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U.S. Navy Blimp Landing on the Flight Deck of HMCS Magnificent
by John MacFarlane 2014
U.S. Navy blimp (non–rigid airship) lands on HMCS Magnificent. (Postcard from the Nauticapedia collection.)
As a small boy I was given a postcard of a US Navy blimp landing on the flight deck of HMSC Magnificent. I was so impressed by it that I tacked it up in my room, and carried it with me ever since. It depicts one of two U.S. Navy K–class Non–Rigid Airships (blimps) operating from HMCS Shearwater in May 1952. It is making practice landings on the flight deck of HMCS Magnificent. The blimps were based in Lakehurst New Jersey. There is a Royal Canadian Navy TBM–3E Avenger on the flight deck.
The K–class non–rigid airship was a class of blimps built by the Goodyear Aircraft Company of Akron, Ohio. These blimps were powered by two radial air–cooled engines mounted on outriggers on the side of the control car that hung under the envelope. Before and during World War II, 135 K–class blimps were built, configured for patrol and anti–submarine warfare operations and were extensively used in the Navy’s anti–submarine efforts in the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean areas.
To quote from this article please cite:
MacFarlane, John M. (2014) U.S. Navy Blimp Landing on the Flight Deck HMCS Magnificent. Nauticapedia.ca 2014. http://nauticapedia.ca/Articles/Blimp.php
Site News: November 2, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,538 vessel histories (with 16,140 images and 13,887 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 3989 images). Vessel records are currently being reviewed and updated with more than 35,000 processed so far this year.
Thanks to contributor Mike Rydqvist McCammon for the hundreds of photos he has contributed to illustrate British Columbia's floating heritage.
My very special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.
Also my special thanks to my volunteer content accuracy checker, John Spivey of Irvine CA USA, who continues (almost every day) to proof read thousands of Nauticapedia vessel histories and provided input to improve more than 14,000 entries. His attention to detail has been a huge unexpected bonus in improving and updating the vessel detail content.