At some point during the summer of
#1932 a pair of visiting young ladies were induced to pose in photographs around the
#Goodyear Airdock where the
#ussMacon was being constructed to, uh, show the scale of the mammoth
#dirigible . Today's post is easily the most gratuitous and technically interesting of the lot, showcasing a propeller transmission and hub. This component was made by the Allison Engineering Company who had been persuaded by the
#usNavy to develop an
#airship engine. Unfortunately that wouldn't be ready for testing until after the Macon had crashed in February of
#1935 so she and sister
#ussAkron flew with German
#Maybach engines instead. For a look at how the transmission and props appeared in the finished ship I'm including a close up from my August 20 post of the Macon cruising over San Francisco in the early fall of 1933. As previously described, the props could be individually rotated from vertical to horizontal (this took a mere 40 seconds) and run forward or reverse, delivering thrust every way but sideways. Today's facts courtesy of “The Airships Akron & Macon” by Richard K. Smith, 1965.