:42
Speaker 1: that was designed to extract agents in the field at
9:46
Speaker 1: a moment's notice and just have them boom. They It
9:49
Speaker 1: was like some kind of parachute thing where he jumped
9:52
Speaker 1: out of a window, parachute opened up, there was a
9:55
Speaker 1: beacon on it, so he's kind of gliding along and
9:57
Speaker 1: then the airplane scoops him up off of the hook
10:00
Speaker 1: or a ring or something on the parachute and lifts
10:01
Speaker 1: them back up into the plane. And this idea of
10:04
Speaker 1: hooking something in mid air is really what the trapeze
10:07
Speaker 1: mechanism is about. But with way lower tech, way lower tech,
10:12
Speaker 1: and uh not, it doesn't seem like there's much of
10:16
Speaker 1: a margin for error. Oh my god, I mean what
10:18
Speaker 1: So they would lower the plane down on this wire
10:21
Speaker 1: and then the plane would have to start up right,
10:23
Speaker 1: and then they would release it and it would go.
10:26
Speaker 1: My question, Ben, is how did they snatch them back up?
10:28
Speaker 1: If the if the engines running? Can a plane just
10:30
Speaker 1: idle in place? Like? I'm no airplane scientist, but you know, Ben, right,
10:34
Speaker 1: and I don't even have my masters and zeppelins do
10:37
Speaker 1: you have your amateur in it though? Don't you? I
10:39
Speaker 1: have my armchair degree. There you go, so give it
10:42
Speaker 1: to us. Yeah. So when we think about the way
10:45
Speaker 1: these zeppelins or airships in general operate, they have the
10:49
Speaker 1: ability to just float because of that lighter than air gas,
10:57
Speaker 1: they can you know, reduce speed and not lose altitude.
11:02
Speaker 1: So these sparrow Hawks, which were also by the way,
11:06
Speaker 1: referred to as parasite fighters because they lived on this
11:10
Speaker 1: other ship, they do they clean the plankton from between
11:14
Speaker 1: it to teeth. Well, that wouldn't be parasitic. Then that
11:17
Speaker 1: would be more symbiotic. Well, I mean, I guess it's
11:20
Speaker 1: a sword of symbiosis, but it would be more beneficial,
11:23
Speaker 1: and you know, zeppelins don't have teeth. It was a
11:25
Speaker 1: dumb joke for cutting it. No, let's keep it in
11:29
Speaker 1: keep it. It's cool, and they were getting weird with
11:31
Speaker 1: it anyway, right, so teeth, why not? But the ribs
11:35
Speaker 1: they had ribs. There we go. So the sparrow Hawk flies, uh,
11:40
Speaker 1: flies beneath the zeppelin and then it has to go
11:44
Speaker 1: very carefully and just took back on and then kill
11:49
Speaker 1: the engine. And then they take it back up into
11:52
Speaker 1: the into the zeppelin. And I guess it would stay
11:55
Speaker 1: balanced because of the equal weight of the wings on
11:58
Speaker 1: each side. It wouldn't just flop overr you know, once
12:01
Speaker 1: it was hooked. But wouldn't that be terrifying? Yes, yeah,
12:05
Speaker 1: it would. It would be incredibly terrified. No, of course,
12:08
Speaker 1: we know. One strange thing about humanity is in general,
12:12
Speaker 1: how quickly the most bizarre and dangerous things can become normal.
12:15
Speaker 1: And of course, uh, these pilots, especially once you did
12:19
Speaker 1: the first historic quote unquote landings, were pros. This was
12:24
Speaker 1: what they were on earth to do. That's Lieutenant Daniel W.
12:27
Speaker 1: Harrigan and Lieutenant Howard L. Young. And the thing about
12:36
Speaker 1: the akron Um, this is the first of two of
12:39
Speaker 1: these big mothers that were built. It was never really
12:44
Speaker 1: used in combat. I think it was mainly just tested
12:48
Speaker 1: and kind of used in these trial flights. Isn't that
12:50
Speaker 1: right then? Yeah, that's absolutely right. It had its first
12:53
Speaker 1: flight on September twenty three, nineteen thirty one, and then
12:57
Speaker 1: it had a month's worth of test flights. You can
13:01
Speaker 1: read all about this in the uss Akron and the Rise,
13:04
Speaker 1: Fall and Rise of Airships on Ohio History host dot
13:10
Speaker 1: org that comes from the State Library of Ohio. They
13:13
Speaker 1: had extensive testing, as you would because this is the
13:16
Speaker 1: first time the U. S. Navy has attempted anything like this.
