{"id":525,"date":"2016-08-21T08:38:54","date_gmt":"2016-08-21T12:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zrsthemovie.com\/?page_id=525"},"modified":"2019-09-03T16:53:12","modified_gmt":"2019-09-03T20:53:12","slug":"uss-macon-arrives","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/zrsthemovie.com\/?page_id=525","title":{"rendered":"Hook-On Aircraft"},"content":{"rendered":"

The long story of how our civilization\u00a0never quite made it to a purpose-built hook-on airplane goes back at least to 1905, when J.J. Montgomery first sacrificed his pilot Dan Maloney – and then himself, in 1911 – to prove HTA craft could be deadly even when lifted by a balloon.\u00a0In addition to the aforementioned German Zeppelin-based original parasite\u00a0fighter and glider bomb (photo) experiments, they also tried deploying from semi-rigid Parseval PL 16, the Army’s P IV (here drawn by Herman Van Dyk<\/a><\/span>).<\/p>\n

\"drone<\/p>\n

These explosive-laden efforts were unique, though there have been some\u00a0manned glider launches from airships – including twice from the ZR-3 (photo). The British had several spurts of mating airship and airplane, even performing a hook-on it’s said, seeming only to lack political will to make something of their investment. Had they completed the “Empire of the Air,”<\/a> some sort of provision for airplane interaction would likely have evolved, possibly beginning with R-102.<\/p>\n

\"Brit2<\/p>\n

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The US Navy more successfully re-created the fatally flawed British experimental drop of an airplane from a non-rigid, with\u00a0an Army JN4 and the C-1 airship. The C-1 was piloted by Lt. George Crompton and the JN4 was released over Fort Tilden, NJ in December, 1918.\u00a0 Apparently neither service went any further with simple “drop” experiments, with Army airships testing\u00a0the “spy basket” or “cloud car” winched down through\u00a0an\u00a0airship-obscuring\u00a0cloud layer. It was up to the US Army to actually be the first to hook on a lightly modified airplane to a non-rigid. On December 15th, 1924, 1st LT Frank McKee held the airship TC-3 steady forward while 1st LT Clyde Finter nursed the tiny Messenger up into the slipstream. On the third attempt Finter managed to “land” on the trapeze using the corresponding hook at the end of his prop guard, both contracted and built by Lawrence Sperry, son of\"img029 Elmer Sperry, inventor of the gyro-compass. (When the producer visited the Air Force Museum years ago, he found this Sperry Messenger hanging by its hook – with no sign or graphic to note this record achievement, not even mentioned in their LTA display!) The Army lost the Roma<\/em>, which they’d hoped to make the mothership, and never perfected\u00a0the flying carrier concept with their semi-rigid, RS-1. (This\u00a0information comes from US ARMY AIRSHIPS 1908-1942<\/a><\/span> by James Shock.)<\/p>\n

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With seaplanes at first catapult-launched to scout for fleet capital ships,\u00a0BuAer Design #60’s airship had been enhanced to include seaplane-carrying capability. This was logical, since contemporary capital ships’ and submarine-based scouts\u00a0were floatplanes. Yet initial hook-on testing and development started\u00a0with a land plane, a single UO-1 (left), the Navy re-proving\u00a0\"DSC02318the Army’s demonstration of years earlier. Skilled enlisted pilot J.J. O’Brien made many evolutions launching and recovering from a more complex trapeze alongside USS Los Angeles\u2019 <\/i>keel at frame 100. Some of these flights launching from and recovering to the Lakehurst-built trapeze even made it into Hollywood movies<\/a>\u00a0and went public at the 1929 Air Races in Cleveland. However, UO-1 sized landplanes were too large for flight decks.\u00a0As the fleet experimented with the first crusier hulls converted to flat-top ships capable of operating landplanes, the Navy hosted a competition to see which manufacturer could build a small but powerful fighter plane.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, the Consolidated N2Y-1 (right), military version of the Fleet Model 2, was a bright yellow basic trainer without a radio or serious instrumentation. Many were in the Navy\u2019s inventory, and the records indicate a total of six were transferred over to Lakehurst. (No photo we\u2019ve found shows more than three. Motion pictures of Akron\u2019s <\/i>first hook-ons with three could have been taken from a regular plane. These movies are included in our DVD “The Flying Carriers.”<\/a><\/span>) Various designs of prop guards and hooks, as well as trapeze refinements, have been photographed as techniques were worked out. \u00a0Fox-Movietone recorded a synchronized sound interview with the pilots flying these experiments.<\/p>\n

