What You Need to Know: The Akron-class airships, Akron and Macon, represented the pinnacle of rigid airship design and were the U.S. Navy's only flying aircraft carriers.Built by Goodyear-Zeppelin ...

A sudden wind shear hit the USS Macon. The rigid airship was returning from an exercise off the coast of California, carrying a fleet of F9C-2 Sparrowhawk fighters on trapezes inside its belly.

The U.S. Navy once dreamed of airships serving as flying aircraft carriers, with the USS Akron and Macon leading the way. But after a series of deadly disasters, the vision collapsed.

“If ever the Navy’s great airship, the U. S ... that about June 1 Commander Wiley would take command of the Macon. He is a veteran of five years’ service on the sturdy old Los Angeles ...

The Akron was lost during a storm off the coast of New Jersey in April 1933, and the Macon was lost in a storm off the coast of California in February 1935. The Navy did not build additional airships ...

The airfield’s extensive history — starting in the 1930s as a base for the Navy airship USS Macon, to eventually its handover to NASA Ames in the 1990s — is on display at the Moffett Field ...