The L-class blimps were training airships operated by the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. In the mid-1930s, the Goodyear Aircraft Company built a family of small non-rigid

airship An airship or dirigible balloon is a type of aerostat or lighter-than-air aircraft that can navigate through the air under its own power. Aerostats gain their lift from a lifting gas that is less dense than the surrounding air. In early ...

s that the company used for advertising the Goodyear name. In 1937 the United States Navy awarded a contract for two different airships,

K-class blimp The ''K''-class blimp was a class of blimps (non-rigid airship) built by the Goodyear Aircraft Company of Akron, Ohio for the United States Navy. These blimps were powered by two Pratt & Whitney ''Wasp'' nine-cylinder radial air-cooled engin ...

designated K-2 and a smaller blimp based upon Goodyear's smaller commercial model airship used for advertising and passenger carrying. The smaller blimp was designated by the Navy as L-1. It was delivered in April 1938 and operated from the Navy's lighter-than-air facility at

Lakehurst, New Jersey Lakehurst is a borough in Ocean County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough's population was 2,654,1940 A calendar from 1940 according to the Gregorian calendar, factoring in the dates of Easter and related holidays, cannot be used again until the year 5280. Events Below, the events of World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January * Januar ...

. These were delivered in 1941. L-2 was lost in a nighttime

mid-air collision In aviation, a mid-air collision is an accident in which two or more aircraft come into unplanned contact during flight. Owing to the relatively high velocities involved and the likelihood of subsequent impact with the ground or sea, very sever ...

with the G-1 on June 8, 1942. When the United States entered World War II, the Navy took over the operation of Goodyear's five commercial blimps. These were the ''Resolute'', ''Enterprise'', ''Reliance'', ''Rainbow'', and ''Ranger''. These airships were given the designations L-4 through L-8 even though their characteristics and performance varied among them. The next four L-Class airships were built in the assembly and repair shops at

NAS Moffett Field Moffett Federal Airfield , also known as Moffett Field, is a joint civil-military airport located in an unincorporated part of Santa Clara County, California, United States, between northern Mountain View and northern Sunnyvale. On November 10, ...

. These blimps, L-9 through L-12 were completed by April 1943. The last lot of L-Class airships were ordered from Goodyear under a contract of February 24, 1943. This was a lot of ten airships designated L-13 through L-22. All the blimps were delivered by the end of 1943. As training airships these blimps operated mainly from the two major lighter-than-air bases, Lakehurst and Moffett Field. While too small for any extensive operational use, they were used on some coastal patrols. In this role,

L-8 L-8, later renamed ''America'' and popularly known as the "Ghost Blimp", was a United States Navy L-class airship whose crew disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on August 16, 1942. At 11:15 a.m., several hours after the airship lifted off from ...

, of Blimp Squadron ZP-32 was involved in a mysterious incident wherein the airship came drifting in from the Pacific Ocean over southern San Francisco at

Daly City Daly City () is the second most populous city in San Mateo County, California, United States, with population of 104,901 according to the 2020 census. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and immediately south of San Francisco (sharing its ...

on August 16, 1942, without either of the crewmen – Lt. E. D. Cody and Ensign C. Adams – on board. No trace of either man was ever found.Gary Kamiya
"Ghost blimp's enduring mystery: How did crew vanish before Bay Area crash?"
''San Francisco Chronicle'', September 29, 2018. Following the end of World War II a number of the L-class blimps were sold back to Goodyear. The company repaired L-8 and renamed it ''America''.

Operators

; *

Surviving aircraft

* L-5 – Control car on static display at the

Udvar-Hazy Center The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, also called the Udvar-Hazy Center, is the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM)'s annex at Washington Dulles International Airport in the Chantilly area of Fairfax County, Virginia. It holds numerous ...

of the National Air and Space Museum in

Chantilly, Virginia Chantilly is a census-designated place (CDP) in western Fairfax County, Virginia, Fairfax County, Virginia. The population was 24,301 as of the 2020 census. Chantilly is named after an early-19th-century mansion and farm, which in turn took the ...

. *

– Control car on static display at the

National Naval Aviation Museum The National Naval Aviation Museum, formerly known as the National Museum of Naval Aviation and the Naval Aviation Museum, is a military and aerospace museum located at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. Founded in 1962 and moved to its cur ...

in Pensacola, Florida.

Specifications (L-4)

References

Sources

* * * Engelmann, Larry (July 1978) ''Close Encounter of Flight 101'' American Legion Magazine *

External links