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\"waco1\"The\u00a0capabilities called\u00a0for in an airship’s utility airplane outgrew the simple N2Y-1s. \u00a0One model of the popular Waco UBF series airplane also fit through the Macon\u2019s<\/i> hangar bay door opening (following minor wingtip clipping), and offered increased range and payload, seven-cylinder performance. As Macon <\/i>arrived in California. two were acquired, skyhook-equipped and designated XJW-1 (photo). Like the later N2Y-1 configuration, the top fuselage sheet metal covering could be removed to accommodate a litter patient’s evacuation from the airship. All\u00a0known motion or still photos of the Wacos, including hooking on to Macon,\u00a0<\/i>are included in our\u00a0DVD “The Flying Carriers<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/span>“<\/span> \u00a0<\/i>A large Martin torpedo-bomber joined the Macon<\/em> complement in California, but suggestions\u00a0to use it for servicing an airship aloft were not perfected. (A T3M’s tail can be seen in the distance aft of Macon<\/em> in the large “full crew” photo.” No utility airplanes were aboard Macon<\/em> when\u00a0she sank.<\/p>\n

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\"\"It must have been seen as an acceptable if begrudging budget-driven compromise to accept landplanes for extended overwater operations with the airship. So it came to pass the airship’s fighter criteria was a short list – with item number one that it would fit through the ZRS-4\u2019s hangar bay door. \u00a0Of\u00a0three airplanes built for the small fighter competition, the Curtiss XF9C-1 seemed the least of the evils. Curtiss got wind of the narrowed choice and, sans contract -with its own money – engineered fixes for\u00a0the prototype’s ills,\u00a0 producing the XF9C-2 (photo).<\/p>\n

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Ironically the ZRS program was itself juxtapositioned at a piviotal point in airplane development, as reflected in its adapted airplanes. The utility craft were old-school; structures largely of wood that required the skills of the aviation carpenter’s mates, covered with doped fabric stitched on\u00a0with\u00a0seamstress’ and riggers’ skills. \u00a0The Sparrowhawk was Curtiss’s first all-aluminum monocoupe-fuselage aircraft\u00a0\"img031\"for the Navy. Like their\u00a0famous endurance flyer of the same year, the Robin<\/em>, the Curtiss XF9C-1 featured stamped aluminum wing ribs. \u00a0Quite a handful to keep on course while looking for the\u00a0enemy fleet and tapping out Morse code, at 2770 lbs. the F9C-2 was strong\u00a0enough to withstand brutal carrier landings. The photo here shows one liaison for which the tail hooks were re-attached for a trip down to USS\u00a0Lexington, <\/em>as mentioned by RADM Miller<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"\"After the prototypes XF9C-1 had its \u201cskyhook\u201d added and\u00a0XF9C-2 proved itself, \u00a0six production F9C-2 airplanes were ordered\u00a0with a standardized \u201cskyhook\u201d and prop guard (left). Deliveries began in the summer of 1932 with the planes rolling off the line and reporting to Lakehurst, seen in the next photo resting comfortably on Hangar #1’s brickyard-like \u00a0floor. Though the Akron <\/i>had scant time with a\u00a0full complement of airplanes, home movies included in our\u00a0DVD “The Flying Carriers”<\/a><\/span> show F9C-2s decorated with her USS Akron<\/em> belly band, \u201cman on the flying trapeze\u201c art, and tri-color tails. Similar\u00a0full color paintjobs on Macon’s<\/em>\u00a0planes are the most commonly published. \u00a0It\u00a0is important to remember, however, the F9C-2\u00a0was not designed as a hook-on airplane from the ground up. Adding the sky hook caused the gunsight to warp out of alignment after a number of “belly bumps,” as landings were called. The gull wing hardly made for good observation. Good forward vision was needed, but F9C-2’s oil cooler sat right in the way. The tiny cockpit had no good place to put the radio key, and where it wound up made its use quite awkward. There was absolutely no room for the navigation\/scouting board, so it was mounted on the control stick. Wing hand-holds allowed crewmen to steady the airplane as it transited the \"img041\"hangar bay door\u00a0line using boat hooks, However, noted was the lack of any kind of tie-down rings that might have been used to secure the planes as the airship rolled and pitched. \u00a0The heavy landing gear could withstand bashing\u00a0flattop arrested\u00a0landings, but such permanence worked against the airshipmen who found took forty-five minutes to remove the gear in preparation for swapping its weight for the belly tank. And that tank could not be used right away, since the airplane’s fuel system returned unused fuel to the main\u00a0tank – which would have no room if full.<\/p>\n

