by Hap Rocketto
As a kid, back in the early 1950s, one of my big thrills was watching the US Navy’s K-class blimps glide over New London while on antisubmarine patrol between Naval Air Station Lakehurst in New Jersey and Naval Air Station South Weymouth in Massachusetts. If we were in the classroom the windows of Harbor School quickly filled with little boy’s excited upturned faces. Our teachers quickly herded us back to the dreary world of spelling or fractions, but I have never forgotten a little boy’s excitement at the sight of the dignified silver behemoths quietly cruising over head keeping the Soviet submarine fleet at bay.
Recently my brother Steve and I, needing to log a few hours aloft to maintain our airman certificates’ currency, thought a cross country flight would be in order and we had a specific historic destination in mind. It was a beautiful day for flying. There were few clouds in the sky, the visibility was 25 miles-good for the East coast, and the winds aloft were pushing us along with nary a bump.
We departed Westerly with Steve, befitting his majestic status as Pilot In Command sitting imperially in the left seat. I sat, below the salt, in the right hand co-pilot’s seat preoccupied with the duties of the vassalage germane to my humble office, communications, navigation, and keeping the aircraft commander supplied with position reports, cold drinks, and snacks. We crossed to the south coast of Long Island and followed it westward. To avoid the cluttered New York City airspace, and its odious flying regulations, we swept south over the Atlantic Ocean and made a beeline for Sandy Hook, New Jersey.
Flying a single engine airplane out of gliding distance of land always makes for a little pilot anxiety. Perhaps it was the required life vests and rubber dingy that seemed to make the airplane make strange noises and caused the engine to sound a bit rough, perhaps not. Even though the gas tanks had been visually checked to insure that they were filled to the top tabs of the tanks the fuel gauges seemed unwind faster than expected. As we raised Sandy Hook the odd rattles stopped, the engine smoothed out, and there now seemed to be plenty of gas. Crossing the coast of New Jersey we intersected an electronic highway in the sky, Victor Airway 229, and turned left to follow it southward.
In a few minutes our turning point, NAS Lakehurst’s Hanger Number One, came into view. At 961 feet in length, 350 feet in width and standing 200 feet high it would be hard to miss. The building, a Registered National Historic Landmark, was built in 1921 at the height of the lighter than air era. Most of the air ship hangers built during that time still exist, notably another Hanger Number One at Moffett Field California and The Goodyear Air Dock in Akron, Ohio.
During its active service Lakehurst’s Hanger Number One housed every type of American lighter than air ship from 1921 until the demise of lighter than air Naval Aviation in 1960. The massive building was, at one time or another, home port for the US Navy’s four rigid airships, the ill fated trio of USS Shenandoah, USS Akron and USS Macon, as well as the USS Los Angeles, who avoided the disastrous fates of her sisters only to be ignominiously dismantled in 1939.
It was also at Lakehurst, on May 6, 1937, that the largest flying object in the world, the German zeppelin Hindenburg, burst into flames as it was mooring. The immolation of the flag ship of the Third Reich’s air fleet, emblazoned with giant Nazi swastikas, was a great blow to the pride of the totalitarian state and its leadership.
Over the frying bacon like sizzle in our headsets Steve, the walking footnote, delivered a detailed lecture on the disaster. With the muted chatter of the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center as back drop he closed with his best imitation of Herbert Morrison’s famous narration of the Hindenburg disaster, “There’s smoke, and there’s flames, now, and the frame is crashing to the ground, not quite to the mooring mast.” Ending his little monologue with a humorous play on words Steve said, “I bet that burst Herr Hitler and Herr Doctor Goebbels’s little propaganda balloon.”
“Not as much as the NRA burst mine.” I absentmindedly replied.
“What do you mean?” asked Steve.
“You know I’m a Master in most every shooting discipline and I that I am also inordinately proud of my recent Perry position performance.” I explained.
“Well your hubris seldom knows bounds.” he both pithily and correctly observed, “But how did the NRA burst your balloon?”
With pent up righteous indignation I griped, “I didn’t have a 3P Conventional Position classification so I entered 3P at Perry as a Master. I won my category and was pretty impressed with myself. Then the mail arrived yesterday. It contained a new classification card informing me, me, the best senior position shooter in the United States, that I am mearly a Conventional 3P Sharpshooter.”
I am not sure if it was the crackle of static or the cackle of Steve that accentuated his reply in my headset. After a brief pause to digest my complaint he rather condescendingly put me firmly in my place, as only an aircraft commander can do to his lackey co-pilot, by continuing to wryly quote Morrison, “Oh the humanity, and all the passengers screaming around here!”
