Kyle Mizokami

Security,

Amazing.

Check Out USS Akron: America's First Flying Aircraft Carrier

The loss of both airships effectively ended the flying aircraft carrier concept. It’s interesting to speculate what might have happened had the concept been further developed and survived until the Second World War. As scouts, airship carriers would not have lasted long had they accomplished their mission and located Japanese ships and bases. Oscar and Zero fighters of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy would have made short work of the delicate airships and their lightweight fighters. On the other hand, airships could have adapted to become formidable antisubmarine warfare platforms for convoy escort duty in the Atlantic Ocean, standing guard over unarmed merchantmen and fending off German u-boats with a combination of fighters and depth charges.

Nearly a hundred years ago the U.S. Navy asked a question: if airplanes can fly through the air, why couldn’t a vessel carrying them fly through the air as well? The result was the Akron-class airships, the only flying aircraft carriers put into service in any country. Although promising, a pair of accidents—prompted by the airship’s limitations—destroyed the flying carrier fleet and ended development of the entire concept.

(This first appeared in 2018.)

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