The L-class blimps were training airships operated by the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. In the mid-1930s, the

Goodyear Aircraft Company Goodyear Aerospace Corporation (GAC) was the aerospace and defense subsidiary of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The company was originally operated as a division within Goodyear as the Goodyear Zeppelin Corporation, part of a joint project ...

built a family of small non-rigid

airship An airship, dirigible balloon or dirigible is a type of aerostat (lighter-than-air) aircraft that can navigate through the air flying powered aircraft, under its own power. Aerostats use buoyancy from a lifting gas that is less dense than the ...

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, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 2,636, a decrease of 18 (−0.7%) from the 2010 census count of 2,654, which in turn reflected an increa ...

. In the meantime, the Navy ordered two more L-Class blimps, the L-2 and L-3, on September 25,

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, events related to World War II have the "WWII" prefix. January *Janu ...

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

mid-air collision In aviation, a mid-air collision is an aviation accident, accident in which two or more aircraft come into unplanned contact during flight. The potential for a mid-air collision is increased by Aviation communication, miscommunication, mistrus ...

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 ...

. 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 two crewmen disappeared over the Pacific Ocean on August 16, 1942. At 11:15 a.m., several hours after the airship lifted o ...

, 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. Located in the San Francisco Bay Area, and immediately south of San Francisco (sharing its northern border with almost all of San Francisco's southern ...

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 Institution, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM)'s annex at Dulles International Airport in the Chantilly, Virginia, Chantilly area of Fairfax C ...

of the

National Air and Space Museum The National Air and Space Museum (NASM) of the Smithsonian Institution is a museum in Washington, D.C., in the United States, dedicated to history of aviation, human flight and space exploration. Established in 1946 as the National Air Museum, ...

Chantilly, Virginia Chantilly is a census-designated place (CDP) in western Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. 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 name of an ...

. *

– 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 ...

Pensacola, Florida Pensacola ( ) is a city in the Florida panhandle in the United States. It is the county seat and only incorporated city, city in Escambia County, Florida, Escambia County. The population was 54,312 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. ...

Specifications (L-4)

References

Sources

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

American Legion The American Legion, commonly known as the Legion, is an Voluntary association, organization of United States, U.S. war veterans headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. It comprises U.S. state, state, Territories of the United States, U.S. terr ...

Magazine *

External links