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Either White Bird sank out of sight in a lake, which NUMA has pretty well covered, or she crashed in the vast bog that has never been entered by man or beast.
My bet is on the bog.
Will I ever go back again?
I hate to give up. My NUMA team would have never found the Hunley if we had quit after the first few tries. The next step is aerial remote sensing. Even that is a long shot, but every avenue must be traveled. Someday, I’ll come back with the gang and give it another shot.
Charles Nungesser, Francois Coli, and their magnificent White Bird lie waiting for discovery. They merit the fame for being the first to fly the Atlantic from east to west. It would not be right to leave them in an unmarked grave in a strange land. They must be found and returned to France as heroes.
They deserve no less.
PART TWELVE
U.S.S. Akron
I
Lighter Than Air 1931-1933
“Drop ballast,” Commander Frank McCord ordered.
A seaman sprinted across the short space of the control room and twisted the emergency ballast lever. Within seconds, four thousand pounds of water poured into the stormy air surrounding Akron.
The blimp rose a few hundred feet. She was now at thirteen hundred feet and holding.
The eight engines were pointed down and ru
Those on board had no way of knowing, but Akron had only minutes to live.
“Damn,” Lieutenant (jg) “Red” Dugan said, “you could put an entire circus in this building, with room left over for a couple of Egyptian pyramids.”
Dugan was taking his first glance inside the Goodyear Zeppelin air dock in Akron, Ohio. The interior was cavernous, making the workers at the far end appear to be the size of insects. The air dock building was rounded at the top, with skylights in the sides partway up the walls to help with lighting. Huge banks of spotlights also added illumination, and at this moment they were being directed from the floor of the hangar up to the middle.
A single round duraluminum ring was suspended from the ceiling of the building. It was the first of a total of thirty-six rings that would be assembled together to form a lighter-than-air ship that would measure 785 feet in length and stand fifteen stories tall when completed. The ring consisted of i
The Goodyear representative, Bruce Harding, was used to such reactions.
“We needed a big building to build the navy a big airship,” he said, smiling.
“What does it cost…” Dugan began to say.
“To heat it in winter?” Harding said, answering the unasked question.
“How did you know that would be my question?” Dugan asked.
“Because, Lieutenant Dugan,” Harding said, “it’s the first one everyone asks.”
“So?” Dugan said.
“A lot,” Harding said, as he directed Harding farther inside.
When finished, U.S.S. Akron would be a behemoth. The flexible skin would contain 6 million cubic feet of gas. Power would come from eight Maybach Model VL-11 engines that each produced 560 horsepower. The power plants were a twelve-cylinder V-design with a dry weight of 1,200 pounds each.
Housed in eight engine rooms, the Maybachs transferred power via sixteen-foot-long shafts to the propeller shaft. The two-bladed, sixteen-foot-diameter propellers rotated so that they were able to provide thrust in four directions.
To fuel the eight engines, Akron would carry 126,000 gallons of fuel stored in a total of 110 tanks. Extensive pipes throughout the ship would allow the aircraft commander to redistribute the fuel as it burned. This, in addition to the unique water-recovery system — a collector was mounted close to the hull above each of the eight engines — allowed the commander to keep the ship on an even keel. But that only touched on what needed to be finished.
“Everything is on schedule, Lieutenant Dugan,” Harding said. “It’s just a lot to do.”
The electrical power needed for radios, telephones, lights, winches, pumps, and fans would come from a pair of eight-kilowatt internal combustion generators. The radios were state-of-the-art, with both intermediate-frequency and high-frequency transmitters. The high-frequency transmitter gave Akron a radio range of 5,000 nautical miles. Future plans called for the addition of facsimile equipment for receiving weather maps and other data. The ante
Because of the 785-foot length and the many systems requiring monitoring, communication aboard the airship would be critical. A total of eighteen telephones would be installed aboard Akron, with each able to sound an alarm. Voice tubes, a holdover from days past, would also be used. Mechanical engine telegraphs, similar to those on other navy ships, would be used to communicate with the engine rooms.
“What about the control car?” Dugan asked.
“It will be a streamlined affair,” Harding said. “The forward third will house rudder, ballast, engine controls, and the like. The middle third is the navigation station. The last third provides access into the hull via a ladder.”
“What about a redundant control station?” Dugan asked.
“It’ll be located in the stem at the bottom of the lower control fin,” Harding said.
Dugan had studied the plans. Most of what Harding was saying was old hat.
There was to be an airplane compartment of seventy by thirty-two feet, where the five Curtiss F9C2 airplanes would be hangared. Then there were the living accommodations that would be built on each side of the aircraft compartment — a total of eight eight- by ten-foot spaces housing the crew’s toilet and washroom, bunk rooms with canvas bunks, galleys and messes for the officers, CPOs, and regular crews.
Akron was to be a minicity, complete with airport, when finished.
“It gets cold up there in the wild blue yonder,” Dugan said.
“Aluminum piping from the forward engine rooms provides heat to the control rooms, common areas, and hangars,” Harding said, “and I’m sure the navy has some nice warm clothing for those that venture in the walkways while aloft.”
“Do you know they just changed the crew roster again?” Dugan asked.
“No,” Harding said, “what’s the latest?”
“Thirty-eight men, ten officers, and the pilots,” Dugan said.
“Over fifty men, then,” Harding said easily.
“That’s the current plan,” Dugan said.
Harding stared at the intricately woven struts that formed the single massive ring suspended from the ceiling of the hangar. “When she’s done, she’ll carry them,” Harding said, “and a whole lot more, if need be.”
Alongside the framework of Akron, the Goodyear workers looked like ants on a watermelon. The workers swarmed from place to place as orders were shouted over radios and through bullhorns. The radio calls went to the operator of the overhead cranes, who carefully maneuvered the completed sections into place to be bolted to the frame. The bullhorns were used by the workers on the hull who were attaching the pieces together.