At Lakehurst the Graf tries out the “Iron Horse,” the U.S. Navy’s mobile mooring mast, finds it highly useful, utilized masting equipment thereafter to compile an unusual record for regularity of departures, even under highly unfavorable weather conditions. (U. S. Navy photo)
The U.S.S. Akron, first result growing out of renewed interest in aeronautics after the reaction period, goes on the mast inside the Goodyear air dock, prior to leaving for her trial flights.
No large ground crews are needed with the mobile mast. Even the mighty Akron swings around easily at anchorage, heads into the wind like a weather vane, its control car resting on the ground.
In building this ship, Mr. Litchfield and his company indicated their belief in the value of big airships for trans-oceanic travel, for which the blimps would provide inexpensive training for pilots, and experience in operating under varying weather conditions.
The Pilgrim, the Puritan, the Vigilant, the Mayflower and the rest of the Goodyear fleet which followed—named after cup defenders in international yacht racing—would also uncover during the course of day-after-day operations, improvements in ships and operating technique, which would be available to its customers, the Army and Navy.
In building its own ships, Goodyear was following the tradition of American industry, which does not sit back and merely build goods to order, but has sought by developing better goods to anticipate and stimulate customer demand. In the automobile industry, for example, self-starters, closed cars, steel bodies, balloon tires, streamlining, and the rest were initiated by industry to increase public acceptance and further popularize the automobile. By building its own airships and flying them, Goodyear hoped to expand the market for military and commercial airships.
The doldrum period, which made progress difficult, came to an end with dramatic suddenness. In the year 1927 a youthful pilot flew an airplane, alone, across the Atlantic ocean, and in the following year a middle-aged scientist made a round trip from Europe to America by airship, with 24 people aboard. The imagination of America and the world took fire. Aeronautics started anew.