13:20
Speaker 1: I mean we could there are experiments that militaries have
13:23
Speaker 1: done with hot air balloons, sure, and this is the
13:26
Speaker 1: age of the airship, but this is the first time
13:29
Speaker 1: anybody had said, let's remember exhibit on pent my ride.
13:33
Speaker 1: Of course, it's like, you know, we heard you like aircraft,
13:36
Speaker 1: so we're gonna put some aircraft in your aircraft, you know,
13:39
Speaker 1: and also maybe like some ground effects and m H
13:43
Speaker 1: spinner rims. Yeah, how do you feel about that kind
13:46
Speaker 1: of stuff? You know what, they would look dumb on
13:49
Speaker 1: a sparrowhawk. But if you own it and it makes
13:51
Speaker 1: you happy, you should do it. And with those are
13:52
Speaker 1: those shows don't usually like take your car and do
13:55
Speaker 1: all this stuff like without your knowledge, and they present
13:57
Speaker 1: it to you and you're like, cool, what if you
13:59
Speaker 1: didn't like it? What if? What if? What if it?
14:01
Speaker 1: What if it was in the front. I'm sure they
14:03
Speaker 1: have like three producers who were there just to handle it.
14:05
Speaker 1: It does seem extravagant, because sometimes it seems like they
14:08
Speaker 1: went too far and it's like, hey man, remember that
14:10
Speaker 1: one time you mentioned donuts. We knocked out the back
14:14
Speaker 1: half of your van and built a dunkin Donuts and
14:16
Speaker 1: this guy lives in there. Now. I want to see
14:19
Speaker 1: Pimp my Blimp. I would. I would watch that so often.
14:25
Speaker 1: I would rewatch episodes of it. I would. I would
14:27
Speaker 1: watch the pilot, which will be the only episode, multiple times. Yeah,
14:32
Speaker 1: then maybe maybe they could get to six. I don't
14:34
Speaker 1: know if it would make it to season two. I'm
14:36
Speaker 1: not sure either, because there's only like, how many blimps
14:38
Speaker 1: could there be left in the world now right? The
14:41
Speaker 1: number might surprise you. Yeah, there's more than you would think, yes,
14:44
Speaker 1: because we there are a few classified very high altitude
14:50
Speaker 1: blimps that are primarily It's an interesting questional because if
14:58
Speaker 1: the primary difference between in a blimp and a zeppelin
15:02
Speaker 1: is that rigid shell. I would be more tempted to
15:05
Speaker 1: air on the side of a zeppelin of some sort
15:08
Speaker 1: of some sort of structure beneath the you know, the
15:11
Speaker 1: balloon for lack of a better word, or within it. Rather,
15:14
Speaker 1: Lockheed Martin has been making something called a high altitude airship.
15:18
Speaker 1: It's an unmanned airship. Who yeah, And it floats about
15:24
Speaker 1: over sixty thousand feet in the air at a quasi
15:29
Speaker 1: stationary position, and it's just checking us all out and
15:32
Speaker 1: just keeping tabs surveillance, aircraft, telecommunications or a weather observer.
15:40
Speaker 1: Kind of creepy. That is super creepy. But let let's
15:42
Speaker 1: let let's gett's go back, Let's get back to w
15:44
Speaker 1: W two. I I do want to point out that
15:45
Speaker 1: this is kind of this episode in general. I feel
15:48
Speaker 1: like it's a sort of a sequel to the sausage
15:50
Speaker 1: episode with the sausage skins being used for the Zeppelin
15:53
Speaker 1: in World War One, because the Americans kind of got
15:57
Speaker 1: inspired by that use of those Zeppelins by the Germans
16:01
Speaker 1: um and felt like it was a potentially great strategic
16:06
Speaker 1: move um. Even though in that episode we talked about.
16:09
Speaker 1: It wasn't the most successful program in w W one
16:13
Speaker 1: with the Germans, they didn't really have that many successful
16:16
Speaker 1: kills comparatively, it was they were notoriously easy to spot
16:20
Speaker 1: and slow moving and potentially easy to shoot down. But
16:24
Speaker 1: yet the Americans thought it was a smart idea to
16:28
Speaker 1: have a fleet of our own, and we don't want
16:30
Speaker 1: a defense gap, right, That's what all this is about.
