West Coast Flights
Over the weeks that followed, Akron "showed the flag" on the west coast, ranging as far north as the Canadian border before returning south in time to exercise once more with the Scouting Fleet. Serving as part of the "Green" Force, Akron attempted to locate the "White" Force. Although opposed by Vought O2U Corsair floatplanes from "enemy" ships, the scout ship managed to locate the opposing forces in just 22 hours—a fact not lost upon some of the participants in the exercise in subsequent critiques.
In need of repairs, Akron departed Sunnyvale on 11 June bound for Lakehurst on a return trip that was studded with difficulties, principally because of unfavorable weather, and arrived on 15 June after a "long and sometimes harrowing" aerial voyage.
Akron then underwent a period of voyage repairs before taking part in July in a search for the Curlew, a yacht which had failed to reach port at the end of a race to Bermuda; the yacht was later discovered safe off Nantucket. She then resumed operations capturing aircraft on her "trapeze" equipment. Admiral Moffett again boarded Akron on 20 July, but the next day left the airship in one of her N2Y-1s which took him back to Lakehurst after a severe storm had delayed the airship's own return to base.
Read more about this topic: USS Akron (ZRS-4)
Famous quotes containing the words west, coast and/or flights:
“Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.”
—Jessamyn West (1902–1984)
“Frequently also some fair-weather finery ripped off a vessel by a storm near the coast was nailed up against an outhouse. I saw fastened to a shed near the lighthouse a long new sign with the words “ANGLO SAXON” on it in large gilt letters, as if it were a useless part which the ship could afford to lose, or which the sailors had discharged at the same time with the pilot. But it interested somewhat as if it had been a part of the Argo, clipped off in passing through the Symplegades.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A noble soul is not the one that can manage the highest flights but the one that rises very little and falls very little but always dwells in a free, resplendent atmosphere and altitude.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)