Lessons in streamlining gained from building and flying blimps became useful when barrage balloons came into the picture as a new defense weapon.
The mooring mast made the blimps expeditionary craft, eliminated the need for large ground crews, permitted more flying days per month, increased safety.
Floating Navy blimps and barrage balloons, with their curious star-fish tails, give the service dock something of the appearance of a giant aquarium.
Principal use for the rigid airship in wartime is as an airplane carrier, with half a dozen planes to extend its reconnaissance range and determine the enemy’s position.
It was this co-ordination between men in green eye shades, working over the drafting board and wind-tanned pilots, studying gray skies and phosphorescent control boards, which enabled the organization to meet the war emergency of large scale production of non-rigid airships.
There was another by-product result arising from the fact that the company, even in the doldrum days, when there were few orders for ships, had kept its engineers at work on research and its ships flying on experimental missions. It all happened suddenly, a colorful circumstance not often found in the sober humdrum of the business world.