16:32
Speaker 1: That's why all those crazy, crazy remote viewing experiments occurred
16:36
Speaker 1: to much later in history, decades later. But uh, the
16:41
Speaker 1: uss Akron, it turns out, wasn't that great. It had
16:45
Speaker 1: a lot of bumps in the road. It spent from
16:47
Speaker 1: what we found, it spent a massive amount of time
16:51
Speaker 1: undergoing repairs as well as trial flights, and people kept saying, look,
16:58
Speaker 1: on paper, this is a great idea, this is worth trying,
17:02
Speaker 1: but we still need to test it again and again,
17:08
Speaker 1: and then things began to go seriously wrong. Yeah, it's true, Ben.
17:13
Speaker 1: During the two years the uss Akron was in service,
17:16
Speaker 1: it was not the most shining example of a of
17:20
Speaker 1: a military program success. Um During one of its kind
17:25
Speaker 1: of demonstration flights, I guess like a test trial flight,
17:28
Speaker 1: it traveled from Lakehurst uh, New Jersey to Sunnyvale, California,
17:33
Speaker 1: and it took a stop along the way at Camp
17:36
Speaker 1: Kearney near San Diego. UM. And there is some pretty
17:41
Speaker 1: harrowing newsreel footage of this that made it into theaters
17:44
Speaker 1: at the time of several sailors who have gotten tangled
17:50
Speaker 1: in the mooring lines, which were these like long wires
17:53
Speaker 1: that were used to ground the ships and tether them down,
17:57
Speaker 1: you know, to park them, I guess. And they're literally
18:01
Speaker 1: attached to these wires. I don't know how this happens,
18:03
Speaker 1: but it's it's it's like a bundle of humans attached
18:06
Speaker 1: to this line being lifted up into the air against
18:09
Speaker 1: their will and then lit one by one boo. They
18:13
Speaker 1: just drop off and fall to their death untangling at
18:16
Speaker 1: the worst possible time. It's it's it's really rough. It's
18:19
Speaker 1: only two of the soldiers felled their death. Excuse me,
18:21
Speaker 1: but you can see this footage if you just type
18:23
Speaker 1: in the US s acron um deaths if you want.
18:27
Speaker 1: It's not it's nothing grizzly, it's it's so it's a
18:28
Speaker 1: it's a long shot, um, but you do see the
18:31
Speaker 1: full fall and the impact and the dust just popping up,
18:34
Speaker 1: and it's like they did not make it. That was
18:36
Speaker 1: a seriously long fall. And despite this disaster, the Navy
18:44
Speaker 1: decided we're going to continue experimenting with the Akron, and
18:51
Speaker 1: they sent it on other flights, including patrols of Cuba
18:54
Speaker 1: the Panama Canal until that is. The airship encountered severe
19:00
Speaker 1: weather on April four, and the severe weather is gonna
19:05
Speaker 1: is a theme that's gonna come up again. It clears
19:07
Speaker 1: clearly weather was the worst enemy of the Zeppelin. Um.
19:11
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was right off the Jersey coast. Uh.
19:14
Speaker 1: And of the seventy six crew members on board, only
19:18
Speaker 1: three survived when the Akron crashed into the ocean. Yes,
19:22
Speaker 1: they were vulnerable to gusts of wind. Wind is a
19:26
Speaker 1: huge factor in the performance of a craft like this.
19:31
Speaker 1: If they were encountering high winds when they were attempting
19:36
Speaker 1: to redoc with the Akron, it would take the sparrow
19:40
Speaker 1: Hawk pilots several tries, which to me is even more
19:44
Speaker 1: nerve racking. I think I have to go in again.
19:47
Speaker 1: Uh Uh. There are times the charm I hope is it.
19:52
Speaker 1: We'll see. So the Akron breaks up rapidly, it sinks
19:57
Speaker 1: into the Atlantic. There's a nearby ship up a German
20:01
Speaker 1: ship actually, that sees the lights hitting the ocean, and
20:04
Speaker 1: they alter their course to investigate, and that's when they
20:09
Speaker 1: pick up three survivors. Ultimately several other people. Well, the
20:15
Speaker 1: vast majority of people, as you said, seventy three of
20:17
Speaker 1: the seventy six do pass away. Most of the casualties,
20:23
Speaker 1: experts to magic were caused by drowning and hypothermia because
20:27
Speaker 1: the crew had not been issued life jackets and there
20:30
Speaker 1: have been no time to deploy the single life raft.
