After 410 days of construction, the Empire State Building was completed. The Great Depression had begun in earnest on Oct. 29, 1929, known as Black Tuesday, with the Wall Street Crash. But the plans for constructing the tallest building in the world were already in motion, and construction began on March 17, 1930. The building was officially opened to the public on May 1, 1931, when President Herbert Hoover symbolically turned on the lights to the building from the White House.
At 1,454 feet tall, which includes the 204-foot tip, the Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world for the next 40 years. That 204-foot tip, however, was not about obtaining additional height or creating a memorable piece of architecture. It was actually built as a port for airships: dirigibles and blimps.
The idea was to allow airship passengers to disembark on top of the world’s tallest building and take an elevator from the 102nd to the 86th floor. This proved highly impractical, though; it was used only once for three minutes by a United States Navy blimp.
A Study in German
During the summer of 1915, the U.S. Navy authorized the building of a lighter-than-air craft by the Connecticut Aircraft Company. Thus began the Navy’s lighter-than-air (LTA) program. The nonrigid aircraft (blimp) was completed the following year, though it would not be ready for flight until April 1917 (the same month America entered World War I).The airship was problematic, but the Navy was undeterred. The use of dirigibles, balloons, and manned kites during WWI proved effective in scouting for mines and submarines. The large aircrafts, however, were highly susceptible to enemy aircraft and naval anti-aircraft guns.
Once the war concluded, America began investing in rigid airships, like the German zeppelins. In fact, it was thanks to the war and German zeppelins that America began its pursuit of the rigid version.
In August of 1919, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels approved the construction of what would become the USS Shenandoah (ZR-1). Several companies were contracted to develop the airship, including the Aluminum Company of America and Goodyear Tire and Rubber. The 680-foot-long airship was 93 feet and 2 inches tall and 78 feet and 9 inches in diameter. It was capable of 60 knots (69 mph) and came armed with six .30-caliber machine guns and eight 500-pound bombs. In most ways, it was a mirror image of the German L-49, but the most significant change was how it attained flight. Rather than using hydrogen, which was highly flammable, the ZR-1 used helium. On Oct. 10, 1923, the USS Shenandoah was christened and commissioned.
The ZR-1 and LZ-126
The following August, the airship participated in military tactical exercises and successfully fulfilled her mission of spotting “enemies.” Over the course of the next year, she participated in more exercises and also tested several mooring stations along the West Coast. Additionally, the ZR-1 underwent numerous repairs.On Sept. 3 1925, it proved extremely vulnerable to weather conditions. While flying to Michigan, it encountered a violent storm that tore it in two, killing 14 officers and soldiers, including the commanding officer. Interestingly, 29 members of the crew were able to ride safely to earth in sections of the broken airship.
A year before the Shenandoah disaster, the German LZ-126 flew more than 5,000 miles from its German home to Washington. The German rigid airship now belonged to America. The airship, though late in delivery, was part of the peace treaty agreement from World War I in which numerous allies were given German airships (two other airships that were to be delivered to the United States were purposely destroyed in their hangars by their German crews). The LZ-126 was renamed the USS Los Angeles and would be the most successful of the American airships, operating for more than seven years and completing more than 330 flights.
The Macon’s Great Feat
Macon conducted its maiden flight on April 21, 1933, but by then tragedy had already struck the Akron. On April 4, it was caught in a storm along the New Jersey coast and crashed tail-first into the ocean. Seventy-three of the 76 aboard died. The Macron became the lone American ship and it was, according to John Geoghegan, “the queen of the skies.” At a cost of $2.5 million ($51 million today), it deserved to be considered aviation royalty.The Macon was a masterfully crafted airship that could house a crew of 83, could remain aloft for three consecutive days, could cover a range of 7,000 miles in one trip, and had a top speed of 80 mph. The airship possessed a galley, a smoking room, a sick bay, three dining halls, and separate sleeping quarters for the officers and soldiers. As a military aircraft, it possessed eight .30-caliber machine guns. Furthermore, it could house four Curtiss F9C-2 Sparrowhawk fighter planes in its 75-foot-long, 60-foot-wide, and 16-foot-tall hangar. The planes were designed to protect the zeppelin, but with the Navy struggling to find a reason to continue the LTA program, the fighters would soon be used for a different reason.
After experiencing struggles and proving its vulnerability during the Navy’s war games, the Macon commander and one of the three Akron survivors, Herbert Wiley, concocted a plan to prove that the airship could be vital to the military. Wiley was aware that President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of the Navy Claude Swanson were aboard the cruiser USS Houston on their way to Hawaii. The voyage was top secret, but that did not concern Wiley—at least not enough to deter him from his plan.
The Macon made its way across the vast Pacific Ocean in pursuit of the Houston. With the ship approximately 1,500 miles out at sea, Wiley had located the cruiser. It was an incredible feat, but Wiley needed to make his point. He sent the Sparrowhawks, loaded with mail and newspapers, after the ship to drop off the packages. It was during this week in history, on July 19, 1934, that the Macon airship proved to be an aircraft carrier capable of locating a vessel and dispersing fighter jets after it. President Roosevelt was impressed with the action. Wiley’s superiors, however, were not and threatened a possible court martial—though it never materialized.
The End of the Macon and LTA
The Macon, as aforementioned, was the last rigid airship developed by the Navy. When the 785-foot craft fell victim to a storm on Feb. 12, 1935 (though with far fewer losses of life than the Akron—two of the 83 crew died), she sank off the California coast and with it went the LTA program.In 1990, 1,500 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, the Macon was discovered, along with the four Sparrowhawks. It was further surveyed in 2006 and 2015, but the Macon and her Sparrowhawks remain on the ocean floor.
