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

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