20:33
Speaker 1: In many ways, Akron's loss spelled the not the operative end,
20:38
Speaker 1: but maybe the beginning of the end for US experimentation
20:42
Speaker 1: with militarized airships. But they had another one we haven't mentioned,
20:46
Speaker 1: the USS Making and and a and a blast of
20:49
Speaker 1: creativity built in Making and also bigger than the Akron.
20:55
Speaker 1: And one of the survivors of the Acron I believe
20:58
Speaker 1: was the commander of the Making, Lieutenant Commander Herbert Wiley's
21:06
Speaker 1: Robbin's Air Force base is at the base and Making,
21:08
Speaker 1: I believe. Yes. So not only was the Making much
21:16
Speaker 1: larger than the Akron, it also had a more productive
21:19
Speaker 1: career because they realize more effective ways of using this
21:25
Speaker 1: asset stay out of sight just to see and not
21:29
Speaker 1: be seen, and mainly what they did with surveillance exactly.
21:32
Speaker 1: But also we haven't really mentioned, um, the whole idea
21:35
Speaker 1: of having these air care you sort of did at
21:37
Speaker 1: the top of the show with having these aircraft on
21:39
Speaker 1: board which were not long range aircraft. These were small,
21:43
Speaker 1: you know, small capacity tank planes, so you could get
21:48
Speaker 1: them within range of enemy territory and then deploy these
21:52
Speaker 1: planes for surveillance and they could zip around and not
21:56
Speaker 1: be seen as opposed to this big, giant, you know
21:58
Speaker 1: airship just hovering in your air space. That's that's gonna
22:01
Speaker 1: set off some some alarms, right, So that was the idea,
22:04
Speaker 1: and with the Making, they really started thinking, Okay, we're
22:08
Speaker 1: onto something here. Akron didn't work out, but we've got Making.
22:12
Speaker 1: So we're starting to see this threat in the Pacific
22:16
Speaker 1: right then, right, the activity of the Japanese government in
22:22
Speaker 1: the Pacific expansionist tendencies. So they noticed that Japan had
22:29
Speaker 1: been quickly building up its military and they were hoping
22:33
Speaker 1: the US, that is, to increase the distance these planes
22:36
Speaker 1: could travel on scouting missions. So now you can do
22:40
Speaker 1: a lot of the heavy lifting by you know, just
22:44
Speaker 1: putting them on the make and putting the Sparrowhawks on
22:47
Speaker 1: the make, and and then having this fly at a
22:51
Speaker 1: very high altitude over much of the distance. And this
22:56
Speaker 1: is an interesting part. Eventually on the make and it
22:59
Speaker 1: became a standard practice for them to remove the landing
23:03
Speaker 1: gear of the Sparrowhawks and replace it with a fuel
23:07
Speaker 1: tank modification, like like an extender, kind of like give
23:11
Speaker 1: them a little more capacity. Wow, Okay, interesting because they
23:14
Speaker 1: never had to land. They got snatched out of the
23:17
Speaker 1: air hopefully or you know, crashed. We we we didn't
23:20
Speaker 1: see any evidence of of botched no skyhook situations, but
23:25
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be surprised if if there were some. Well also,
23:31
Speaker 1: I don't know if there was a long enough uh
23:34
Speaker 1: span a time for one to occur. You know, It's
23:37
Speaker 1: true this was more or less an experiment than kind
23:39
Speaker 1: of fizzled pretty quickly. Uh. And it fizzled in the
23:42
Speaker 1: form of another tragic crash. Right on February twelve, nineteen
23:47
Speaker 1: thirty five, the USS making also ran a foul of
23:52
Speaker 1: severe weather off the coast of California. Yeah, and I
23:56
Speaker 1: think at the top of the show I may have
23:58
Speaker 1: made it sound like these were actively you was during
24:00
Speaker 1: World War two, But it was really just technology that
24:03
Speaker 1: was in play leading up to World War two that
24:06
Speaker 1: could have potentially come in handy in a very interesting
24:11
Speaker 1: way that we'll talk about in just a second. But
24:13
Speaker 1: that's right. Then, the making hit that severe weather the
24:16
Speaker 1: kryptonite to these ships, and it sank very slowly off
24:23
Speaker 1: the California coast. And that was lucky because it it
24:27
Speaker 1: saved a lot of lives, right, And it's incredibly fortunate
24:32
Speaker 1: that there was this slow, inevitable descent. The crew had
24:35
Speaker 1: enough time to put some life jackets on, and only
24:38
Speaker 1: two people in the crew died, one from jumping into
24:43
Speaker 1: the ocean from too high a distance and another from
24:47
Speaker 1: uh swimming back into the galley while it was sinking
24:51
Speaker 1: to retrieve some of his stuff. He drowned. What are
24:53
Speaker 1: you What are you doing? Man? What are you thinking? Well,
24:56
Speaker 1: who know, we don't know what he was going to
24:58
Speaker 1: treat and now we shouldn't judge. Yeah, but so there
25:02
Speaker 1: we go. That's essentially the end of the the airship program.