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This is the original artwork created for\u00a0the meticulously accurate Williams Brothers model kit. (An equally striking painting was created for the kit’s more recent re-issue.) The “Royal Red” cowl and wheel pants just happened to be the color on NASM’s own Sparrowhawk, assembled from two but assigned BuNo 9056. The\u00a0production airplanes’ cowls and pants used\u00a0other colors:<\/p>\n

9057 \u00a0 White \u00a0 \u00a0 9058 \u00a0True Blue \u00a0 \u00a09059 \u00a0Black \u00a0 \u00a09060 \u00a0Willow Green \u00a0 \u00a09061 \u00a0Lemon Yellow<\/p>\n

\"F9cs-left<\/p>\n

These non-regulation paint jobs hearkened back the the “Flying Circus” recognition excuse, \u00a0esprit<\/em>\u00a0the underlying reason. The pilots were known to fly in a red,white and blue formation order. \"F9C-blued\u00a0Word came down from Washington to knock it off, and several photos verify there was a operating period when the tails were darkened. \u00a0Soon\u00a0the plane’s tails were blackened to align with ComAirBatFour standards, and the trapeze symbols were removed. In RADM “Min” Miller’s presentation<\/a>, he mentions “the white” airplane, and other photos indicate the cowling colors remained. However, early in 1934 operations, the long-suggested\u00a0removal of the landing gear (making the exterior fuel tank more practical) was finally accomplished. Probably because\u00a0this evolution was only necessary or even practical once aboard the airship, no still photographs of this configuration are known to exist.<\/p>\n

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The F9C-2s\u00a0were equipped with GF series radios, manufactured by the Aircraft Radio Corporation. Ranging out greater distances from their dirigible, pilots complained they needed more reliable voice communication at greater distances. It was sometimes possible to see the airship as much as 50 miles away and still have to resort to the Morse code key to communicate. This was finally\u00a0solved in the final months of Macon’s operations<\/a>. Also in the final days came promising testing of a trailing wire antenna, which offered better radio communications without complicating hook-on ops or storage in the hangar bay.<\/p>\n

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\"F9C-2The configuration shown here, also illustrated\u00a0in the otherwise perfect 1991 National Geographic’s magazine’s fold-out graphic, did not actually exist. The “squadron” insignia had been removed and the tails blackened by the time landing gear removal ops commenced.<\/p>\n

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\"F9C-handle\"RADM “Min” Miller’s presentation page two<\/a> offers a first hand account of hook-on flying with\u00a0the F9C-2. This photo shows the arrangement on-wing compass mount (outboard of the hand grip) and the handle used to release the hook. (Pilots suggested the compass be mounted on the centerline on the next-generation hook-on airplane<\/span><\/a>, hoping for a larger cockpit.) Note the padding designed to increase pilot survival against sudden stops. The long black centerline tube was the gunsight. \u00a0Roy Gibbens’ home movies, included in our DVD “Flying Carriers<\/a><\/span>,” shows crewmen on the Opa-Lock field winding\u00a0up the inertial starter, access hole for its crank seen on the port side. Aboard the airships, with no place for that hand-cranker to stand, the 110v electric starter was employed via cord handed down from the trapeze and plugged into the instrument panel’s jack.<\/p>\n

