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 ...

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 ...

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 Navy’s short-lived USS Macon in 1933; above, a commercial passenger airship in 2014. U.S. Navy; Achim Mende / Zeppelin In the 1930s, before commercial airplanes began crossing the Atlantic ...