25:07
Speaker 1: It was just too risky, right at least in terms
25:10
Speaker 1: of manned aircraft because, as we said, the high altitude
25:14
Speaker 1: airships that at least five countries are working on building
25:19
Speaker 1: now are all unmanned, as one of the big differences
25:23
Speaker 1: between them and something like the Akron or the Making,
25:25
Speaker 1: with which whom they share a lot of DNA. There's
25:29
Speaker 1: an interesting point you alluded to, Noel, that I think
25:32
Speaker 1: we should emphasize here explore a bit, which is that
25:36
Speaker 1: for a lot of military historians, the story of war
25:40
Speaker 1: is also a story of what if. Erry of course,
25:44
Speaker 1: so what would what would have happened if the Akron
25:47
Speaker 1: and the Making had not crashed? Well, um, given what
25:52
Speaker 1: we talked about, with their ability to kind of like
25:54
Speaker 1: get close to enemy territory and then send these guys out,
25:59
Speaker 1: um that were much less easy to detect, there's a
26:02
Speaker 1: potential that they could have spotted an event, a very
26:07
Speaker 1: important event, in advance, and possibly headed it off at
26:11
Speaker 1: the past. Had the USS Makeing been in service and
26:16
Speaker 1: active in it may well have been able to send
26:20
Speaker 1: warning of the Japanese fleet headed to Pearl Harbor. However,
26:25
Speaker 1: it was not active, and as a result, the course
26:30
Speaker 1: of history was set. Yeah, and you know, no other
26:34
Speaker 1: dirigibles of this kind were ever commissioned for use as
26:38
Speaker 1: aircraft carriers. And I think it's super cool that they
26:41
Speaker 1: still exist in some capacity, and that unmanned capacity that
26:44
Speaker 1: you mentioned, Ben, But you don't think that's a little creepy.
26:48
Speaker 1: I think it's no creepier than anything else. You know,
26:50
Speaker 1: then creeper. Oh wow, he really took it. He took
26:55
Speaker 1: it to a place there. Now it's all pretty creepy, Ben.
26:58
Speaker 1: But you get to a point where you just gets
27:00
Speaker 1: so comfortable with your ability to play words with friends
27:03
Speaker 1: that out that you can have all my data. It's fine,
27:06
Speaker 1: just just take it. I want to point out that
27:08
Speaker 1: Facebook is also developing a high altitude flying wing u
27:12
Speaker 1: a V. Is that true? That is true? It's uh,
27:17
Speaker 1: it had it's designed to stay aloft for like ninety days.
27:22
Speaker 1: The stated purposes to provide internet connectivity, so maybe like
27:27
Speaker 1: remote areas, maybe maybe can have infrastructure. Yeah, that's cool.
27:31
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's no other underhanded, secret, creepy motive for it. Well,
27:37
Speaker 1: and do remember, folks, that, as as Coast mentioned here,
27:41
Speaker 1: you can go see newsreel footage of not just these
27:47
Speaker 1: airships nection, but another thing as well. Yeah. Well, the
27:52
Speaker 1: more recently a crew in two fifteen, actually a a
27:56
Speaker 1: underwater crew all like James Cameron, you know, went um
28:00
Speaker 1: and explored the wreckage of the USS making and made
28:04
Speaker 1: some amazing like photo mosaic shots of it where you know,
28:08
Speaker 1: you take photos from all different angles and there is
28:11
Speaker 1: real video you can see where they you know, you
28:13
Speaker 1: can see the galley and all of the different spaces
28:16
Speaker 1: that would have been you know, occupied in this giant airship.