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\"2016-08-27-FFWhile the airship would not have seaplanes, the F9C-2 at least\u00a0featured emergency flotation bags hidden in the wings. In the event of a water ditching, the pilot could fire the internal carbon-dioxide bottle to inflate the floats (left).\u00a0It is possible to see the blow-out panels (arrow below) on the upper wing of\u00a0BuNo 9056.<\/p>\n

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\"img036-copy\"Four F9C-2s went down with the\u00a0Macon<\/em>.\u00a0 The remaining planes suffered various mishaps. 9056\u00a0had been banged up badly enough to have its wings swapped with another survivor before Leroy Simpler suggested it be saved for the Smithsonian. \u00a0In the photo, before its restoration, 9056 sat with hook, wheels and tank in the old Smithsonian building, pretty much as it had arrived after being donated by the Navy.<\/p>\n

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\"img043\"\u00a0In the mid-1970s the NASM undertook a full restoration of #9056. It hung proudly from its hook in the new National Air & Space Museum’s small but rich LTA exhibit when it opened in 1976, after which the producer snapped this photo. Later, the NASM exhibitors rotated LTA out of existence and loaned #9056 to the Navy Aviation Museum in Pensacola, where it was the center of the rigid airship rotunda for many years. Recently,\u00a0#9056\u00a0recalled from Pensacola for what was hoped to be new emphasis on LTA or at least the ZRS program. Instead, 9056 now sits on its wheels<\/em> in the Udvar-Hazy Center as if it were some ordinary airplane much like any other in the collection.<\/p>\n

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A number of Fleet model 2 airplanes are today operated by private owners. At least one has been given a skyhook and painted as a hook-on airplane. An aircraft labeled as an N2Y-1, sporting a skyhook and bearing a serial number that the record reports as having been surveyed, was hung by its hook near the LTA display at Pensacola’s Naval Aviation Museum for years. (For whatever reason, last time we checked it has been lowered to the floor and its skyhook removed.)\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n

Macon\u2019s<\/i> remains were located in 1990 (and revisited in 2008<\/span><\/a> and 2016). Therein are resting those four airplanes that had performed the last scouting missions, on 12 FEB 35, from their unique hangar in the sky.<\/p>\n

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Read on to “Min” Miller’s Own Words\u00a0Part One<\/a><\/p>\n

or<\/p>\n

Not created\u00a0for, but rather adapted<\/em> to the role, the Sparrowhawk pilots longed for an airship-friendly design that would harness the system’s unique capabilities. Much-improved\u00a0planes were evolving 1935 through 1939; once the reader is versed in the historical record, one is ready to\u00a0understand the root\u00a0philosophy we will use for the movie’s planes.<\/p>\n

Read on to Planes for ZRCV & ZRS the\u00a0movie<\/a><\/p>\n

or<\/p>\n

Read on to “P-77”, our Silence Twister<\/a><\/p>\n

or<\/p>\n

Read on to Ground Handling Evolution<\/a><\/p>\n

Purchase DVD “The Flying Carriers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Back to Home Page<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The long story of how our civilization\u00a0never quite made it to a purpose-built hook-on airplane goes back at least to 1905, when J.J. Montgomery first sacrificed his pilot Dan Maloney – and then himself, in 1911 – to prove HTA craft could be deadly even when lifted by a balloon.\u00a0In addition to the aforementioned German … Continue reading “Hook-On Aircraft”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-525","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zrsthemovie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zrsthemovie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zrsthemovie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zrsthemovie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zrsthemovie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=525"}],"version-history":[{"count":77,"href":"http:\/\/zrsthemovie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3567,"href":"http:\/\/zrsthemovie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/525\/revisions\/3567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zrsthemovie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}