Talk:List of airships of the United States Navy

Congratulations. Someone managed to trash an article of some coherency with a list which is ridden with errors and lacks any coherency.

Talk
I wish to congratulate the person of uncertain parentage who managed to trash an article with some coherence for a list of very dubious integrity or competence. p.s. the R-38 was a strictly commercial deal. No offset of 'war debts' was made.Mark Lincoln (talk) 01:38, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

This page lists only the rigid airships. There were a great many successful US Navy non-rigids as well. Someone more knowledgable than myself on the matter should look into adding them.

Blimpguy 18:30, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I don't think it is true that the ZR2 was to be paid for by Britain as repayment for war debts. It seems to have been a commercial transaction where the US paid $2,000,000 for the ship. After the disaster, and fact that R38/ZR2 was never formally accepted by the US, the governments agreed to split the cost at $1,000,000 each.

Malcolma 10:09, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

The R38 wasn't a Britain payment for war debts. See R38 (ZR-2) or Airship Hetirage Trust; The US government already paid 1.500.000 $ before R38 crash. --Il palazzo 11:26, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Ok, I am trying to present the story of US Navy airships in as concise and accurate a fashion as possible.

I am also trying to add source material as justified by my articles.Mark Lincoln 04:50, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

There is a general problem where pages are being named in disaccord with USN nomenclature. The format used was "class letter" hyphen " ship number" with no word spaces around the hyphen.

Thus the generic usage was, for example K-Class not K Class.Mark Lincoln 15:24, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Due to someone's lack of comprehension of airship operations and vital statistics crucial information is being sacrificed at the alter of bashing the specifications and performance into a deficient template.Mark Lincoln 15:58, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Cleaning up and adding to a VERY flawed list
I have removed from the list blimps which either were never built (for example "O" class aka Goodyear GZ-8 design, and XZWG Goodyear aka GZ-16), were covered other where in the list (TC), actually airships built for the Goodyear commercial fleet (TZ) applied to Goodyear built aircraft briefly (NFG, a Goodyear FG-1 given to the reserves after WWII). There were also some designations which applied to certain classes of blimps for a very short while in the post-WWII era. In cases where the subsequent designation was neither common usage and duplicate I left the most common designation and removed the alternate. I also removed some gibberish unsupported by any reference volumes in my library.

Adding missing blimps
I am reviewing the subjects of British and French Airships operated by the US Navy. I am also going to address airships transfered to the US Navy by the Army as a few of such were of US manufacture and retained their Army designations,Mark Lincoln (talk) 19:43, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Overly compulsive minds and the tendency to aggregate what is essentially diverse.
This "List" was originally an article about a distinct subject within history which formed an entire experience related to not only Airships, but Naval history and weapons system development.

It seems that everything which possessed both an envelop and engines is to be dealt with as a single subject with nothing but lists to differentiate between subjects as diverse as the SS Queen Mary and the USS Iowa. or a piper cub and a P-3A.

While the Queen Mary and Iowa were both ships, and the cub and Orion are both aircraft, whether they should be treated as nothing more than ships or aircraft is to remove any ability to provide context.

It might be prudent to reinstate an Article for US Navy Airships.Mark Lincoln (talk) 19:51, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Nan Ships, and the ZPG-2
While the Nan ship was the 'prototype' of the ZPG in many ways, it was also very distinct from the developed design. Somehow the very different ZPN-1 (ZPG-1), the "G-Class" ZPG-2, -2W quite different as was the ZPG-3W. Somehow these have been conflated into a single article as on class the "N-Class." If anything the ZPN should be treated as a the ZPG-1 and a prototype of the ZPG-2 and ZPG-2W. It was intended to upgrade the ZPG-1 to a ZPG-2 standard in 1959 but those plans were cancelled. The ZPG-3W should be treated as a class apart.Mark Lincoln (talk) 21:59, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

The use of previous programs designation to cover the development of a new aircraft was common in the 1940s and 50s. Not only for the Navy, but for the Air Force and Army. For example the Army managed to fool congress by calling four different tanks, the M46, M47, M48 and M-60 under the name "Patton." The M-46 being out of Army service before the M-60 started. The Air Force tried to fend off Sec. of Defense Johnson's cuts by changing the designation of the F-95 to F-86D, while F-97 was re-designated F-94C. The classic example for the USN was to define the Grumman Cougar as F9F-6 when it had little in common with the F9F-5 Panther.

The "Nan" ship, ZPN, was ordered during the budget drought of 1948. The Navy hoped to turn the prototype of a similar but larger design originally designated ZP2N-1. By the time the ZPN flew in 1951 North Korea had opened the defense budget taps and the navy saw the chance to put the 'Nan Ship" into production as the 'new improved' ZPG! The ZPN-1 was renamed ZPG-2 - isn't that great a whole 'new' name and designated the ZN2P-1 as the ZPG-2, implying that the actual new airship design was just a simple development of the ZPN.

Operators continued to call the ZPG-2 "Nan's" but then the blimps were visually similar and quite different from the many upgraded "K" ships in service (designated ZP#K.

This leads the designation musical chairs to the most laughable example. When the Korean war boosted funding the Navy started improvements on the "K" ships. The ZP2K was a modest upgrade of the K, while the ZP3K and ZP4K were major upgrades with larger envelopes. The renovated K ships were not optimal for modern anti-submarine equipment, or for improved ground handling. The development of the ZPG-2 made it very unlikely that Congress would approve another class of airship being designed as the Goodyear GZ-10. This ALL new airship was cleverly named XZP5K and called the "5K' (wink, wink). By the time it came to refine the final design, the Korean war was on and the Goodyeaar GZ-15 was contracted for in 1953 as the Korean war was on, the ZP5K was soon called by a new designation as a 'anti-submarine' airship the ZS2G-1. Read that as Z=Lighter than air S=anti-submarine 2=second design by the manufacturer G=Goodyear.

Step right up to the table Mr. Congress, now tell me which designation the program is hiding under? (Sounds of Captains quickly moving shells around) and a 'kaching!" as the funding spews forth.

As critical as my edits might seem I actually am impressed with the efforts of others to plumb a well which is not only obscured by time but was often obfuscated at the time. Airships were always peripheral to the USN. Never more so than in the 1950s. I remember standing on the dunes between Norfolk and Fort Story watching ZPG-2s and 2-Ws pass overhead in a formation flight intended to save the base at Weeksville and the ability to ferry blimps between Lakehurst and Glyncoe. The massive Eisenhower defense cuts were underway. Weeksville and the blimp were two victims discarded because of the development of the nuclear submarine. Another was the new seaplane base being built near Weeksville at Harvey Point and the P6M "Seamaster" that was to operate from there. (Cancelled quite correctly to free funds for the Polaris system.) Sic transit gloria mundiMark Lincoln (talk) 21:59, 15 August 2011 (UTC)