28:20
Speaker 1: It's pretty cool and you can actually see it at
28:22
Speaker 1: the article on how stuff works called Ridiculous History. The U. S.
28:25
Speaker 1: Navy used dirigibles as flying aircraft carriers by laure L Dove.
28:29
Speaker 1: There's a there's a link at the bottom of to
28:32
Speaker 1: a YouTube clip of the feed from from one of
28:35
Speaker 1: these expeditions. It's pretty cool stuff, um and yeah, currently
28:38
Speaker 1: it's still there fourteen hundred feet below the surface of
28:43
Speaker 1: the ocean um and they there is a concern that
28:48
Speaker 1: because of the salt water that all of this stuff
28:51
Speaker 1: is is going to eventually just degrade to nothing. So
28:54
Speaker 1: it's pretty cool that you can see it. It was
28:56
Speaker 1: actually made a historic place by the National Register in
29:01
Speaker 1: so do check it out. Let us know what you think.
29:04
Speaker 1: Would you ride in an airship? I think most people
29:08
Speaker 1: would say, of course, as long as there's no one
29:10
Speaker 1: shooting at me. If you'd like to learn more about airships,
29:13
Speaker 1: you can check out our previous episode we mentioned earlier
29:16
Speaker 1: in the show. You can also check out the rise
29:18
Speaker 1: and fall of airships on our peer podcast car Stuff.
29:23
Speaker 1: And uh, speaking of Facebook, Hey, guess guess what We're
29:28
Speaker 1: on it? Boy? Are we ever? We're on Facebook? Um,
29:32
Speaker 1: you can check us out there Ridiculous History we have
29:34
Speaker 1: I am really digging the Facebook group, the Ridiculous Historian.
29:37
Speaker 1: Just some really smart people on their having really smart
29:40
Speaker 1: and interesting conversations. Um, we've been popping in there here
29:43
Speaker 1: and there and uh and having some fun and yeah,
29:47
Speaker 1: so you can check that out if you're interested in
29:48
Speaker 1: being a moderator or something and that sort of thing
29:50
Speaker 1: floats your boat, let us know, and ridiculous at how
29:52
Speaker 1: stuff works dot Com. As always, we'd like to thank
29:56
Speaker 1: uh Casey Zeppelin, Pegram what do you think is that
30:01
Speaker 1: gonna work? I'll take it, c z P. I'm in
30:03
Speaker 1: the Yeah, and I personally would like to thank like
30:06
Speaker 1: keep Martin for keeping airships alive and so forth. Yeah,
30:09
Speaker 1: keep the keep the dream alive, man, the the X
30:11
Speaker 1: Men dream. And of course thanks to our composer Alex Williams.
30:14
Speaker 1: I love that we can say we have a composer. Man,
30:17
Speaker 1: that's the best. Just it feels like such a such
30:20
Speaker 1: a cool thing to drop in conversation. Anyway, I was
30:23
Speaker 1: talking to my composer, to be fair, he only wrote
30:25
Speaker 1: one song, but he's not technically our composer. He composed it,
30:29
Speaker 1: he did, that's true. What if he composed the soundtracks
30:31
Speaker 1: of our lives? We just we just had his music
30:34
Speaker 1: playing when we walked into a room. You know, that'd
30:36
Speaker 1: be great. He has fantastic taste in music. Really, I
30:38
Speaker 1: mean you do too. I'm not I'm not taking you,
30:41
Speaker 1: but that's this case of course. Uh and this is
30:45
Speaker 1: the big up section in the show. We pick up
30:47
Speaker 1: each other and our pals. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like it.
30:50
Speaker 1: So I think it's I think it's a cool, regular
30:53
Speaker 1: thing to end on. But of course the biggest of
30:55
Speaker 1: ups go to you, specifically you, friends and neighbors. Thank
30:58
Speaker 1: you so much for tuning in, and we hope you'll
31:00
Speaker 1: tune in again next time for another episode of ridiculous history. Goodbye, everyone,